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.

83. Chapter 83 March 3053

Chapter 83

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

The Split system

March 3053

Robert Copeland Commodore (retired) looked over to his wife that was sharing the bridge of his jumpship with him. All he could do was smile about all of the strange things that had happened over the last few months in his life. One of the major changes was this was now "his" jumpship, and not just another member of the SLDF and its Navy. It even said so on the title paperwork that he held a copy of and was safely in the well made safe built into his main cabin. Owners' papers were one of the most inspected items on jumpships of the Inner Sphere going back centuries. The original documents and a copy of the edited document was being held back on New Circe. Robert had also made sure that certified copies were also filed with his lawyer as his back up plans if things became complicated. Robert had been "retired" out of active service for the SLiE not long after his last return to New Circe with his pregnant very soon to be wife. That had caused more than a few waves to be launched in the public, private, and family venues.

Robert had to fight to keep a smile from coming to his face and leaving him open for someone to ask what he was thinking. That little issue about Terry and the bun in her oven had not gone over very well with some members of his large and very extended family that was so common for the people that called New Circe home. Robert had even taken the time to warn almost every person in his family about his future plans to have another wife…soonish. That is if things worked out the way he wanted them to. After all it was not his fault that some of that extended family had not been paying attention to what he had been saying.

Now ending a marriage and remarrying was not an unknown family event for someone within Clan Wolverine to have to deal with in their lifetime. It was common for people to split up and then to find new partners if they were living to be over 120 years old on a regular basis. Clan Wolverine needed to make sure that all of those genes were spread and remixed around as much as possible. The fact that Robert was a widower made remarrying just that much easier for him to work through in the legal way. It was just something that happens when you're dealing with the average life spans so commonly found on New Circe and mixed in with a military mindset. More than a few people on New Circe were a little conflicted by this event even if the outline was mostly a common practice.

So, a waddling Terry had come down the aisle with Robert arm and arm for the official ceremony, and the two had officially tied the knot a few minutes later. Not long after that event was done, and all of the right paperwork was filed with the government, and it was legal. Terry Copeland had given birth to the little monster after a dozen hours of very hard labor. And what a labor it had been! And OHHH what names Terry had called Robert while she and everyone around her was enduring that labor. Even the vaulted medications available for the SLiE to use had not been up to the task of dealing with the pain of giving birth to the little boy that Terry had been carrying for the last nine months. It was the pain equivalent of like using an oven mitt to handle spent nuclear reactor rods, it's just not going to work.

Fetal Macrosomia was a well-known issue even to the non-medical minded of the men and women of New Circe for generations already. Only no one had told Terry about that particular issue when she had been "seeing" Robert on his trips to the Inner Sphere. If she had not been on the birthing table at the time of being told that this was a common issue for new mothers, Robert should have been a man in fear for his very life. But like all things in this world, it had come to an end and a new baby was added to the roles of what had been Clan Wolverine. That didn't mean that Terry was going to be that forgiving of Robert when she was released from the maternity ward of the main hospital of McEvedy City. She was just waiting and planning her pay back. After all esprit de corps is a French word for…misery loves company.

Terry Copeland was ready to get back to "work" a few weeks after giving birth to the newest additional branch to the already well-developed family tree called Copeland. The last few weeks of Terry's pregnancy had left her restricted to only three rooms of Robert's home or risk the life of both the baby and the mother. That would be the bedroom, bathroom, and a common place in the home to eat in a sitting position. Let's just say that this medical direction had not gone over well with one Terry Copeland. It was only thinks to the technology available to the average home on New Circe, that she didn't lose more of her mental marbles while she was almost under house arrest by doctors' orders. She was one of those people who could not stay still or even slow moving for any measurable length of time. Well, any time that was measured above a few weeks even on vacation. Jumpship travel had been the normal limit, but even then. She had always planned ahead, and she would do some work that needed to be done on those interstellar trips.

Terry also had very poor mothering skills; in another life she would have told people that she understood why lions eat their young and not be joking about it. Luckily this was something that she had known about for some time. It was also something that she and Robert had talked about this not small issue after the bun was baking in the oven so to speak. She had at least first thought that this problem might have changed with the loss of her only child in the first overthrow attempt on her planet. But they had made some plans in case this had not changed in any measurable way; it was a case of better to be prepared. Then the pair had planned out some things that would lead to their future while they waited for nature to take its course. Again, both of these things were nothing new for the people of New Circe to have to deal with. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, and it was something that the genetic management and research teams had not been able to work out.

