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.

79. Chapter 79 12 May 3052

Chapter 79

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

The Split system

12 May 3052

Duke Terry had wanted to take the passenger liner for the trip back to their new home, like she had been planning to do almost from planning on day one. It would only be that the name of the dropship had been changed over time. That had been what she had planned on, but a medical checkup had put the brakes on that idea like seeing a police car sitting at a cross street when you're coming onto it at a yellow light. It did make more sense for her to be on the first load to make it on the first step on the way to a new home.

The medical staff were almost freaking out about her and the baby's health. This was due to her stress levels, and only having access to what any SLiE doctor would have thought was way substandard medical professionals. That is even if she had taken the time to have seen one of them. In the military going back to WW2, medical staff were a force all on their own, and with powers that the lay nonmilitary person didn't understand. That is until you ran face or in Terry's place, belly first into doctors with a major case of extreme mother hen syndrome.

The massive captured cargo dropship and her twin in SLDF colors along with the Jumbo class vessel were going to be the first of "her" dropships that were allowed to head from the jump point to the oddly placed Olympus class station in this star system. After those three dropships were cleared, then any dropship that had nonhuman but living cargo would be allowed to attach to the side of the Lyssa.

Having all of these dropships arriving at one time full of "strangers" had caused more than a few issues for the command group of the Lyssa. The locals only had less than a week to get ready for this flood of ships and refugees for a lack of a better term. It was not like even Duke Terry had planned on having so much "stuff" to take with her on this exodus. So, she let the local traffic control handle things as they liked, and she would cover for her people when she felt it was needed. Some would think that sometimes she waited too long to put her two cents in on whatever subject. Others would say that she was too active in that department. Such was the life of a leader of humans, you never could please them all.

Terry had always planned on getting help from Copeland's people in setting up her people. But all of that nice ComStar Tech was just not going to be left behind, and now many of her people were having odd dreams about what they could do with those items that they felt was owed to them. Duke Terry might still have her hat in hand, but it was going to be a silk and gold hat and not a sow's ear that she had feared she would have sported in this situation.

When the two old Star Lords had made the jump from the first pirate point to another pirate point, but this second one was in the Split system. This move had not gone unnoticed by key members of Duke Terry's entourage. That was very rare for the second jumpship to do something like this. Well at least not having to do this jump to a pirate point outside of training or while supporting some very special missions that a House Lord might deem the risk of losing a jumpship worth it.

These two jumpships were the second largest class of civilian jumpships known to be in use by the Inner Sphere and even the Clans. And it would have bankrupted multi planet political groups if one Star Lord was lost, but the SLiE was not just any group. The Star League in Exile had spent a lot of time and computer power to map out any area that might be useful as a jump point in the whole star system now called Split. The stellar survey had used a mix of Colonial and SLDF tech and techniques, all to do the job to the level of detail that was needed for the SLDF to be comfortable.

All the data had not been finished with the final quality control check of the data until after the Free Ride had been moved to the "normal" jump point for the first time. The Commander of this area of space had not thought that it was worth the risk or time to move the huge jumpship closer to the Lyssa. It very much was going to be a sacrificial lamb, and well the Free Ride was an ex-Rim Worlds vessel after all. But when the word had been given to launch the support mission for Duke Terry? They had been cleared to return at a closer pirate point, but it would not be that close just in case murphy came out to play. That would help in the transit time from the closer point to the planet, but still be safer for the Lyssa. After it was deemed safe, both jumpships would be allowed to get closer to the Lyssa, after the jump drives had been recharged. It was only in orbit over the far side of the Super Earth, but it was only a few hours away from the Lyssa.

Those hours under thrust that would be very grateful for the passengers on those dropships, as they looked at landing on the great planet near them. Little did those passengers know that they were not heading for a landing on the planet, but on the huge space station itself. Well, it was going to be the main stopping point for these refugees. Even with the modifications done to the Lyssa, it might not be able to hold all of a wave of refugees this large. But that was always why a military staff always made many worse case plans. At least the good one's did. The bad ones get written down in the history books and not in a good way.

The current game plan was that any overflow of refugees would be send down to the super Earth. The drop port on the planet' surface was still crude by SLiE standards, but it was still effective to supply the growing tunnel systems under the surface. The heavier gravity would be an issue, but only if someone was doing a lot of work. It was not going to be "great" for the overflow to be put in those tunnels, but many would think it was better than being couped up in a metal can of a dropship for an unknown amount of time.

The way the current navigation system worked for the SLiE and the SLDF, when they would stop at the Split system while coming from New Circe. All it would take is the ship's navigator to punch in the jump time for the next move to the Split System, and then the computer would come up with a few options for the command team to choose from. One set of data would be for a "normal" jump point that the clans or house lords might use, and the others were shortest time dropship routes to key areas of the star system. Then there would be a list of longer travel times to the Lyssa. All the command crew would need to do was pick the one that best fit their mission.

In this case the jump point exit would only be a three hour burn from the entry point to the modified Olympus class space station. If either of these Star Lords class jumpships would have held a Colonial made drive? They could have ended up only a few minutes flight time from the over million tons of orbiting metal with less than an hour between jumps. But these were facts that only about half of the SLDF personnel even know about, much less those that had lived within the Inner Sphere would have known it was even possible.

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Duke Terry was in a nice cabin suite in the captured Mammoth class dropship, she even only had three other people to share the large room with her. One of them was her assistant and the other two warm bodies were people that were acting as her close escort until her household could be set up. It was a very nice room, but you could tell it had been used by someone very into Blake…..very, very into the ComStar version of Blake. It had taken all four of them hours to get even half of the Blake iconography removed from the walls and shelves.

One of the nicer things that the cabin had offered was that that it had been refitted with a massive window. One that could be used with a simple command to have the outer armor blast door to swing away to expose the view of the local stars. This dropship was not a combat ship, but a civilian one and a cargo dropship on top of that. It was just one that had been under ComStar ownership for a few hundred years. It even had been stripped of weapons if not armor to lower the crew needs for the dropship even more. That space had been used to improve some of the cabins, but not for the cabins used by the contracted crewmembers hired by ComStar that took up over half of the remaining crewmember requirements.

ComStar had a huge fleet, but trusted manpower was an issue. Using mostly contracted crews for low-risk mission that a ship like this would use, also gave ROM a chance to vet more people. It also gave someone a second chance that had messed up in the eyes of ComStar or ROM. All of those cabins for the ComStar loyal command team and the contracted dropship's crew now were packed with people not connected to ComStar. Well unless you count firing into ComStar owned assets as having connections with the phone company.

Terry was looking out of her window as the massive dropship finely detached from the ball and string system on the jumpship. Terry had been on more than a few jumpships in her time, the last had let her have a secret meeting with Robert that left her with her current problem. To jump near a space station and that also was not far from a planet was not normal in her travel book. Terry had even seen a few Olympus class stations before, but she had seen only a few of them from the insides or this close. She even enjoyed space travel, and the few hours of Zero G had not bothered her. But that was not true of all of the people that had followed her off planet.

Duke Terry also traveled enough to know that normally you had to spend time measured in weeks of Zero G to get anywhere. Most of the jumpships in this part of space didn't have the hard to maintain ball and twine systems working while they recharge their jump drive. She was not sure about the briefing, which had been given that there would be very little zero g time on the way to their new home if things went well for them all. She had not counted on the information that she had been provided, but she was concerned about the lying to her people. She could only hope that any blow back from this "lack of transparency" from Robert's people would be mitigated or somehow deflected from her.

Duke Terry was thinking about the Recharging Station as she had also thought about the farm animals that Major Hennesy had allowed to be loaded at the last minute onto some of the dropships. The Olympic class was known to have at least one huge grav ring and a small briefing deck that let people live in gravity for the greater part of their lives. But she did not know how many people those grav decks could hold or how those people currently living on it would deal with the number of animals she thought had ended up on these dropships.

Terry was lost in thought all the way to the space station until the massive dropship docked with the Olympus. The local traffic control would be pulling as many of the newly arrived dropships as they could into the repair bays. All of this was out of her hands and firmly in the hands of Robert's people in this star system. She was so lost in deep thought, that when the dropship went to Zero g and then to full gravity only two minutes later. She did not notice the fluctuation. It was only when her escort knocked on the hatch to announce that it was time to leave and then they had started walking to one of the many drop ship's exit points that she started to realize something was off.

Duke Terry was escorted off the dropship and she and her now expanded escort moved from the docking area to the visitors housing block on the Lyssa. To get to this room, they had to go through what was a massive growing area, one that should have been more at home on a planet and not a space station. Terry saw this, but she knew that the largest spin gravity decks that were still in use in the Inner Sphere were on this class of space station. It was just more proof that she was not at the top of her game today.

When she was brought to a two-room suite, she had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping open and losing points in the soon to be played power game. It was a very nice room and unlike any that she had seen on a space station before. It was a little on the Spartan side for her taste for long term living, but it was a lot better than a single occupancy cabin much less the shared dropship's room she had been using. It was also like an office you would find on a planet and not in space. In her line of work, she had seen more than a few offices off of a planet's surface. At least outside what the fabled Star League had claimed control of. It also looked to belong to someone else, and not the people that were waiting on her. It was just a feeling that she felt deep in her guts, and before she could think too hard about it. Then she noted that these were people that she had never seen before, and her alarm bells were going off. That alarm seemed to take some of the cobwebs out of her brain. Something was off, but she could not put her finger on why she was on full alert. She was starting to feel like a boxer in the ring with someone that way outclassed her in skill and power.

Terry wanted to set some ground rules that would give her some advantages from the start, and she steadily walked closer to the pair of warm bodies in this cabin. She still had to fight off the fog that was threatening to overwhelm her. Before any introductions could be made, she jumped the bid on the strangers. "When can I see or be able to contact Commodore Robert Copeland?"

The uniformed woman gave a slight smile to the woman that had just entered into the meeting. She had already seen the medical reports, and she had read all of the reports that SLIC, Jess, Robert, and Jules had submitted many times before this mission was launched. She put her work face on and decided that she would not be thrown by the new woman's comment.

"Duke Terry, this is Colonel Dobrev, and he is in overall command of the ground forces as far as this mission is concerned. I am lieutenant Kelly Three. I will be working with you on getting your people settled into your new situation. Before you ask. Yes, I work with our joint Intelligence agencies. I have copies of the ground teams' interviews, but I will be on a team that will be redoing all of them. Every one of your people must go through this process, and they need to have a medical checkup before we can move you to our home world. We will start this process as soon as we get all of your people here and some other things are out of emergency mode."

Terry felt her eyebrow raise at this set of statements from the striking looking woman with the odd last name. She made a note that the local had not answered her question about Robert. She let a tone of disbelief into her voice. "I assume that you know how many of my people are here. Do you have room to keep that many people and their animals healthy while we deal with these interviews and checks you want to run before the next step?"

What the Duke would find out later was a Human Form Cylon smiled in a way that set Terry's teeth on edge. The Number Three could sense that the Inner Sphere born human was not comfortable with her on the instinctual level. "Yes, and we have developed a few tricks that your people have never seen before. Your people and animals will be healthy when we are done with these short interviews. That is just one of the things that we will have to do before you and your people move on. We will also be finding out what skills your people have brought with you. But to keep your people a little calmer, we will be having some educational classes that everyone will have to go through before they are finally cleared for immigration. Each of the basic classes will have a little test at the end, to make sure a few key points are clearly understood by your people. This is not the first time that my society has had a major influx of new people, and we have learned a few things along the way. I will not say that we are perfect, but we don't like repeating past mistakes if we can help it." The Human Form let a sly little smile come to her face.

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Terry and these two people talked for the next few hours about what was going to be happening over the next few days. To say that she was shocked in less than three minutes was an understatement of the year. Halfway through the meeting, Terry felt like she had just gone a dozen rounds with an Atlas using her as a kickball. She didn't even remember when they made the video message that would be played on all of the dropships but the SLiE military dropships, so that "her" people knew that Duke Terry had approved of these medical checks and classes. The message also activated the "shadow council and chain of command". That idea had been worked out in the later planning stages of this Exodus. The idea was that there was a planned out back up leadership, but only if contact was lost with Duke Terry for any group of their people larger than a few hundred.

The classes started that afternoon with videos being pumped into the dropships and then into the cabins or open bays that held any of Terry's people. Not long after Duke Terry's video was played, a database was set up with everyone's name added. That database also had a DNA sample that was taken on the sly, but the SLiE medical teams were not as slick as they had thought. The SLiE team had not been expecting to have to deal with a professional or a highly trained person that didn't want to be found by the Colonials.

The Cylon spy had a small sample of blood in some special tubes just under the skin on both of his arms contained within a fake vein. They were put into his body just in case someone did look at the Number Two's DNA or do some other types of testing on his blood. This was a common modification done within the MoC medical establishment to help a client avoid falling afoul of drug tests an employer might try. Once more the hidden Cylon had slipped through the net that the lay person thought was designed to catch someone doing this kind of mission. They just didn't understand that the SLiE and the Colonials had thought that Cylon infiltration would come from the direction of ex-Colonial space. So, they tended to be a lot more careful in that area.

This newly gathered information in that database would be used by the SLDF in many different ways. In the short term, it was to make a health check on the newest set of people that would soon be heading towards New Circe. The classes on why they didn't have to worry about spending time on the hamster wheel had been…..shocking if they were to be believed. Some of the images shown in these classes were not always taken as being totally true, they had been too close to Confederation space to totally believe any government supplied classes. Duke Terry's people also were not sure that the information coming out of the FWL was always totally truthful. Then there were the dealings that the locals just had with ComStar, the group that was advertised as being the "only' neutral party in the whole Inner Sphere.

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It was three days later that a strange jumpship just showed up right next to the space station and without an E-wave being detected by any of the other ships. It was there to pick up most of the Duke's people, but not all, even if she technically could do that amount of heavy lifting. It was not a normal jumpship that had been seen within the Inner Sphere, it was the ex-Colonial ship called Zephyr. On this trip she had carried some extra crewmembers in her old passenger cabins. They were needed to help with docking of the new dropships that were both under crewed and undertrained on general space operation for a given class of dropship, much less something as complex as docking and landing a dropship on a planet.

It was hard to dock to a "normal" jumpship and only done by the best trained crew on a dropship's shifts. That was not going to be an option that anyone wanted to have to deal with right now. Still not enough trained dropship's crews had been sent from New Circe a month ago as a just in case plan. The crews from the Lee and the Lyssa's Little Sister would also be added to the mission of helping in the shifting around of the newly "recovered" dropships to make up the needed crew. After the dropships were attached, the bridges on those vessels were sealed from anyone not specially cleared.

The Zephyr with its massive ring mounted on the aft part of her long and very thin hull was not the only issues that the docking crews were going to have to deal with. None of those crews and passengers on those dropships were allowed to enter the ex-Colonial ship after the dropships were attached to the other hull. The only dropships and passengers of Duke Terry that stayed behind were on the Lyssa and on the planet below, were the ones needed to care for the dogs, cats, rabbits, and other farm animals. The great ship also picked up some other cargos from the Lyssa just because she was there and she had the empty cargo bays, but it was barely worth the time and effort. There were only so many ores that could be recovered by using the small craft that this system had at its command and the Zephyr was a very large ship.

The few spacers, or those that had traveled the stars a few times, and those that had been bitten by the space bug that Duke Terry had brought with her had liked to talk even without social lubrication. To a person, they were very confused when the "jumpship" they were attached to left this star system only a few dozen hours after it had arrived in the first place. They didn't have much time to think after that first shock, because they quickly got more of them. Luckily the jumps were happening fast enough that the dropship's crew and passengers did not have time to understand what they were still feeling after the dropships had been attached. Without access to the bridge, no one had any idea how they were still feeling gravity, even after the classes.

Now what about the passengers' reactions after the third thru tenth jump that was made in the same day? Well, there was a reason that a four person team from the SLDF were placed on each of the dropships with a well-stocked medical kit. And those small teams of medics were not afraid of using drugs to let people sleep, at least when someone had not liked being told to go back to the classes or they could wait, and things would be explained when they get planet side again.

Split system

SLS Lyssa

8 June 3052

It took three weeks before another jumpship arrived at the Lyssa from outside the star system. This one was greeted with some fanfare and a station wide announcement was made of her arrival. The M/V Styx had returned from the Inner Sphere with a massive load of supplies for their people. Somethings were not released to the general crew of the Lyssa, like when and why the Styx had been rushed home a few months ago. What would have surprised many of the people in the Split system, was that Duke Terry was one of the few to be "In The Know" at least with some things about that mission. After a quick turn around with only a few crewmembers needing to be replaced and a few meetings held on New Circe. The Styx had been quickly sent back on her way towards the Inner Sphere in only a few days longer than a week after its latest arrival at New Circe.

With the leadership meetings done and some crewmembers replaced on the Styx or the attached dropships, the second reason that the Styx was recalled came into play. SLIC only liked to use cargo ships that had crews which they completely trusted, and the Styx and her command crew were one of the few of those trusted vessels. After the SLIC loading teams were done, the Styx had been diverted to make a high jump speed track back to Canopus with a SLIC team that also had an attached TacFax and other supporting equipment. The first team of this idea had been successfully filled and slowly SLIC was working on expanding the program.

After landing on Canopus, the Hercules and Bad Kitty were dropping off all of that cargo at the Resort to be quietly hidden in the tunnels underneath. When all of that was done? Robert had been able to find General types of cargos to fill in the now empty space with things like steel, packaged foods, household goods, and transports. Robert and his crewmembers even were able to pick up even more small fusion engines from Virginia Hall's contact. The payment for most of this was "covered" by the sale of what the SLiE would call first generation Ferro armor for mechs and skins for aerospace fighters that been loaded back on New Circe. With all of the rebuilding of units the armor quickly found new owners. Robert oversaw the unloading and the hiding of many of the parts that the Dragoons had reported that they had wanted. At least the ones that were for warship related systems, but with only Lora and the SLIC team knowing what was in the shipping containers covered in counterfeit Inner Sphere stickers and faked manifests.

Robert stopped by Virginia's office in one of the smaller side buildings built on a quiet spot of the Resort. It was there that Robert had passed over a printed letter on thick and very old fashioned white paper. The folded sheets of paper were covered and sealed with a very special thick red wax. Robert told Virginia that letter needed to be sent to Jaime Wolf or his like, but without being read by any third persons that might not like the Dragoons before it reached their hands. Virginia Hall took Robert at his word and put the folded sheet in a larger folder that was Verigraph sealed. What she didn't know was that the red wax covered just a short note. One that basically said that Robert's partners didn't have any parts that would fit a Sovetskii Soyuz class of battle cruiser, but that they would keep their eyes opened in case one seemed to be unaccounted for. After all stranger things were found on the edges of the Inner Sphere. The note was not signed by anyone. Then Virginia was told about the cargo she had wanted was being moved underground of the Resort.

The Monarch class passenger liner was used to pick up more families and waiting cargo that Lora and her people were able to store after Robert's last visit. This was a mix of a handful of Dragoon made tanks, but only two of them were fitted with Clan tech weapon systems. They also had boxes of newly made machine tools, a few dozen Tunnel Rats and other work mechs ready to start the trip to their new owners. Most of the new people going out on the Monarch class liner knew some things about the Styx, and that they would be taking "The Styx" on the first legs of the trip was seen as being good news for those passengers.

Many of them had already spent months and months with budget tickets as they traveled the space ways of the Inner Sphere just to arrive on Canopus. No one knew how far out that the "home planet" might be, but it was hoped that catching a ride on a ship that was reported to hold half a dozen speed records would make the trip at least a little bit faster than just any old average vessel of the deep black. Even before the jumpship had left that capital world, a message was sent back to the Lyssa with the numbers of people and cargo the Styx was now carrying. The crew of the Lyssa would take it as a warning to get ready for some more long hours and the staff of that vessel had planned accordingly.

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Duke Terry was setting in the classes that Robert's people had set up, just like everyone else that was left on this huge space station or in the tunnels on the planet below her. She might have been taking them all a little more seriously than most in the room, after all she was taking detailed notes in those classes. After the first few days, Terry was happy to see that a few of her people were doing the same note taking as she was, just not in the numbers Terry was doing on average. These classes were for new citizens and ran for six hours a day on average, but there was the odd 10 hour class mixed in to keep the students on their toes. Then there was the study hall for those that had failed the test at the end of the classes and Duke Terry had also found herself helping those slower individuals getting ready for the retests.

These classes had mostly covered history, but a few other subjects were also covered. After you had the minimums scores on the tests, then there were more technical classes that were available. So far no one had been able to take up the Station's offer on some of the very high tech classes, ones that covered what most would say were hyper advanced. Those were a set of classes that would have made your average ComStar person break out into night sweats or have raving nightmares for years if they ever found out about them.