Besides helping in the setting up of Terrier and Talos Manufactory within only a few weeks of landing on New Circe. Robert had rapidly finished selling a list of items that had been in storage in many locations on the planet. Some of those items were the ones that Lora had wanted to thin her goods by for some time. Other items were sold without her direct permission, but Robert was looking after these parts of her assets for her. Robert felt that it was a case of selling them or soon many of the items would lose almost all of their "Current" estimated value. The cash generated by Lora's items were put into a Fund that was managed by a professional at that kind of thing and freed up Robert from this roll. The last thing that Robert and Terry wanted to have, was even more possible legal actions filed against them by some 3rd person or party with too much free time on their hands or funded by someone else with an ax to grind.

Robert had pitched his "good" idea to Terry even before they had gotten married, and then the pair had talked to SLIC after the pair had done some very hard mental sweating rounding out the base idea Robert had worked out months before. That last meeting had taken longer to work through than the pair had feared, by a few orders of magnitude. SLIC had never liked any ideas that they had not been first thought of with "vetted" presentations to prove out "their" ideas. Most of the key leaders and almost all of the middle managers within SLIC had major cases of very well hidden and difficult to prove in a court of law of "not invented here" syndrome.

By the time of this meeting Robert had been able to raise enough money, with the help of his wife to fund this plan. They were now able to buy the old jumpship he had known for more than a few decades. It had taken the sale of the Mammoth class dropship to the SLDF to raise the rest of the money needed to fund their idea, but it had been done. All of that work had been completed even before the pair had walked into SLIC's main office for the first time to pitch their now greatly modified plan.

Robert had to sell every last slip of stock that he had held in Callahan Munitions or that he had legal control of for operational funds after the big-ticket items were financially covered. He had not tapped all of his personal wealth, but it was a lot of what was called "liquid wealth" under his name to support this project. That also had made many within Copeland's family very upset with Robert…. again. It would seem that many of his family had been thinking that they would be getting some of his amassed wealth when Robert was done with this life or maybe just a little before. The bad part was that Robert was not surprised by most of the moves or even who had made them. That had been one of the reasons that he had done things the way that he had in the first place.

When this legal challenge was first formally brought up, Robert had told them something about counting chickens before they had hatched and walked out of the lawyer's office. Robert had already decided that he was going to leave it up to the legal system to work out. The Lawyers got paid no matter what the ruling Judge would say in this case. As it turned out the reviewing judge ruled in Robert's favor, and he had also put a financial fine on the people that had filed the lawsuit for wasting the courts time. Still, it was an up-hill battle to get SLIC to sign onto the core idea of Robert's even after the legal case was filed away to be used as case law in the future.

Now Robert and Terry Copeland owned a freshly serviced modified Tramp jumpship that was known as the Styx, a Mule class cargo dropship, and a CV modified Triumph class of dropship to act as the escort for the merchant ships. The Mule and the carrier had been completely repainted and the old IFF systems were ripped out. If this was a "regular" SLDF mission, then at this late date, there could be some advantages to be had by letting everyone know that these were two captured ComStar vessels. But that offered more downsides than upsides for Robert and Terry. At some later date, they could play that hold card for a large payout. But as with any large payout…it also came with some very large risks that would need to be taken.

Now all of those space assets were also listed as being part of Terrier and Talos Manufactory on a planet that was called Hogar. This was in any documentation that might be found on them or the data banks on any of the ships. Back on New Circe it was listed that the company was wholly owned by Robert and Terry Copeland with a staff to cover things when they were out of contact with the home planet. The press on New Circe was not willing to put much effort into covering this story, but it was picked up in specialty reports and publications from around the planet. Only SLIC was not connected to the filed stories as a matter of OPSEC. That was not that effective on New Circe, and many people had been able to connect the dots. Those people that connected those dots were smart enough not to say anything about it or at least not say anything in public.

######

While the M/V Styx was carrying those two dropships on a mission? That just left the last docking collar on the Jumpship open for renting out to the SLiE, Colonials, or Victorians if they needed it and had the funds for a charter. But that was not the only way that the TTM owned Styx could move cargos around the stars. Well, it was a mode available only as long as no one from the Inner Sphere saw them doing something like this.

Due to some of the modifications that had been done years ago, dropship collars were not the only way that some of the long spaceships could move cargo. Thanks to the warship now called the SLS Nike, it had been first called Missionary Movement Operations (MMO) in official documentation. That label had been used when one of the two Colonial Battlestars had to give the AI warship support when she had broken down before making her trip all of the way to New Circe. That name had lasted until someone over in the Colonial City state had looked up the meaning of that name, and then taken the time to translate it for some of the Colonial press networks talk news shows using very small words. That had quickly gone over like a fart in a car.