When Terry returned to her room? She was so mentally tired from the classes and physically tired from the pregnancy. That she did not notice that someone was working at the suites' office desk unit while she had changed clothes into something looser and more comfortable. When she returned to the main living area, her eyes meet a person that she knew. After knotting the old and well used rob closed with its tie, she had something in mind to say to the person.

"So, what do you think that you are doing in my room?" She put one hand on her hip and looked at the man with his arm draped over the high-backed chair with a sly little smile that warmed her heart.

The voice she used was slightly on the light side as she took a stance that she had spent some time thinking about if this situation presented itself. It had started when she had found out that Robert was on his way back to this star system, and that he could not wait to see her. But there were only so many private words that could be put in an official TacFax message without drawing the attention of the bean counters to him.

The male voice was also light and then he did an exaggerated turn of his head looking around the room. "Ma'am, I believe that you are mistaken. This is my room, or at least it was that way when I left a few months ago."

Terry walked over to the nearest wall still keeping that fist on her hip when she leans onto the cool metal. "Well, it was my room when I left this morning."

After a few long seconds of no one talking, she finished her thought. "It is good to see you, Robert."

Copeland rose and Terry came into his arms with a flowing grace of a dancer despite the "baby bump" she was sporting. They did not say any more for some time as they stood in the middle of the room in each other's arms. When the embrace was finished, and a deep kiss was shared. The pair spent time catching up on what each of them had been up to while they had been separated. Now that Terry was on a SLiE operated vessel, and the security issues were a lot less restricted. Terry wanted to find more out about the missions that Robert had been on, but he wanted to hear how the evacuation had gone from her point of view. Robert had seen a lot of reports out on the shipboard TacFax about those actions and reactions. But Robert wanted to hear it from Duke Terry's point of view and not washed threw the local SLIC members. Then she told Robert about the little gift that he had left her the last time he had visited.

Duke Terry was a little mad when Robert just sat there with what she had come to call his working face slapped onto his head. That was not the look on Robert's face that she was expecting with this news. Her female centric defensive walls that had been honed over thousands of years of evolution when up in full force almost between eye blinks. Then she noticed a slight tick of the lips on Robert's face that said the game was up.

"You Rat! You knew!" Terry let out a full-blown bellow worthy of a titan.

Now Robert could not hold back any longer at seeing the range of emotions that Terry was undergoing at the speed of thought. Robert could have said something about the baby bump. Maybe something to the effect of Duke Terry might be enjoying the hospitality of the Lyssa a little too well for her health. Then again Robert knew that there were limits to what even the medical department of the SLiE could regrow.

Add to the point that he liked to sleep with both eyes shut, he went with a safer move. "Yes! That does throw a wrinkle or two into things, don't you think."

Terry folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow in a way that any married man knew said that he was on thin ice. Her voice took a tone that Robert had been on the receiving end a few times by his past wife. "And?"

Robert smiled even though that he knew that he was on some very, very thin ice with the mother of his soon to be child. "I have a lot of leave time saved up that is due me, and I think that it is time that I took a lot of it. What do you think?"

Robert kept his eyes locked onto Terry. "Captain Gaeta and I will be carrying all of the rest of your people, animals, and supplies back home. My mission XO and also the captain of the Styx will make the next run to gather up the needed support as the new mission commander in my absence."

Terry now relaxed some, but she was thinking, and you didn't become the leader of a whole star system without being very sharp. "I know that the Styx is that Tramp class jumpship that you have been doing these supply runs, and I have been briefed on some of your supply runs. But even with all of the magic your Exiles have at your fingertips. She still only has three docking collars, and that does not leave much room for all the animals we will need to take. That is unless the animals are to stay here to be "taken care of" by the crew of this amazing ship."

The taken care of was her way of thinking that the animals would be rendered down into freeze dried food. She also was misunderstanding about what ships would be going back to New Circe and what ships would be heading back to the Inner Sphere. it was a case of both people speaking the same language, but something being lost in translation.

The classes that she had taken had not said anything directly about the Colonial made artificial gravity plates, they only knew that the SLiE's main ships kept some gravity. Everyone just assumed that this was a spinning station like the old Star League had been known to build in the Wagon Wheel system. That was just a lot easier to believe than something that was only found in cheap entertainment. Terry had no idea that the Victorians also had to take many months to come to grips with the idea of artificial gravity in real life.

Robert went into lecture mode. "The Zephyr has eight collars on her hull, and we have a few tricks that even the old Star League could not do. On her last trip she only took three dropships, and I did not agree with that deception. We will get the rest of your people to their new home, along with all of the cargo we picked up on this run. It would not be prudent to leave anything on this end of a very long supply line that we don't absolutely need to."

Robert still pitched his voice low, even though they were the only ones in the room and sitting on a SLDF controlled ship like the Lyssa. "You know that they will not let any of your people get this close to the rest of the Sphere ever again?" He was hinting that this was going to be a major issue between them in the near future, and he wanted to put all of the cards on the table. Robert was a person that always planned on the worst case scenario being the one that happened to you.

Duke Terry gives a head nod in understanding and then she asked something that had been bothering her after she had come to accept some if not most of the new technology that she had been exposed to. "So, Robert where did all of this Science Fiction technology come from? Artificial gravity was way beyond what even the Star League could pull off."

Robert gave a little smile. "Well….."we" got it and some other toys like jump drives that don't need a week to recharge or a jump point on the back end of nowhere to work from new friends. We call them Colonials, but these devices have originally come from an extremely advanced alien civilization. A civilization that a growing number of scholars think built Atlantis….Would you please stop laughing woman! I'm being serious!"

The pair spent the rest of the night working on what to do after they got back to New Circe. The one thing that was clear? It was that Robert's trip back home had not been planned for before he had made the comment about his leave balance still carried on the SLDF's books. One of the items that was noted as needing to be done, was an inventory of all of the supplies that had been pulled off of Duke Terry's old planet. It would not matter if it was a dropship or rifle, they needed to know what was brought and who it might or did belong to. That would be the key, so that it would help in any future that Duke Terry's evacuees might have. One of the things that Terry had put down in law. It was that she was totally done being the leader of any large group again. The repeated attacks paid for by ComStar and others had taken a lot out of her, and she had enough. Well, let's just say that she had enough as being responsible for a whole planet full of people. Her personality would not let her stay out of being in control or the leader of at least a small group.

15 June 3052

Outreach

Acting Captain Hamilton Atwyl slumped down into his command chair as the energy wave you felt deep in your stomach washed out of him almost as fast as it had hit him. They had just completed the last jump of his mission, and what a mission it had been. Let's just say that it had been very stressful for the last few months. They had recovered a full squadron of six warships that had been floating alone in space for almost five decades on the edge of the Inner Sphere. Those six warships had been "mostly" repaired, and then the small crews had to move those warships and the supporting "normal" jumpships and dropships back to the Dragoon's home star system. Those Warships covered the "normal" jumpships as they moved over a third of the whole Inner Sphere without being seen by anyone. Now they were "home" over the star called Outreach, but still a lot more hard work was needed to be done to bring the warship squadron up to full combat capability.

Captain Atwyl looked over to his communication officers. "Send a message to Fleet Colonel Chandra and let her know we have arrived."

They could have put a call into Bataar, a Cyclops Station that was set up at Outreach's primary jump point for outsiders to the Dragoons. That was where all of the "normal" traffic was told to arrive at or be fired on by the Dragoons. The jump point that Atwyl had just used, "only" held the old Olympus class station that had been "destroyed" in the early days of the Star League Civil war. Now it had other uses that the Dragoons were keeping well hidden from the outside world.

The Capallens had not been able to repair the space station at this jump point over the last few hundred years, and it was soon forgotten about by the rest of the Inner Sphere. They barely had the funds to help the habitable world recover from the firebombing that the FWL had given to Outreach. As far as was known, this station had been even forgotten about by ComStar. Snord's Irregulars had at first not even looked at it, but at the last minute it was looked at when the Fox had sent them to check out why the Dragoons wanted this particular planet to settle on. Snord had thought that it was able to be repaired, given enough time.

The one thing that had slipped all of their minds of those within the Inner Sphere, was this planet had been called the Warrior's World back during the Star League. And on this world, many ground units and aerospace units had fought war games. It had been to see whom was the best in their chosen profession for decades, as well as making sure that they were trained for "real" war. What also had been forgotten about, was this was also true for the training of the SLDF warships and dropship's crews. So how do you make repairs on those warfighting machines, because things break in these kinds of activities. That support was done by the Olympus class station and the few yardships that were assigned to support those truly massive missions. The yardships in this star system were long gone, but the battle damaged Olympus station had remained.

As far as the rest of the Inner Sphere knew, the Outreach Olympus class station was still listed as being under repairs that had started sometime around 3042. Anyone that might get within 10,000 Kilometers of that old space station would agree with this statement, and they would have been totally wrong. There were bright and oddly timed flashes that would look like external repairs being made, if anyone happened to be looking that way. There also were dropships filled with metal, crews, and the other items that you would expect to be needed to support repairs on something on this scale. Only that was not the case. The Dragoons had quickly repaired the station to support what you would expect from that class of station. It had only taken half a year, after all the Dragoon's huge jumpship fleet needed to be worked on also.

Then the Dragoons put a twist on it, now that the Olympus was complete before the world and this star system was opened to the rest of the Inner Sphere. To any outsiders, the station was made to look still the worst for wear. What the Dragoons had been doing under the noses of the rest of the Inner Sphere was that they were making changes to the outside of the massive space station. When this station had been first built, the design had been modified to support larger ships, a lot larger ships than most thought of. Each of the modified repair bays could have Star League standard shipyards attached to them. They were "mounted" on the outside of the bay doors to be able to do this feat of engineering. All the dragoons had to do was fix the support system, and then add the yards.

The Dragoons had been slowly building the needed parts for this expansion on Outreach, and then they had been shipping them out to the station to restore this capability to the Olympus. So far, the Dragoon's support staff had been able to attach a large and a small unpressurized repair yard to each of the two smaller repair bays that a standard Olympus was made with. This let those two repair bays to be able to support anything up to one million tons of any kind of space base ships that flew in the deep black. They could have done this same treatment to the massive 150,000ton main repair bay, if the Dragoons had the time. That would have let this one bay support the largest warships ever made by the Star League or even The Clan. Or they could hold many smaller ships at one time, if your repair teams were good enough. That might be done in the future, but there were limits about even what the Dragoons could do in less than two decades.