After some sharp words and some bad PR slapped all over the SLiE and the SLDF Navy in particular. That method of moving large cargos that might or might not have a "normal" jump drive would start using a very old word, again it was a word that had been supplied by the SLS Nike in all communications. After some very detailed checking done by both the SLiE, Colonials, and more than a few third parties to make sure that there were not any more political land mines. Only then was the term "super cargo" allowed to be added to the SLDF lexicon for use on any official reports. And you can guess what term was more popular to be use by the crews doing the work, but only as long as they were not the crew on the ship that was needing the lifting. It also quickly developed into a very popular first statement to get a good bar fight going at bars near spaceports.

The last major delay in getting the final parts of Robert's and Terry's plan going, had been because they had to find crews for both the jumpship and for the two TTM owned Dropships. The ships and crews on these vessels were no longer listed as auxiliaries or even as active members of the SLDF Navy. In fact, most of the crewmembers needed for these vessels were more or less Colonials even if a third of that number had never seen more than one planet in "real" colonial space.

Now the M/V Styx was just like any other interstellar ship that had been Colonial and now would be supporting the fight against the Cylon Empire outside of direct combat. That had been the part of the plan that the legal departments of the SLDF, SLIC, and the civilian side of the SLiE had the hardest time working out to everyone's satisfaction and the results still be a viable plan. It was only thanks to some grey side deals that any of this was possible to pull off in the end.

Thanks to the Colonial made artificial gravity plating, this crew would be made up of families complete with any dependent children that they wanted to bring along for long missions. Many of the crewmembers on this mission would be doing double duty as teachers for the underage crews on these three ships. This was something that was "normal" going all the way back to the second and later waves of people leaving Terra. In other words, it was something that should have been normal to see on jumpship lines going all the way back to before the founding of the Star League much less the start of the Succession Wars. It was not common for large shipping lines, but your "mom and pop" shipping companies that made up over half of the total number of Jumpships active in the Inner Sphere would do much the same kind of thing.

To be able to work in space, support the home planet, be waved from most medical checks, and not have to leave your family behind for months on end all were highly effective recruitment tools for the Copeland's to use. Having underage people on the ships caused another issue for SLIC, and some of the SLiE's health professionals that still had not gotten used to dealing with some of the changes brought on by the Colonials and Cylon POWs. Some of them waved red flags about kids in extended time in Zero G or just by being off of New Circe. Those medical professionals had been more than a little embarrassed when current space designs had been explained to them, again. That didn't mean that some of them didn't keep waving those same red flags that had just been debunked.

#######

Now thanks to the Colonial designed and made jumpdrive that the SLDF Navy had put into the old Tramp years ago, she could also be used to "tow" or super cargo larger spaceships that did not have this marvel of technology within their hulls. That towing service was now officially called "moving super cargo" on the SLiE and SLDF Navy contract paperwork that Robert and Terry had signed. This mission to the Split system was going to be the first time that the Styx had returned, after Jules had brought the old jumpship in from some much needed maintenance and many overdue inspections on the multi hundred year old vessel. That much needed maintenance had been done in one of the few repair slips that the SLDF Navy had access to over New Circe. So now strapped to the outer hull of the Tramp class jumpship was the third corvette class of warship going to the Inner Sphere.

Unlike the last two warships that the SLiE had traded to the Inner Sphere, she was not going to any of "the normal" Inner Sphere governments as most people in that area thought about those things. This one was going to the mercenary unit known as the Wolf's Dragoons, a name well known within the Inner Sphere, Clan Space and by a large number of the people that called New Circe home. It also was the last Vincent class warship that could be moved to a new owner from the SLiE. The rest of the old hulls of this class or maybe hulk was a better word about what remained on hand. The rest of the SLiEs Vincent class warships were thought to only be good enough for scrap or spare parts. Many within the support units to the Navy thought that those remaining were old and weakened hulls could be a risk even to try to ship out of the New Circe system again.

It was a good bet that those metal scraps would be melted down and recast into something that could better support the war effort against the Cylon Empire. Any spare parts that could not be used or modified in some way to be useful to the current fleet of the SLiE would be listed as high end trade items for the Inner Sphere. If they were judged to not be worth the effort? Then they would be cast into the foundry with the other recycled metals or newly mined ores. The SLiE might be getting short on "normal" heavy weapons to fight a major war, but the Inner Sphere was not. And now at least three of those Inner Sphere power blocks were starting to field their own warships and reports were coming in to SLIC that soon every power within the Inner Sphere would be going for that particular coveted brass ring.