Hamilton looked down when his noteputer beeped for attention in a coded set of beeps, like a ring tone. When he looked down and reads the message. It was not that long, and it more or less said was what he was expecting. When he looked up? He only needed to give a few orders before his people started the last few gross movements that would get them one step closer to being able to take a month off to see family and just relax. It might not sound like much, but in the Dragoons having a month off before your next work shift was a very highly prize award indeed.

#######

Jaime Wolf looked up at the knock on the heavy wood outer covering of the door to his main office, he had to rub his eyes to get them to work right when all he saw was a blur. He had been pushing 18 hours of work every day without break since Hanse gave him the mission to help defend the Combine Capital from the Clans.

Jaime knew that he was no longer a young man, and he knew that he had been burning the candle at both ends for a while. Jaime also knew that he was going to kill himself sooner or later with this kind of workload. But Jaime felt that he had too much work to do, and there were only so many people that he trusted to do the needed work. That the work also kept his mind from thinking about the near death of his son, was just a bonus.

About the only thing that was in a positive column in that little action, was that they had captured the assassin. It was just too bad that it had been after he had rigged for a breach to be blown in the dropship's hull, but the damage had already been done. Dragoon medicine can do lots of things, but the traumatic brain injury alone to his son was bad. Then you add in a short stent in death pressure, and it was almost too much for even Dragoon medical professionals to pull a patient threw.

The Dancer, as the assassin was known, had not been willing to talk…at first. But the Dragoons did have very good medical teams, and even the MIIO and LIC got their hooks into the game after a while. Before that person had died in the last two groups hands, a box was delivered to Jaime Wolf's hands. It would seem that the Combine had known what had happened to Jaime's family, and some of them were not happy with something like this happening within their borders. Now if the attack had happened after the mercenaries had crossed back into FedCom space? Well, the Dragoons had made a lot of enemies over almost 50 years of working within the Inner Sphere.

The outside of the exquisitely carved wooden box held a long note that covered what "The Dragon" knew about the Black Dragons Society and why they wanted to hurt Jaime Wolf. Stanford Blake had been very pleased when the box was opened. But Jaime had not thought it was worth the near death of his son, not to receive the head of Duke Hassid Ricol, also known as The Red Duke. The Black Dragons had to rush to get that assassin mission launched, and in that rushing to hurt Jaime. The normally very secretive group had made a few…. miss steps. Miss steps that the ISF were now using to damage this threat to the Combine and "The Dragon" as fatally as they could.

As a way to apologize to the Dragoons and its famous leader for this attack on a unit that had more or less saved the Black Pearl. The Wolf's Dragoons would be getting the Red Duke's personal Invader class jumpship so fast that it caught up to the rest of the Dragoon's jumpship fleet short of Outreach. The Combine also would be handing over the first non-prototype Chimeisho class jumpship, after it had been completed testing. Those two jumpships would not be alone in the ransom that the Combine would be paying the Dragoons to keep the peace and save some face. Beside the Invader jumpship, they also would be turning over the Duke's flagship Overlord, its Leopard CV escort, and a new Rose class cargo dropship filled with the military supplies recovered from the battlefields of the Clan. Those clan grade weapons supplies that would have been given to the Duke to outfit his combat units to increase their combat effectiveness.

What mercenary unit could not want more military supplies, a heavily armed cargo mover, a light carrier, a pair of new jumpships, and one of the premier mech carriers of the Inner Sphere? Jaime would have given them all back, just to have his son whole and healthy one more time.

#######

Jaime was brought mentally back to his office when Fleet Colonel Chandra entered his now slightly clearer field of view. Jaime thought that he knew what this meeting was going to be about. A Flash level message had been passed to him when the warship squadron had first shown up at "The Dragoon" jump point. Jaime lifted his chin at the woman in charge of his "Black Fleet". "So, any major issues we didn't know about?"

Colonel Issola Chandra took a seat on the other side of the desk from The Wolf. He might be The Wolf, but by now the older senior leaders of the Dragoons were more relaxed around each other. Well…. as long as there were not any of the younger ones around to be overawe by "The Wolf". "No, well besides being a few weeks overdue from the last message we were sent. Not that a few weeks is that much, not when you think about the distance they had to cover. I will start recovering their crews, while the Mars and Athena are pulled into the repair bays. I still think we should have put in the Nelson in a repair slip instead of the larger Athena."

Jaime tried to not let out a sigh, as they rehashed something for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I know, but I think we are going to need the firepower from that Soyuz in the near future. If things fall off a cliff, well the Mars should be faster to get fixed backup, due to her smaller size. After they get the Mars done, then you can pull in one of the smaller Lola IIIs. Oh, and so that you know. I just got a report that our contact over in the MoC came through, and they have some spare parts that we can use."

Jaime saw the eyebrows on the woman rise in surprise. His elbow slipped and when he looked down, he saw a report from Wolf Net and that brought up an old thought. "Sometimes I think back to when we first came to the Inner Sphere. For a recon mission? It sure would have been nice to have been given some of those old Bugeye class spy ships rotting away in some of the naval caches around the Pentagon Worlds."

Jaime gave a loud snort and a short shake of his head. "That would have made our lives so much easier."

Jaime looked back up to the woman and change the subject. "The report also said that they have at least four more corvette class warships as well as other parts. If we can get you an old MK 39? You can turn the old Mars loose to keep an eye on things, because we still don't have any real spy ships." He sounded a little exasperated even to his own ears.

Now Chandra could not keep her mouth closed. "I thought the MoC would want to take those things off the market."

Jaime rocked back in his high backed office chair for a second or two of quiet thinking. "You would think, but they have money and some personnel issues that have come up. Just look at how MMM has turned a blind eye about our Broadsword class PPCs that we are making. They need us and our specially trained personnel, more than they need a few more coins in their pockets. Oh, and the first forty of our people are on the way back from training with the MoC Navy on priority passenger transports. We will need to get the next three dozen ready to head out as soon as we can. We will have one more troop rotation after that one, before we pull all of our navy people out of that program. The last thing I want is for the MoC to get sticky fingers with their warm bodies or the FWL and CC think about doing the same thing."

Chandra smiled, it had been some surprise when Jaime had told her to get forty of her best remaining personnel that knew about Vincent class ships or systems that were found on such ships. Then he had sent them all the way across the Sphere for some hands on time with a real warship. "That should not be a problem. And when the Mars comes off the repair slip? We will have our own ship to train on that we will not have to share. But yes, I could use another corvette or three in our order of battle. Do you know if they have other larger ships they might want to sell?"

Now Jaime made a sour face. "Not that I really know, but they had parts for an Aegis, Congress, Vincent, and Lola classes of real warships. That is a nice fleet, even if they only have one of each of those classes in operation. But something tells me that they have a lot more warships, and they know how to use them with some skills. I just hope that we can find full crews for what we have and what we might get without opening us to other…..issues."

Now Chandra went to scratch an itch because there had been something in Jaime's voice. "Are you having issues with some of the Bondmens you took under our care? I thought we didn't take that many losses on Luthien. Well, losses that we could not recover in six months to a year with our Sibkos and the fosters already in the pipeline."

Now Jaime smiled. "Oh, I made sure that we are testing all of them for any level of Crusader like leanings. Still, we will be able to use those with too many Crusader leanings to fill out Iota and Kappa battalions as a pair of training and testing units. I was mainly looking for support personnel to replace what we lost with the Hephaestus. I have a plan if we run into any that cannot be shown the Warden's Light, or if things look to be hitting a critical mass."

Chandra now kept her face very still, at Jaime's last comment. "I don't know if having two full units of "just" clan grown Warriors is a good idea, long term. But does the last idea about dealing with Crusader issues, have something to do with the Nova Cat's sneaking around in places they might not stick out to those not used to Clanners?"

Now it was Jaime's turn to raise his own eyebrows and thought about not saying anything for a few long seconds. "The Nova Cats are looking at setting up a full on, old style Embassy right here on Outreach for their Clan."

Chandra didn't move her face a millimeter more than she wanted. "Why?" If The Wolf wanted to talk, she was going to get as much information as she could from him. It was not like she would tell anyone that could hurt the Dragoons.

Jaime felt the need for a drink and delays his answer while he pulls out a bottle and two short glasses from his desk. Chandra was not a ground commander, and Jaime felt that he could always talk to her. Well at least after he lost his brother in the FWL civil war they had been dragged into. After he poured amber liquid into the two short glasses, he pushed one towards the woman. "It would seem that somethings don't change, with the people back in the Pentagon worlds. They are moving because of…. dreams."

Chandra took a small sip from her glass and settled back into her chair. If The Wolf still wanted to talk? She would give him an ear for as long as he wanted. "There has to be more to it than that." She thought that this was the only push that was needed, but she had a few more open ended questions that she could call in if this turned out not to be enough.

Jaime waves his hands with the drink in it around in the air almost over his head. "Oh, I just think that the Cats and the Bears might be looking at changing home planets in the near future….or it could even be going on right now." Jaime looked like a kid that had just farted in a car. One of those silent but deadly ones and the windows were locked closed.

Chandra had been taking a longer sip of the drink in her hand, and she fought to keep from choking at Jaime's statement. "Meaning?" She felt gut punched that she might know the answer to this question already.

Jaime sat the drink down on his over loaded desk carefully to not risk damaging something critical. "My gut tells me that they think that bad things are going to happen back home with the Smoke Jaguars and the defeats of the rest of the Clans. Then there is "The Dream" that some of them talk about between themselves when they think no one can overhear them. It says that the Star League is out there fighting some kind of mechanical evil."

He snorts and takes a deep slug from his own short glass. "Or it could just be that they have finally seen what such an overly used Latrine the home worlds truly are. Then this dream is a way to give a cover for the leadership to take drastic steps."

Chandra could agree, at least from what she had heard from the Bondmens that she had interviewed. She had been doing that work to see if they could be used to support the growing black fleet the Dragoons were building or getting ready to support. "Well, both of those Clans have huge warship fleets according to our latest updates. If we can make some points with them? Then we might be able to get to use some of their support bases they will have to bring with them if they want to keep those ships in operation."

She saw that Jaime gave her a sly smile as he took another drink from his short glass. She could see the look and she knew what it meant. That was more or less, "Yea, teach your mother to suck eggs. This is the adult table." She wanted to take that smile down just a notch. "I heard that Alpin is resigning from active service in the Dragoons to take up a position over at Blackwell."