The SLiE still had a pair of Bonaventure warships matched to a twin set of Vigilant class corvettes that could be made fully effective with very little support outside of replacing all of the seals on the small warships. The SLiE also had now three recovered Makos class vessels and even a pair of Pintos that all were operating in a loose sense of the word and that this version of the SLDF Navy had no plan on using in the future. Both the SLiE and SLDF thought that those classes of warships would use up too many people and at the same time be too fragile for this war. In short, they were not worth the time or effort for the SLDF.

The rest of the corvette class warships that had been recovered by the SLDF were mostly to be cannibalized for parts to support the rebuilding of some of the other "trade" warships. They also would be used to pad the rapidly depleting warships class stock of spare parts that was on hand for New Circe to use. Robert thought that soon there would be a contract put out by the SLiE to any of the nonmilitary ships being run out of New Circes to move those nine remaining small warships to the Split star system one at a time. From there, it was hoped that they would be able to trade those small warships to the Inner Sphere would be in short order.

What was being traded for this warship that the Styx was carrying were the design specs and what was needed to start limited scale production of the core group of Clan ground Omnis, at least data wise. The Dragoons also were going to throw in a Rose class dropship filled with the tools needed to make many Clan tech weapons at least in a low rate level of production. It also would be filled with other hard to find production tools that were used to make other parts for war fighting weapons that were commonly used by the old Star League or during the Golden Age of the clans. In short it was a lot of stuff that New Circe could very badly use in its current war.

######

Robert knew, from a friend of a friend, that a larger warship was wanted by the Dragoons. Then again everyone wanted larger warships, even the SLiE. But the Dragoons would be able to use small warships as schools or even as scouts. The latest report from SLIC, to be given to only naval commanders or higher ranked, had said that the Dragoons and the FedCom seemed to have had a sudden windfall of warships that were mostly functional. That might cause an issue about selling these small warships, but no one knew for sure. It would be up to the agents of SLIC to find out these new facts or if things worked out, it would be found by Robert Copeland.

It was also reported that this was such a large windfall, as so that the Dragoons and FedCom had set up a joint warship school in the Outreach system. The FedCom already had two small schools that had originally been set up to support the training of the still building transport corvette warship's crews. Not so quietly, they had set up one small school on each of the main sides of the FedCom, along with the larger one that the Dragoons were reported to be running. It would be a few more months before the first FedCom student officers were thought to arrive for the command school already working in Outreach.

SLIC thought that thanks to the rules of economy of size and data sent back using the TacFax, that the Dragoons were the leads in these schools. The Black Ocean Navy school in Outreach would be able to pump out over four times the student load of the smaller schools, all for very low risk to the Dragoons. Oh, and the FedCom would be picking up almost the whole tab for expanding and then maintaining this warship school in Outreach. That was a bill estimated by the number boys and girls living in the lower levels in SLIC to be to the tune of a few Billion C-Bills a year. It was expected to be even larger of a bill, at least when that school went through another round of expansion needed to fill these newly found windfall of warships. The odds were that the next Dragoon expansion of the warship school would be done before the two satellite schools were going to be able to finish their first expansion on both sides of the FedCom after being fully set up. This would keep the Dragoon Warship school the largest within the FedCom.

Now Jaime was going to trade all of the data that Khan Kerlin Ward had given to Jaime back in 3019 to the SLiE. The Dragoons also had a second data core to trade that had a copy of all of the clan data that had been collected to date as of when Jaime had started on this fast trip to this part of the Inner Sphere. This fast trip was being done without hopefully any spies knowing that Jaime was not where he was supposed to be. Data on the SLiE side was more limited. So, things like information on or even hands on copies of the Wolverine LR PPC were not on the table, and it would not ever be the case even if the Dragoons ever found out about them. That could change if the SLiE got even more limited on what they could trade for the top of the line equipment they needed to prosecute this war against the Cylon Empire. After all, even England traded the Merlin engine and Radar when they thought it was that or lose to a German invasion of their home islands back in 1940.

Carrying super cargo or cargo carried in the dropships owned by other groups were not the only ways that the TTM jumpship and her masters were going to make money. One way was that TTM had funded the purchase of some cargos that would be traded within the Inner Sphere outside what the SLiE had set up. Thanks to Terry and Robert's experience, they had a good idea about what could be traded without crossing a line that the lawyers would notice. Also, SLIC was renting some space on the Styx to run a mobile HPG on this run, and they also would use that rented space to use the TacFax to support SLIC missions deeper within the Inner Sphere. It was noted that SLIC might not need this rental all the time, but it would be good money for TTM to claim when they did rent that space.