Jaime had an odd look on his face that he quickly covered up. "Yes, Alpin did. He decided that he wants to be closer to home. I was told that, Alpin wants to help his mother with his father's recovery for the near future. I think he would do well over there, and with his combat background will help them with what they all are doing over there."

Jaime didn't and wouldn't talk about those things that were happening over at the main Blackwell facility or at least not yet. The other thing that he didn't want to talk about was, that if Alpin does well over there for the future. Then maybe he might become the civilian governor for Outreach and take those issues off Jaime's hands. But Jaime also knew that it would help Mackenzie and his wife having his son closer to home.

Chandra was now careful not to finish the drink. "You know that now only leaves Maeve, which "the others" will support as a future military leader of the Dragoons."

An angry fire burned in Jaime's eyes for long seconds. Jaime had not been happy when he had found out about Maeve and what the boys and girls in white lab coats had done behind his back. Jaime was leery about anyone having the last name of Wolf, much less genes of his…and others to add to that last name. Jaime Wolf had been tempted to bar her from any further dealings with the military of the Dragoons when he had first found out about her. Then the politics of the matter had been looked at a little more closely by Jaime and then his staff had used a lot of word hammers on him. In the end, there was not much Jaime could do after the fact. Then again, she did have talent at a mech's controls and also at the planning table.

Jaime swallowed the last bit of the expensive whisky. "Yes, I know. And you can pass this next thing to "the others". I will be bringing her into more of my meetings starting next shift. If the others want her to be in line for my job? Then the least I can do is try to make sure that she had the needed experience to effectively fill my shoes. You can also tell them, that this is the last time. If something happens to her? Then we will just see how the chips fall, but I am too damn old to have any more kids… even with our Iron Wombs and genes splicers to help with things."

Early July 3052

New Circe.

The local space was filled with all kinds and sizes of space capable ships. The latest arrivals were not even the largest of the fish that were currently swimming in dark waters around this cloud covered planet. The new arrival did get a lot of attention from those on the surface and even from most of the ones in space. All of the dropships that the Colonial made ship had carried to New Circe, but two, were ordered to land on the planet on least time routes supplied to them by the local traffic control. They were not landing at one of the three major space ports that made up the core of the transportation network of the planet.

This was not a surprise to Terry and Robert; this had been worked out before the first dropships had left the Lyssa to make the trip to New Circe from the Split system. They also had received super light speed faxes while they were still a week out from this planet. Those messages were to let the pair know that all of the dropships made it, and the passengers were waiting in the local area before beginning to settle in on the planet to start until after her arrival. The "assigned" landing area for "Duke" Terry and her people were under the control of a group called the Victorians.

They were a group that was still getting used to the Star League tech and the higher levels of technology that the Exiles had access to on a daily basis. The Victorians were still having a few issues, even after being evacuated while being attacked by AI robots…. Cylons. The latest additions to that growing tech group, that had originally been very late steam age. But by now most had made it up to be comfortable with the electrical age or mid-20th century now that they found a new home. There were spots and groups that were further ahead and had accepted and had moved closer to SLiE level tech, but that was only a small part of the total population.

Then there were the limited weapons that the Victorians had on hand. The SLiE and Colonials were the only groups that could move any heavy firepower in numbers to that part of the planet in case of an attack, and a planet was a frakking large area to have to defend. Terry was bringing in an almost a full reinforced tank battalion, and a light close to scout battalion that was complete with working APCs and IFVs. She also had half a dozen aerospace fighters, but most of those were light Saber airframes. They also had functional mechs, and many wrecked older tech mechs to go along with what they had recovered from ComStar's order of battle. Where the forces of Duke Terry a threat to the other two major power blocks already on the planet? Not even close. If the Cylons came calling? Duke Terry's forces would be little more than speed bumps, but they would be very effective speed bumps…. while they lived. That speed bump should be enough, on paper, to buy the time needed to get heavy reinforcements to that area of the planet.

Duke Terry's people were assessed to be at a limited self-supporting Age of War tech base group, but with some exposure and experience with Star League era technology…at least in weapons. But Duke Terry's tech base was supportable with what was within the dropships that she had brought to this planet. Duke Terry's exodus had even been able to take whole schools with them and a few factories when they had to leave their planet due to ComStar's attack. What they would be able to make on this planet was still up in the air, but it would grow over time.

Still, those "new" items packed on these dropships were going to be key infrastructure for the new area of the planet. It also was some major key infrastructure that the SLiE and the Colonials would not have to build for them. It was hoped that with this infusion of support and population, that it would radically speed up the rate of tech increases for this section of the world's population. It would not happen quickly, and Terry had to get her people already on the ground settled in before they could even start fully unpacking the rest of the dropships.

Three weeks later

New Circe

The meeting with Lord Protector Vaun was one that had been planned on for a week. It had taken that long to get on her very crowded Calendar. Robert and Terry were in a massive meeting room on the grounded SLiE owned Monarch class dropship that was acting as for a lack of a better word, the locals Embassy and interface points. That embassy dropship was in turn, surrounded by all of the dropships that Duke Terry and the evacuation support team had been able to bring with them by hook, crook, and more than a little luck. Almost none of Terry's people called this dropship home, but the other dropships still held way more people than she was comfortable with.

They were unloading all of those dropships, but it was going very slowly as measured by all of those involved. Terry and the miners that had joined them at the last minute had a loading plan for most of those dropships, but it had gone out the window very quickly for a long list of reasons. There was no way that anyone could have planned to take over a few ComStar dropships, and then there was the age old human saw about emergency planning that lacked the word emergency when you were doing all of that planning? You always tend to forget to add the emergency effect into those ideas and this opening gave Murphy a lot of room to play. That was part of the reason for today's meeting with the accepted leader of this whole star system.

The pair that were going to be talking for the newest people to join this planet rose from the chairs as a SLiE General walked in, but the Lord Protector was not with her when she walked into the room. The General had a stone like look on her face as she spoke. "Please take your seats." General Gao was pointing to the chairs, and then she reached for one not far away.

General Gao kept talking as she headed for her own seat. She could see the confused looks on the pair that had been waiting for this meeting. "First off, I have to apologize that the Lord Protector could not make it to this meeting. Something has come up with the Parliament that required her direct input on short notice. I think that both of you would agree, that we have a lot to do today. So, the Lord Protector sent me in her place."

After she had taken her seat, Gao turned to the visibly pregnant woman. "Duke Terry, I would like to start with something I have wanted to say to you for some time now. I must say that I am impressed with what you were able to pull off. You were able to pack some impressive bags when you moved away from ComStar. Yes, you had some help from my people. But everyone agrees that you were the keystone to the success of this operation. I would have to say that you were the golden key, and we got to kick in the teeth of ComStar without them knowing who did it to them."

General Gao crossed her legs and gave the other woman a level look. "Now, how goes your people settling in?"

Terry looked at Robert, but he just gave her a slight head nod. This had to be her show, at least until she could hand the reins off to someone else. "It is going about as good as we could expect, even with having the extra items we had not planned on. It also is taking longer and costing more than I had expected." Both of those statements were massive understatements, and it was a good bet that everyone in this room knew this fact.

The General activated one of her small computers she had carried into this meeting, and she put it on a handy side table that was there just for this reason. "I see that you have not accepted any monetary loans from the SLiE or the Colonials. Those funds might be helpful to cover the expenses you're having to deal with."

Now Robert jumped into the meeting. "We have thought about that, more than a few times, but we do not want to go into that much debt right off the bat. Not for people that are already under stress and have left so much behind to come out here. We also are using the time to develop a working government that is a mix of ideas between the Victorians and our people."

General Gao was looking at three different lists that was now displayed on one screen that only she could see. One had come from SLIC, another had come from Duke Terry, and the third was from the slime ball current Victorian leader. Key areas on Terry's supplied list had notes about issues with the Victorian leadership before the General had landed on this planet from the Station. It would seem that Duke Terry's list was a lot more detailed than the one even provided by the SLiE's intelligence command. A side screen had other information that had also come from Terry's people. It was about what they were doing to fix some of the issues the new arrivals had found with the Victorians, and that had been overlooked by SLIC.

Gao kept her face very still, and she saw Robert Copeland's back go just a little straighter, like a man getting ready for a fight that he saw was coming. The General moved to counter this before it got too far out of hand. "I see that you claim a current active force strength of eight mechs, forty medium to assault massed tanks and six aerospace fighters. You are not claiming dropships or any infantry units as being active for your defense forces."

Terry had a sly smile that she knew would aggravate both this General and Robert in equal measure. "That is what we have operational at this time as full time forces, and we have some of our mechs, tanks, and fighters that are down for repair. Then there is the privately owned heavy weapons that some of my people have but the pilots are not on active service. We also have recovered all of the ComStar hulks and their "allies" equipment before we evacuated, but those are not combat ready. Also, our Infantry was really just groups that worked together, but had full time day jobs."

"Yes, and I have a note of thanks from the 205th ground force commander and his staff as well as the Major in charge at the pointy end of the operation. He was very thankful for the help in cleaning up the battlefield, and then turning over all of the items that were recovered and shipped out on your ships." All of that had been true. Any item that the SLDF had recovered from the battlefield had been marked. When the dropships had landed, and those marked items were found, they were quickly turned over to the SLiE. Mainly it was done in such a rush so that the next item could be dealt with in the cargo bays.

Gao reached into a physical folder and pulled out an old fashion payment form, and she passed it over to the other woman. Both Robert and Terry looked down at the number, and the one on the form caused some confusion for the pair. It was both too small and too large for what most of what they were thinking that it might be in payment for.

General Gao hides a smile, but poorly and it was done poorly on purpose. "The Star League in Exile helped the Victorians with covering some of the cost of maintaining a defense force on this part of the planet. That payment is for the first month, for the forces at your command. When you get more combat forces online full time? Then please let your SLDF liaison officer know, so that we can adjust the payments you will receive. I have to warn you, that it will go down when you down check a major combat unit like a mech or tank for whatever reason."

Gao was keeping an eye on Robert to see how the SLiE military man would react to this news. By the letter of the law that the SLiE used. Any person, it was not listed as citizen but person, could claim some value of any SLiE equipment that they had helped in the recovery of. The proof of Duke Terry's people's help had been put in official dispatches of the SLDF…many times. Then there was the note to be passed along for thanks by both the on-sight combat commander and his overall mission commander. The only question would be how much they helped in the recovery, how much to value the recovered items, and how much of that should be given to the newest group to New Circe. Even something seemingly as clear cut as taking of the Star Lord class jumpships Blake's Travels, had to be reviewed and argued over who got what. Even 1% of a Star Lord was a life changing number for someone.