While Robert "might" not be able to access military grade information from the SLIC team renting space on his ship. It was still going to be a major help with communications on this mission in many ways. It was going to be great for Terry to keep in touch, in emergencies, with the head office of her defense company back on New Circe. That usage would fall under a military necessity for the SLDF to help fight the war. The downside was that now the SLDF Navy, SLIC, and some of the departments within the SLiE could reach out to both of them anytime they wanted. That was definitely going to be a pain for Robert and Terry to have to deal with.

######

Jaime Wolf played with his fake beard with his right hand as he was lost in deep thought. Now that he had turned over command of the Dragoons to a younger generation in all but name. He could now spend more of "his free" time traveling around the Inner Sphere, but without all of the pomp and showmanship that had been his life for the last almost 50 years. High on that list of traveling, was that Jaime wanted to see more of the people who were looking more and more like what remained of Clan Wolverine and not just in name. One part of Jaime's mind was worried that these people were not just a group of survivors from one of the surviving splinter fleets at the end of "that war."

The Gutbuster IER PPC or Bear Slayer were almost proof enough for him to say that they were from the No Named Clan when it had first shown up on the open markets of the Inner Sphere. Then there had been the meeting between Maeve with one of "their" agents that had made it all the way to Outreach without Wolf Net connecting the dots in time to be of any use. Even though no one had seen any Mercury IIs or Pulverizer classes of battlemechs being used by this odd group or anyone that was connected to them. Still there was already a lot of other evidence that was not useable in a court of law and still could impact the court of public opinion.

Not that it really matters, other than that Jaime really wanted to now know how it was possible for "that clan" to still be alive after what they had been put through by the combined power of all of the Clans and the son of the founder. It had been an internal joke of the Dragoons whenever some report had been made around the mercenary network that connected the Dragoons to the Minnesota tribe back before the coming of the Clans. There also was a part of Jaime's mind that wanted to find out how this group changed after they had left the Pentagon Worlds.

That would have been a nonstarter on working with the Dragoons or any clanner early in his career. It had only been after the Dragoons had taken Outreach and then some of the older non clan raised members of the Dragoons started asking some very hard questions about the history of the Clans they were being taught. Some of the few remaining Dragoon members raised solely in Clan space had not like those questions made by the fosters or new Inner Sphere Sibko raised generations of Dragoons. When those growing groups didn't seem to get any satisfaction with those questions, they went looking for the answers all on their own.

Some of the older Dragoons had dug in their heels in on the dogma that they knew and so it must be the truth. But still most of the current Dragoons were like Jaime, and they had accepted that maybe the stories they had been raised on in Clan space were not totally true. They had seen something like this happening time after time while they had worked with the different house lords of the Inner Sphere. It was just a matter of whoever's point of view and what ax was being grinded on what story was pushed the most.

Surprisingly it was the new weapons filling the holes opened in the Com Guards order of battle that was helping this internal adjustment along within some of the other Dragoons. Now it was common to see a few old Rim World designed mechs like Jackrabbit and Dragoon on news reports that even the average person around the Inner Sphere could access. Then there were the detailed field reports about the proxy battle for Terra, and then the reports that the FedCom had released about Odessa. Also, the recruiting adds for the Com Guards and the splinter groups were showing those old Rim World designs.

The back story on many of those old Rim World mechs were making it around the news services like a tidal wave of information. There now were reports just being seen in the intelligence briefings about the odd Phoenix and even the old Rampage class mechs being seen in some of the more radical splinter groups of ComStar. Right now, it looked like to Wolf Net that groups like Blake's Will seemed to have a lot more of the different old Rim World designs outside of the Dragoon and Jackrabbits in ComStar use, but they were not the only ones now using those cursed mechs in their order of battle. It was a truly lively time to be alive for a mech junky.

Jaime Wolf was currently riding on an updated Tramp class jumpship outfitted with clan made Lithium-Fusion batteries to feed its massive jump engines to really cover the interstellar distance quickly. This jumpship also had been fitted with a mobile HPG system that was crewed by a mixed group of Nova Cats free born, fosters, and Dragoons. Currently most of the massive Dragoon jumpship fleet was acting as liquid fund generators now that all of the Dragoon units were back on Outreach in a rebuilding phase.

At the same time some of those Dragoon crewed jumpships had been outfitted with a 50ton mobile HPG generator hidden in their hulls. Some of those modified jumpships were being used to keep Jaime in touch with the rest of the Dragoons on Outreach or Odessa outside of needing ComStar support. It was just hoped that if anyone found out about Jaime being off of Outreach that they would keep it to themselves. The cover story ready to be given to any agents close to the Dragoons, was that The Wolf wanted to take a little vacation and have a site seeing tour. But please respect his request for privacy. Some of the players within Wolf Net thought that this would only start an Inner Sphere sized game of "Where is Waldo".

The ex-clan Tramp class jumpship was packing an old Star League grade Titan, a Monarch class passenger liner, and a Rose class cargo dropship on her three collars. The passenger liner and cargo dropship were serving two tasks on this mission. That is besides the needed mission of carrying the needed cargo and supplying the mission with some extra sleeping areas. Those two dropships also were supplying the needed fuel bunkers so that the jumpship could charge her drives without needing to use her jump sail. Besides using the fusion engine, the jump sail was also used to charge the drives and batteries when they were near a star. The jumpship also had been using any convenient recharge stations along the way to speed this trip along just that much more despite the added cost. That had been a risk, but Wolf Net had a lot of fake IFF codes that were not currently being used. Most of them were codes that even LIC, and MIIO didn't know about.

Jaime could not just travel alone, that was not going to be allowed by the key leaders of the Dragoons. When the mission was finally launched, Jaime had a mixed unit of guardians and command staff assigned to "help him" after he had left Odessa. That departure had been while the battle was still very active on the surface of Odessa III. Besides the normal crewmembers needed to be carried to support these dropships, fighters, Jaime's staff, and the jumpship. There were 115 more passengers that would be taking command of the newest of the Wolf's Dragoon warships. This was one of the reasons that the Alexander had not been used to support the assault on the Odessa system, but the FedCom leaders were told a cover story at the time that she still had major computer support issues. Jaime had his doubts that the leader of the FedCom or MIIO totally believed the cover story about the Alexander, but that could be worked out later. Coming up with another operational warship due to a little white life fell into the "beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission."

With all of the destroyer sized warships that the Dragoons had claimed was almost too much of a good thing for the Dragoons. It would be a few years before the Black Lion and Athena could be repaired enough to need even a skeleton crew. But that windfall had been after the arrangements had been made to buy this small warship. It was only a corvette class warship, but a warship was a warship, and something can always be done with one of those in your cupboard. On top of that this small warship was in already in working condition if not fully ready to go to war, at least that was what the contract said it should be in that condition. So far, these guys had not been dishonest.

It might now be called a Blockade Runner by those that the Dragoons had made the deal with, but it was still a warship. Jaime now was thinking that it had been a good call that the main plan did need to be changed, and now this vessel along with the Mars after it was repaired were not going to be combat or even used for scouting outside of the Outreach system. Both of these warships would be the core of the warship training unit. But if things went very badly, then they could be used to defend the Dragoon's planet.

The Dragoon's had over doubled the number of warships for their people to use, and the Dragoons already had a problem manning what they had. It was not like they could send word back to Clan Wolf and the Clan Counsel that they needed more trained warship's crew. The Dragoons were going to have to take a page out of the Blake's Will in moving all of those "new" warships back to Outreach…at least the functional ones. They would just use one or two teams of warship crews to do the hard work and then used "normal" dropships and jumpships to rapidly take them back to the pickup point for another run of moving a pair of warships to Outreach. The Dragoon crews even were going to have to help the FedCom move some of their share of the captured capital assets to more secure locations, but at least the Dragoons would be paid for that work instead of covering the cost out of hide of the large mercenary unit.

Thanks to the almost double push that had been rising up the general tech level of the whole Inner Sphere. Warships and other cutting edge weapons were not so shocking to see around the Inner Sphere by the end of this year. That is not to say that it was common to see or even read about one, but it was getting less and less rare every week in most parts of the Inner Sphere. The first tech uplifting push had been started by slowly decoding of the Helm's library core. But the second push had been the push that "these people" had started on this side of the Inner Sphere. After all it was almost impossible for the political groups on this edge of the Inner Sphere to get access to even a small part of the Helm's core.

At first the only truly new weapons technology to come out of all of this uplifting for the whole Inner Sphere had been the Bear Slayer class PPC that was first seen in the MoC. Even then that was just an improved Star League era H class ER PPC with some out of the box thinking added in. But with that one weapon and a steady supply of "new" late Star League tech weapons. That had kicked the local area into making Late Star League grade weapons in numbers that seemed to be taking off like a rocket as this part of the Inner Sphere recovered after centuries of back sliding. This new source of supplying that amount of technology to the open market had pushed other areas to recover, and the lucky find on Cate's Hold had poured gas on the fire for funds flowing into at least the MoC.