When nothing was said for a few second General Gao took charge of the meeting one more time. "I also understand that you found two spare mechs on the Lion. Are those two in your current order of battle?"

Terry kept the slight smile on her face, but Terry knew that she was about to leave a few cards on the table. "Yes, we did. They were turned over to a pair of private pilots who had lost their rides in our little Exodus. We have a history of civilians having whatever weapons that they could afford. So, they were happy to get the new mechs and "we" get the battered hulks of their old rides. We are using most of the recovered hulks from my militia to repair what we can and do any updating that we can out of our own pockets. We want to have some say in the defense of our people and showing that we have heavy weapons of our own will go a long way in doing this. Turning over what we recovered of your people's equipment? That was the least that we could have done, for what you have done for us already. I will not be making an official compensation request for that action. We are friends, and that is what friends do for each other."

Gao locked eyes on the woman that had just given up not a possible small payday for a group that had recently admitted needed at least some more short term funds. Now it was time to give Duke Terry a bone, which was just how the game was played on this level. "I will make a note of that. What do you say about looking at those dropships you brought with you? The second Union was taken out by units of the 205th, but it was your people that did spot repairs and then were brave enough to crew that ship. If you turn it over to the SLDF? We can cover half the list price as the bounty." The first Union had been more or less wholly taken due to SLDF action and Terry would not be able to claim it unless the local courts stepped in for a review.

Terry didn't smile, that was a lot of much needed money now being talked about. "I would like to keep that dropship. It currently is a wreck, but we will allow access to any members of the SLDF for their technical review of the data and hardware systems that it might still have. I do understand that your SLDF issues the Lion class dropships to her ground units. We can keep the Union here, but I don't see that there is any reason to keep the larger Lion class vessel as well."

For the next half hour, the pair of them worked out that for the SLiE to give up their part of the second Union as a good will gesture. It was often stated that this Union would have just been left behind if it had not been for Terry's people. Terry would get half the value of the Lion class for cash. That was when she told the General that what most had thought was a cargo version of the Union that also had been recovered but really was a mixed force carrier.

She would need to keep the Mule and the captured Mammoth for some future plans that might or might not come to take place. But as soon as they could, the huge cargo dropship would be "sold" or at least leased to the SLDF. The Mule and the other dropships were needed for homes and to supply power to the small communities that were growing. Later the smaller dropships could be used to help with transporting things around the planet. Most of them were going to do so as privately own shipping companies. The carrier was needed to support the aerospace fighters Terry had brought with her. She could have used one of the local bases but that would cost money to use.

That was a lot of funds left hanging in the wind, but it was not her funds just the SLiE's. Gao moved to a new topic when they started going in circles about the cargo dropships. "I saw that you have put up for sale anything to do with the ComStar aerospace fighter hulks you pulled out of the drop port during the last hours of the evacuation. If you don't mind me asking, query affirmative. Whose idea was that, by the way?"

Robert did not move a millimeter and his breathing was shallow. He was frozen in place, and this got him a questioning look from his wife. With a look from her, Robert spoke. "That idea was mine, but only because of my life's experience. The SLDF Navy still has some of the old Star League designed fighters in inventory besides what was working with the resupply missions. Terry's people do not use those types of space frames, and we will have very little time to train up her pilots on so limited number of space frames that will never grow. The recovered spare parts that her people don't need for updating or maintaining the spaceframes that they already have, will also be put on the open market. We need the funds to get the resettlement projects underway, that is unless the SLiE is going to make a claim on them?" It had been Duke Terry's forces that had bombed the airframes on the ground, and they also were the ones that had taken the time to make sure anything larger than a fist was picked up and packed down as cargo.

General Gao stopped looking at the pair and she looked down again at her powerful Colonial/Cylon digital helper. With a few finger movements on the screen and keyboard. She was reviewing the long list of projects that were under way in this star system. She hits the area of the screen that would display some detailed command notes, but this is more of a review and not new information for her.

The General looks up from her data device. She will address the question, and then she would change the subject. "Admiral Xi thinks that it is in the best interest of all groups to bid only on the parts the SLDF might need right along with any other interested buyers. I see that you only have about ten percent of your population in homes already, and yet, you seemed to have focused on getting a fuel cell factory going for your first added infrastructure project. As a military person, I was wondering why you have been working on that and not getting the LRM/SRM missile and other ammunition factories lines you brought back into production."

Robert sat back in his chair and Terry would have moved forward in her seat, but for the growing belly making that an uncomfortable position to be taken in chairs like these. Terry smelled blood in the water, and she was hungry. "I was under the impression that your people had the ammunition markets locked up with better supplies than we can currently make." She was hoping that maybe they could get a free grant to updating any war related factories. Robert said something like that was possible, but not very likely with the current state of affairs on New Circe.

Terry gave the military person a look, which was not friendly. "That was what the education classes covered while we waited. That being said, it would seem that you might need other types of support for both the military and that our civilians can use."

Now the General smiled, and she wondered if it was Robert, or someone else who had leaked that information to the SLIC team. Information that Terry had just confirmed to the representative of the SLiE. "That is very good to hear. That is one of the main reasons that I wanted this meeting to take place, and it was given the green light to be held at this level. The Fuel Cell engine facility was a major surprise when we were told about it being loaded in your cargo bays. Those types of engines are not suitable for mechs, tanks, or any other front line military war fighting gear that the SLDF currently fields. Now, I know that some would say differently, and combat support is a combat multiplier on many levels. But now that we have been doing all of the fighting off this planet, our ICE powered support vehicles have added a new problem. It has been harder and harder to support our ICE's for any length of time in a far off war zone. What the SLDF supply department could use, is a way to replace the ICE engines in all of the lighter transports, APCs, and non-combat military transports. They would like something that is a lot easier to support than ICE with hydrocarbon type fuels."

General Gao took some notes that was just a prop, but she was betting that Terry would not know this. It was one of the tricks that could only be used a few times before they lost effectiveness to those that might be just a little aware. "Something like this will also be helpful in cutting down on the fuel that has to be produced to keep the economy working."

She passed over a standalone tablet to the one time leader of her own star system. "On this device, is a list of engine sizes that "we" have been using to make light trucks, medium trucks, and small personal transports on the planet. If you can put even some of these into production? That will have a net positive impact on the whole war effort against the Cylon Empire. Now "we" understand your aversion to long term debt at this time, and I have been authorized to give a matching fund grant to make this happen as fast as possible. Those engine sales will also give you the needed funds to hire Victorians or Colonials and buy the supplies needed to help build what you need for your people to live in and places for them to work. All at a much more rapid pace than you currently have been able to maintain. It also has been suggested that you scrap the old Jumbo class dropship and use the funds in your setting up." The last part of her statement had been making the news services of the planet, and it was a valid question. The SLDF Navy would not willingly use something as ancient as a Jumbo class of cargo dropship.

Terry smiled a knowing smile, that the other woman thought she had used on her own husband in the recent past. It had been when he had done something wrong and had forgotten to bring home flowers when he had wanted forgiveness. Terry spoke and folded her hands in her now much smaller lap and got the pose down. "Oh, we can't do that General Gao. That dropship holds our steel foundry and support that the miners need to do their jobs. Besides holding a foundry that can make a hundred tons of steel a week? That dropship also has half a dozen workmechs used to help with the mining and moving of those ores or finished product."

The General noted that this information was not in any SLIC files, and she makes sure that she keeps her work face fixed while she comes to grips with this little bombshell. The meeting went on for a while longer, but most of the big issues were worked on or moved around so that lower level people could work the issue to try to come to an equitable conclusion. One sticking point had been the need to keep the SLDF Mammoth along with the other Mammoth as a place to house her people on this cold planet for at least the next few months. It was agreed to do this, but that the Lyssa's Little Sister would be emptied of residents as fast as they could. Terry and her people would not even have to pay rent, they only would need to cover the cost of the fuel needed to keep everyone comfortable within the huge dropship's hull.

Terry had taken to heart the council of her husband, and she did not sell off all of the dropships that she had owned or captured when they had been evacuated as fast as she could. Terry was very happy about the offer to buy one of the military focused dropships. That should give her enough money to get some of the basic housing set up, as well as getting the first long term employment supply for "her" people now could be finished. That still left her the clear title for the passenger liner, modified carrier on the Triumph hull, the Mule, and her monster Mammoth for the near future. She could always change her mind at a later date on any pending sales, but she was not about to let all of those high end assets out of her sight just yet. Not after what Robert had told her on the way from the Lyssa too here. She was a planner, and you had to have a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. But you have better be working on others all of the time.

#########

A few days later, Terry and Robert were walking around a growing field that had been set aside as a central collection point to hold all of the recovered but wrecked war fighting machines pulled off Duke Terry's old planet. They were passing between the cored remains of a Clint and a complete flamed scarred white painted upper torso of a Riflemen that had been pulled from her home planet. They had been using the old ComStar Union as the center of the repair work being done to the recovering defense force. The Com Guards liked fighting as a combined arms unit, and so two of the mech bays had been replaced by heavy vehicle bays. The two fighter bays, Mech, and Vehicle bays had been in constant use even before they arrived on this planet. The only delay had been in making sure that the dropship was safe to be used by the new owners.

It would take weeks for the funds to be turned over for the dropship part of the first Union and Lion. The SLiE courts had awarded ten percent owner ship to that first Union despite her willing to surrender it. As soon as the meeting had ended, Terry had order two of the dropships emptied of any cargo as fast as possible. The cabins in the cargo dropships would still be used until homes could be built to house the current occupants, or they could move into one of the other cabins in the other dropships. They were going to miss the extra repair cubicles on the Lion, but as that was only going to be a short term issue for the Duke's people. They still had the captured Wayland Mobile Base that had been carried in the cargo hold of the captured Mammoth.

That would keep people working, at least until she could transfer the funds to cover the man-hours needed to build a dozen mech, a dozen heavy vehicle bays, and a dozen aero fighter repair bays to be built near the largest town under the Victorians control. Those repair bays were being built by a mix force of Colonials, Victorians, Wolverine contractors, and her people that had the right skill sets already. That should be enough repair bays to fill her people's needs for the next half decade or so. They had just been lucky that the repair bays in that Union had been fitted with were the types of repair bays that were better than anyone else's, but the ones that the Clans had fitted into their newest combat dropships. SLIC had also been interested in them, but they had not tried to claim them or otherwise delay Terry's people from using them as the design templates for her building program.