Then there had been accelerated production and buying coming from ComStar being spread out all over the Inner Sphere on the sly by ROM. Wolf Net had not known what was driving that push even after they had first found the battle site that held what remained of a battle between warships. That changed when it turned out to have been a space battle between ComStar and some people from off the edge of the map. The funds raised by the selling of Star League level early ER PPC's and then H class to the rest of the militaries of the Inner Sphere had been a major cash cow for the MoC. Those taxes and funds had been reinvested into the MoC. It had not taken long for a feedback loop of economic revitalization to be set up and for it to start working its magic.

#######

When the Bear Slayer first came onto the market? The Dragoons had quickly worked out a way to make their own copy that had allowed the Dragoons to put even more weapons on the open market. Those funds had been a major boost to helping build up Jaime's Regiments and infrastructure. When the Dragoon warships had shown up in Outreach, which had caused a problem for the Dragoons, at first. That issue had been when MIIO was let into the secret of those now ex clan Warships. More than a few within Wolf Net were surprised that both sides of the FedCom had been clueless about the Dragoons warships for so many months. After they had been getting repaired for the last five months on the Olympus based shipyard the Dragoons had also rebuilt, the cat started getting out of the bag.

Then Jaime had been able to trade access to those six warships for help building a support infrastructure for the building of a warship repair and fitting slip that would be publicly seen at the commercial jump point in the Outreach system. The core of that facility had been supplied by the FedCom from one of the many wrecked shipyards from around the FedCom. It had at first been slow going in the bringing of that "new" slip going into operation, but then it had caught up when the FedCom had started adding warship production to their "black budget" as well as the public budget. And a large chunk of those added funds were going to the Dragoons for their support of this construction.

Now the Wolf's Dragoons were also bringing in money by supporting repairing more and more Jumpships as well as fully supporting the six ship warship fleet that was slowly being leaked to the rest of the Inner Sphere. And soon that mercenary fleet would grow to be over a dozen warships fleet under the Dragoon flag. It would take a long time to build a new warship design from scratch, and the cost was too far outside of what the Dragoons could do for the next few decades. That was even going to be a challenge for something as large as the FedCom much less a mercenary unit. But the Dragoons and FedCom could afford to fix some of the reported issues that had been found by the Dragoons with those SLDF designed warships. Reports about warships that had not been seen through the blinders that ComStar or the Clans had been wearing about warships.

#######

Jaime was lost in thought as his mind wondered about all of the nice and new weapons that were starting to fill the ranks of "his" Dragoons in ever growing numbers. The large Dragoon team on Solaris looking at the Steiner's protection device on their arena held a lot of promise. It was hoped that the energy barrier could open a lot more and new weapons doors to the Dragoons. The future was wide open, and Jaime thought that while the Clans had some better scientists, the Inner Sphere had hundreds for every clan scientist.

The corner of Jaime's mouth turned down at thinking about clan society. His mind went to some of the bondsmen that had fallen into Dragoon hands. With the losses that Kappa and Iota battalions had taken in the operation over Odessa IV. The ranks of combat rated risky bondsmen were much reduced for him and the leadership of the Dragoons to worry about, and it looked like Maeve would have less to deal with about keep in control of Outreach in the short term.

Jaime had recently approved the bringing of Kappa back online, but this time it was going to be a full regiment like the "normal" regiments the Dragoons could call on before the Battle of Misery, combined forces. Even if it was filled with the cast offs from the other Dragoon's main line regiments or "just" Inner Sphere battlefield salvage weapons instead of Clan tech omnimechs and battle armor that the Kappa and Iota Battalions had lost in Odessa. After it was fully brought online with assigned weapons, the main Dragoon support team would work on updating them with better weapons more commonly seen in clan space. It still would be able to hold its own against any regiment within the Inner Sphere outside of a first line clan unit of almost equal size. It would not take long for it to be able to hold its own against second line and garrison class units in the clan's occupation areas.

Blackwell also had been slowly updating and improving its production capability across the board in spots spread over the surface and subsurface areas on Outreach. They even were making plans about starting to make new dropships of their own homegrown designs. Currently they were looking at low rate production of the Overlord C, Union C, Titan, Titan C and about any other Old Star League or clan designed dropships that the Dragoons might need. Even if the Dragoons didn't need them, the FedCom would buy any extras and pay a lot of C-Bills for each one of the handmade ships that was close to being put on the open market. The hard part would be when the Nova Cats asked to "buy" one of those clan modified core SLDF designs and not the FedCom military. That was expected to cause not a few or small political waves.