The extra repair and support bays would be filled with rebuilding combat machines that had been brought to this planet as hulks and collections of spare parts. Terry and her people would not be ordering any "new" mechs for the near future from the Wolverine's factories on this planet. The Wolverines were picking up the best to support the war effort. Still, they would be able to repair what they could with the parts on hand. She should be able to get another full mech company out of what remained of the hulks to go with the eight walking wounded mechs "on duty", and the other four that were being used as trainers.

The trainers were also helping with the needed building projects, there was not much that security mechs could currently do in combat compared to what the Wolverines were fielding. The heavy tank bays would serve double duty for this part of the planet. When those heavy vehicle bays were not in use to support the militia that was still being worked on to get to "full strength". They would be used to help do major work on anything that would fit into the large bays from around the planet. Hard working machines always needed heavy duty maintenance or repairs. It was just how things were, and there were few harder jobs than supporting a war effort.

Robert broke the silence as they walked by a flame scarred Fury class heavy tank that you could still see the white paint on the rest of the hull. "I think that General Gao was hoping to have you turn over those "spare" fully operational old Star League mechs to the SLDF." They were not really fully operational, but they could walk under their own power when they had been "found". That was something that very few people knew about, besides the new pilots.

Terry was looking at a bashed in turret of a Demon class tank opposite of the burnt-out Fury class tank. "I don't know why. They have a lot better mechs coming off the production lines in the city, and not to mention that they are generally larger battlemechs than a pair of medium mechs that are over three hundred years old. However, I was expecting them to at least want to look at what remained of the new Warhammer design out of the FWL, the King Crab, or even the Bombardier."

Robert made a face at his wife statement. "They still might. I think that they are still getting used to the idea of us being on this planet with them with more tech than they had believed. We recovered forty-two mech hulks and well over three dozen major ground combat units off all types what you didn't buy in one form or another. Once we get everything under cover, and out of the weather. They might want to revisit what your people were able to recover in your exodus. It was not like you listed every hulk by name and model number that was recovered in your immigration reports that were filed. And speaking of recovering. How did they take it in the council meeting that you were serious about not going to take public office again?" Robert was watching his wife for any tell tail hints she might show. They were still newlyweds, and that meant a steep learning curve for one Commodore (ret) Robert Copeland.

Terry gave a soft chuckle, and she knew that Robert was watching her very closely. "About as well as you thought that it might when we talked about it. I don't know how many times, that I said that "I am tired". I still will have "power" as the head of TTM, but they were wanting me to hold onto both hats until the day that I die. Still, I would be around as a safety blanket…. for a while,…..to keep them happy." Her hand went down and rubbed her still growing belly.

Terrier and Talos Manufactory or as some people were starting to call it, TTM. The name of the company had come from a play on Duke Terry's name, and Talos, which was a giant robot made by Europa to protect against pirates and invaders. The core funding for the setting up of that company was coming from Terry and Robert. She "owned" all of the LRM/SRM factories, Fuel Cell factory, the different autocannon ammunition production areas, six of the functional mechs, two of the tanks, and all six of the aerospace fighters that was needed for this area. She had been both the commander and the person who had paid for them, as far as her people were concerned. So, a good sized cut of the monthly check cut for the defenders of this part of the planet also went right towards her growing bank accounts.

That did not count the Dropships that "were hers" as far as most of her people thought. That was a huge amount of collateral for personal loans coming from the SLiE and Colonials. It would not take long for this part of the planet to take over all or at least most of the production of "normal" autocannon ammunition to support the war effort. They would also add a little something to the production base of the Thunder-Javelin to go along with LRM and SRM reloads her factories would start supplying in a few months. These factories were not as efficient as even any of the Colonial's facilities had become, but now those areas in the Colonial city state can be put to other uses. That is except for the Thunder-Javelins guided missiles. There was a major shortage of those weapons, and every new missile that could be lifted to the war front was a good thing.

It would take some time, but Terry Copeland, ex Duke Terry, would remove herself from public life until she was just a footnote in the history taught in the local schools. At least that was her stated goal, when she was asked why she was doing this. It would take even longer for her to separate her new company from the government. Right now, she was very happy with how most things were going in her life. Still Terry had only taken control of the new company because the job needed to be done, and no one else had the skills or desire to do the job with any degree of success. That was not always the case on this planet, and when you did find one you had to hold on to them with a death grip. And she thanked the gods for that every night and at least a half dozen times during the day for the last few months of her….condition. Robert was not even mad about being "beached" due to security issues that his wife and soon to be child had caused in the eyes of people that were within and outside of SLIC. Robert was just glad that the beaching had not happened sooner. He had been faking his medical reports every year after his recall, just in case.

When the pair walked past another flame scarred white painted mech in the open field that now was officially listed as being The TTM military spare parts yard. Terry was lost in thought until the sound of a pair of aerospace fighters flew by overhead. As the two small Vipers disappeared into the distance at just under the speed of sound on this planet and quiet returned to the area. The pair still looking up didn't start moving right away again.

Terry kept her eyes looking up into the mostly cloudy sky that were so normal for this still warming planet. "Robert, have you noticed that your people provide all of the mech pilots, some of the aerospace pilots, a third of interstellar crews, and again almost all of the bodies that fill out the new battle armor units. The Colonials provide the other two thirds of the interstellar crews, almost all of the aerospace pilots, and most of the tank crews for the war. The Victorians provide almost all of the infantry, a few of the battle armor troops, a few mech pilots and almost all of the farmers and ranchers to feed everyone."

With Robert's next step, he almost stumbled over a root for a tree that had long been removed, or it might have been a rut made by the transporters that dumped the wrecks onto this field. He did not say much for a few seconds. "Now that you have pointed it out, yes."

Terry still was not looking at her husband, but she had resumed the slow paced walk. "I wonder, what will be needed for my people to help defend this planet? I do not want them to be cannon fodder of some type."

Robert now was looking at his wife and not for the mystery object that had made him stumble. "There is a draft on this planet, and that was started even before this war. When your drafted to serve your term, then you are tested. Where you test out best? That is the job that you will be given to do while you are doing your time in the military. After your first term in the military is done, and the required commitment of the draft is completed. Then you can try to shift to a different job. That is the law of the land."

Terry got a lost tone in her voice. "Yes, I know. But there are so few of us that made the trip. One bad battle, and we will be gutted as a culture."

Robert snorted. "That is true of the whole planet. It will not matter if it is against the Clans or the Cylons that we lose the battle to. We all will die."

Robert didn't talk about the report that he had seen about something like this. They had been about when it was expected that the Victorians would be rolled into the rest of Clan Wolverine and the SLiE. That event was thought to happen in one or two generations. It was expected that this event might even happen faster with the addition of Terry's people to the Victorians. Then the area called the Victorian City State would just be another area of the SLiE.

Terry did not stop talking as they got back to walking at her "normal" pace. "I know that Robert". The tone would have cut glass. "I want to make sure my people have skills that they can use after the war. I don't know how to do that, and at the same time rebuild what we had to leave behind to ComStar. And the lasts thing I want is to fall into some kind of caste system where family groups are stuck in whatever work their family has always done in the past."

Robert was frowning as they walked, and then a sly smile came to his face. "Terry, you still have some liquid cash on hand?"

When he got a nod from her, Robert went right along with his line of thinking. "Then I know of a small unit that is made up of workmechs. The owner wants to set up a workmech school, and he was the primary instructor before he left the Inner Sphere. What better place than here for him to set up his full time school. I know that he is still settling in over near "The City" waiting for all of the paperwork to be done for his grand idea. You will have a lot of work for them to do, and that is good training at the same time for the students. Besides with all of the skills your people have picked up about cleaning up a battlefield of anything useful could now pay off. You could set up a school, and maybe a formalized maintainer's school that specialized in how to work on Industrial mechs and detailed battlefield recovery."

Robert stopped talking. "That foundry is making metal strong enough for internal structure for most types of workmechs, and you might even be able to make a few more, by using the fuel cell factory to supply you power plants to fit into them. You would basically be hand making them one at a time, but they would be new to this planet. You could even hire your nonmilitary people with heavy weapons to be a guard force on and maybe off the planet for limited missions. Come to think of it. If you can set up a combat recovery unit, which could help the SLDF in post battle issues? They might be able to pick up some contract work."

Robert was lost in thought about some of the odd things that he had seen on his travels around the less traveled areas under human control, but he was still talking. "I have seen armed Industrial mechs on planets before, and they aren't frakking much but there're better than nothing. I would not want to be in one of those things while someone is shooting at me, but it would be better than just having a Flak Vest and shirt between you and the incoming weapons fire."

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Don was walking around the field that was to wet and muddy for him, at least to muddy outside of his workmechs. A set of rain bands had come through before he had gotten out of the hover truck that had picked him up from McEvedy City. Don had been one of the first groups to be sent to New Circe from the Inner Sphere. First, he and his equipment had been hired to do some work at the Resort on Canopus. The last thing he had done before fully moving to the Resort, was to send his last batch of students back to their homes with freshly printed certificates of training. He had done some work on the Resort by himself, but when it was time for the first dropship load to lift off. Don had helped with the loading up of his six workmechs and all of the spare parts that he could get his greasy hands on that were not to overpriced. Don had not seen his workmechs again until he landed on this cold and wet planet, and he started working on his true desire.

Don had seen Jess a few times between the times that she told him about joining her people if he was still game. Still things had not gone as he had planned and hoped for. First off was that the school he had wanted to set up had been pushed back almost every week after he had unloaded onto New Circe. Don had been able to find work to do, but it was just enough work and paid good enough that it kept him from being able to work on his school idea. The local government, outside some higher place person, had not had the money/interest in helping him set up a business at least not with a war going on that was taxing them so badly. Don knew that they wanted a school like he had wanted to set up, but they just could not help him in any measurable way to get it set up or push the paperwork with enough horsepower…. until now.

The muddy field was a graveyard of broken combat gear that stretched out until it was lost in fog. Don was just killing time until this meeting was supposed to start today. He by now, was so used to hurry up and waiting, that it rarely bothered him anymore. He did find himself drawn to the group of fellow newcomers working on a ComStar painted Bombardier that had a huge hole were a torso and shoulder mounted LRM rack used to be. Don knew a lot about this mech, he had been drawn to the design when he had seen the first news report about them. It had been back when ComStar had sprung that surprise of the Com Guards on the whole Inner Sphere to protect HPG stations. So, he knew that the missing LRM was called a Delphinius-20 and that those launchers had not been made within the Inner Sphere not long after the 1st SW had ended.

Every head in the area looked over when a brightly painted hover car with an equally vivid painted soft top came into view in a wave of sound and wind driven brown water. The hover sedan came to a sudden stop, and a very pregnant woman and a man that Don had seen a few times exited the car near what was the main access point to this graveyard. Don was just lucky that he was near this point so that it was not socially awkward for both groups.

Robert held out his hand first and the two men shook hands in a business manner and not a warrior hand grip that was commonly used on this planet. "Don, thank you for coming out. This is my wife, Terry."

Don gave a slight bow to the ex-leader of a whole planet that had the guts to stand up to ComStar, more than once if the news stories were to be believed. By now the story of Duke Terry had made the rounds of the news services a few times. "Nice to meet you Duke, and congrats on your soon to be new addition to your family."

Robert smiled and Terry returned his bow, and then she was walking away to find the nearest bathroom that was not a bush. Then Robert turned back to look at the other man. "So, what do you think about the idea "we" sent you?"

Don gave the other man a level look and then looked back to the field of wrecked combat machines. "I think that I will join on as part of a new division of Terrier and Talos Manufactory. I have my six workmechs, but I would need to find five other pilots that want to learn what I have to teach them. I have two logger mechs, two hauler mechs, and two construction mechs, with enough spare parts on hand to last a few years of hard use. But those should be enough to have the physical parts of the workmech training covered."

Don looks over at the egg-shaped dropship being slowly cut up. "I don't think you want green students to help with the scrapping of that thing."

Don had heard about the issues when the local council had overruled the first contract and sold the military dropship, only to have it fail inspection so badly the SLDF Navy had condemned the dropship as a wrecked hulk. The SLiE had demanded and gotten a refund on the transferred funds for the pink slip of that Union. Now the newcomers were going to have to scrap it where it sat. The locals would not even let them do a onetime flight to a space port to do the work, were it would have been both cheaper and easier to do this complicated task without getting someone killed.

Don turned and waved his hand over the field in a general way. "You know that we could put a pole barn up over this whole area out of local trees? It would keep the area mostly dry, well, unless we get hit with a major storm or one with high winds to get in under the roof. I can use the local area for pilot training and this area has a good mix of terrain. Also, this work can be done on the barn for fine control training of the new workmech's pilots."

In Don's mind's eye, he saw his workmechs hauling the huge local trees supplied by his loggermechs. And then those same huge trees were bashed deep into the mud by the construction machines. Don also saw where he could have his school built under the Pole Barn first in light wood and then a harder skin some time later. It would take time to get everything built, but he could take the first step in a few days, if they were willing and these two were willing to open their check book enough to get the work done.

Don's eyes fell on to a Wasp or Stinger light mech and then his eyes fell on the Wakazashi Enterprises made Bombardier. Next his eyes fell onto a pair of light Scorpion tanks with towing cables spread out in the mud. "You know? I have a lot of stuff about how to modify workmechs and tanks into nonstandard designs. Construction machines are still in short supply, but have you thought about using some of these wrecks to fill the same roles as workmechs? I think you could use that bug mech refitted with two hands for general lifting. And with that Delphinius-20 rack missing from the Bombardier? You could put in a pile driver, cutting torch, and lifting arm in its place. The SRMs could still be used to fire foam rockets when things go wrong on a work site. Those death trap Scorpion tanks can ditch those autocannons for all kinds of attachments to turn them into something useful."

Robert didn't say anything for long seconds. "Really? Why don't we take a walk, and you show me more about your ideas?" The two men went off for a walk around the muddy field, but they soon were joined by Terry. At that point Don had to retell all of the ideas that he had come up with in the walk around the field.

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It only took a few more weeks to get the Fuel Cell factory up and running thanks to a lot of effort made by Terry when it had taken its first move. They were not up to full speed of mass production of FCE, but they had gotten the bugs worked out and new members of the staff were now trained up for the needed tasks now that the factory was put back together. The first production Fuel Cell units to come slowly off of the factory's line were lower powered "Civilian" grade engines that massed less than 250kg each. These were going to people who had their own private transports, and that had needed a replacement engine due to age or other issues with the power supply. Engines of this class were in such short supply. That many people were willing to risk buying new engines, from a new factory, from a new company, and made by people that were living on a low tech home planet only a very few short months ago. No way how you looked at it, it was a major risk for those buying those newly made engines.

Within a week of that engine class going on to the open market, a special 450kg class fuel cell engine was starting to come off the lines. That type of engine was mostly used for light and medium class cargo trucks and hard usage by the new owners. Soon those sizes of engines had started to be shipped out for some military usage and some civilian buyers.

There were over a million people on this planet, but it would not take long for one market to be filled with these products. TTM already had plans for making two more different classes of Fuel Cell engines, just like they had done on their old home. One of the classes of engine on the drawing board was going for the farming equipment market and the other one was going to go into the slowly increasing number of workmechs in this system. Granted most of the new style of workmechs were odd and with a base coat of white paint. But they still were listed as workmechs and not combat machines….for now. Also, a list was supplied to TTM by the SLiE government of all of the sizes of Fuel Cell engines that they could use, at least in small runs. It was a lot longer than the first list that Terry and Robert had been given.

A surprise meeting with the Colonials would change the economics of both New Circe and the Inner sphere while the Victorians were still getting the first run of their Fuel Cell engines done. It was at a dinner party that Terry was holding as the head of TTM. The idea for the party was that Terry would be showing off the planned product lines of this new company. One of the attendees was the head engineer of a repair ship that had just finished some work on the Colonial Flagship after her latest round of combat against the Cylon Empire. He was talking with Robert and Terry, and the subject came up about all of the marginal worlds on the edge of the Inner Sphere. He could not understand why it was reported that air and water filter systems were broken or had been damage for a number of different reasons. But nothing was being done to effect repairs on those simple but very critical infrastructure devices.

The words and tone that had been used did not go over well with a woman in Terry's current condition. It could have been chocked up to hormones, or it was just that Terry tended to have a short fuse when dealing with jerks that had too much to drink. Terry normally would have grabbed the jerk by the throat and bodily slammed him into the nearest wall, if she had been back home. Instead, she made a pointed suggestion that he come up with a way to fix them, if it was as easy as he seemed to think that it was.

That was when she found out that the old colonial BattleStar had duel use atmospheric and water processing systems built into her hull. It was set up with a system that only massed 20tons, and they could supply the whole ship with both clean water and air no matter how dirty or contaminated it was when it had been loaded into the closed system. She even had three backups for the main systems in case of battle damage. There was nothing special about what it was made of, only in how it worked together as a total system. It was so good, that it had not been radically changed in over a hundred years. Only the cost and mass penalty kept it from being put on every ship that moved on the space ways of the Colonies of Kobal.

This statement opened up a full-blown meeting the following day with a lot more technical data being shared between the Victorians, Colonials, and the Wolverines. It was found out that the air and water cleaning system were not that high tech of a device in reality. Oh, and they had been used even before there was a Colonial Navy that needed to be fitted with them. They were little better than Age of War technology, but it was just a very different way of doing the cleaning than what the Star League or anyone else had used before. At what should have been towards the end of the meeting, it was found out that they were also easily scalable.

The Colonial Navy used the same setup in all of their warships going from barely warship sized GunStars to the massive Nova class BattleStar that had just started being commissioned before the Cylon attack. The only difference was the size for the filtering instillation on the different warships. You would just add more components to support the larger spaceships or space stations. That was something that the Star League had not done, at least it was not known to have been done in any database or stories that those in this room could find…..And they all had looked very hard to find this information over the coming years.

It was going to work out, much like in the early days of the Cylon War. But instead of the Wolverines helping the Colonials in getting their feet under them and starting up businesses. It was going to be that the Colonials that were going to help Terry's people and the Victorians, and all of the groups were going to see benefits of this partnership. As soon as they were going to be able. Then Terrier and Talos Manufactory would start production of Colonial tech air and water cleaner/filtering systems solely for the export market. But they would be modified to work with Inner Sphere support air and water processors support systems.

The first units would be made on the Colonial repair ships, but both groups would split the proceeds of any sales of these devices to the Inner Sphere. That was when the SLiE stepped in and threw a battleship sized monkey wrench into the whole game plan. They said that there were not any production areas that was not needed to support the war effort. The bone the SLiE brought to the table to get a cut of this surprise pie. It was that they said the Lyssa had underutilized capabilities that could be tasked instead of using hard to find assets in this star system.

It was admitted that she could not make the same amounts of filtering systems in a given time frame, at first. But the Lyssa also was a lot closer to the users, and they could react that much quicker into getting orders filled and then dropping those orders to the buyers. Given enough time, they might even be able to get as fast as any one of the factories in the New Circe system might be able to perform. If they needed more room? They could always move production to the growing number of tunnels on the Super Earth that the Lyssa was floating over. The airlocks and other systems were already made on the Lyssa to support this exploring, terra forming, and mining mission on the huge planet.

All of the "new" filter units would be made to look like the parts had come from an old Age of War or early Star League age factory, one that could be from anywhere within the Inner Sphere. These modifications were not that much of a stretch for the design teams. But making the operational manuals, so that they could also be sold, were going to look strange. Aging digital files was an art form unto itself and not a science. It would take longer to age those files, than it would take to build enough of the units to supply a dome with the same population as what the Galactica carried in her most overcrowded state fleeing the Cylons. Still, they would only have to age those files one time for them to get years of copies out of that work.

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Notes:

Maeve Wolf. She was listed as being General Maeve Wolf in Mercenary's Handbook 3055.

Why can't New Circe help Duke Terry's people like they did with the Colonials or Victorians? At that time the Wolverines were not at war, and they had a large amount of supplies stockpiled. They also had a lot of free manpower, and that is not the case after so many years of a very taxing war with the Cylon Empire.

Current Dragoon navy (for those reeding this on Fanficnet): Alexander (Aegis heavy cruiser) Beowulf (Congress Frigate), Darius and Nelson (Lola III Destroyer), Athena (Sovetskii Soyuz heavy cruiser) and Mars (Vincent MK 42).

Side notes: When I started writing this story... back in 2012 this was going to be the end. Now, do not worry. I have more story ideas and more than a few loose ends. Now why are they making air and water filters for the Inner Sphere. The SLiE are having a very hard time keeping up with the war effort, and soon they would run out of weapons that they can trade to the Inner Sphere that they could not also use.

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