The Wolf Net member of Jaime's staff cleared her throat to get his attention from this wool gathering. When Jaime looked up from a screen that he really was not looking at in the first place, but it was a very good prop for times like these. "Yes, Captain?" Jaime thought about how young this officer looked, but he didn't know if it was due to the real age of this captain or the fact that he was just getting that old. That kind of thing happens from time to time when you have lived through enough orbits of a planet around a star.

The captain was in her low-twenties, and she had been selected for this mission for a very good reason. She was even as good as she thought that she was at a long list of assigned jobs. That should not have been a surprise, she had started training for this kind of work when most girls had just discovered that boys were different. "Sir, we are picking up something strange on the Black Box down in the Communication shack."

She had almost called him General Wolf, but it was well known that Jaime hated that rank/title. It also would have been a breach in the security protocol, that would be a bad habit to get into while they all were off of Outreach. Oh, and they were supposed to be hiding the fact that there were Dragoons working in this part of the Inner Sphere.

The Wolf's Dragoons had access to the FedCom made alternative to the HPG for faster than light communications for many years now. That had been one of the more closely kept secrets that his Dragoons had been read into at the end of the 4th SW. There had been a second shock that had been reoccurring associated with these devices, and that had been when the FedCom kept updating the devices to increase their capability. After getting the back brief on these devices by MIIO and LIC, Wolf Net and a few members of the Dragoons that were read on to the data looked very closely at these devices. They were able to connect a few dots that had been confusing about what had happened before and during the 4th SW.

When Wolf Net knew what to look for, thanks to the ability to "look under the hood" of the first device in their hands? The Dragoon's techs found out about how long the FedCom had these types of devices, and the Dragoons had been the ones to find out that the Combine had gained access to them also. The Dragoons had forwarded this information, that the Combine might have access to the messages on these Black Boxes to the Dragoon's point of contact within LIC. And as far as anyone within the Dragoons knew, they were not listened to. Wolf Net just shrugged and went about their business and worked on ways to make sure that the Dragoons could mitigate this issue.

After the Dragoons were given their first device, the Black Boxes were upgraded on a hap hazard pace that had defied any rhyme or reason known to Wolf Net. While Dragoon's did not get the newest Black Boxes in FedCom service, it was generally only one or two generations behind what was going to the most top of the line FedCom senior units. Hanse Davion had a very pointed meeting with Jaime about those devices, and they were for his use to work with the FedCom and not to be used when a Dragoon unit was under contract to any other power within the Inner Sphere. So, there were a few strings attached to use them, along with some very sharp down sides. Still, that was not a bad piece of equipment for a mercenary unit, even one like the Dragoons to be able to use. Jaime was not going to risk losing access to one of these devices, so he played by the rules that had been given to him by LIC/MIIO and the head of the Royal family.

Wolf Net had assigned a team of fifty people to "adjust" the devices that the Dragoons were given as soon as they were handed over. Now each and every one of the Dragoon crewed Black Boxes would listen at all times to Combine as well as the FedCom made devices sending messages that they thought was not being seen by any third party. These faster than light communication devices were some of the things that were not shown to any other members of the clans. You know like say the Nova Cats or even bondsmen that the Dragoons had collected over the last year.

##

The attached Black Box on this mission was only there so that any emergency messages could be sent to "The Wolf". Ones that would not be tracked to any HPG, not even by Clan trained techs that might be in the general area. Now it seemed like it was picking up "something" that had the support staff on this mission scratching their collective heads.

Jaime looked at the sheets of paper in the Wolf Nets captain's hands that he knew was used by only the Dragoon's Black Boxes. The Black Box sent pages of text at faster than the speed of light and they were printed on a role of special paper that would quickly dissolve in water to protect that data that the sheet contained. When there was a shift change in the communication station, it was checked to make sure that the roll of paper was ready to be used at any second. It had been with some surprise to the specially trained staff looking after that device that it had started shoving out printed glossy pages faster than the duty crew could pick them out from floating in the cabin's air as it was cut from the supply roll.

Jaime looked at page after page of gibberish that was in black ink on the off-white glossy pages. One thing that had jumped right off of the pages to him by the second sheet, but he held his tongue until about ten of the pages had passed under his eyes. "Hmmmm. This traffic is encoded. Have you tried running it threw all of the past encryption codes we have on file?"

The captain had to put her hand up and over her head to stop from floating to the ceiling that seemed to be filled with sharp corners that wanted to draw her blood. "We have been saving the data on a removable crystal before it dumps to a print page. From there we are running it through every decryption algorithm that we have, and those files were updated when we lifted off from Outreach. We do not have a full library with Star League or Clan codes, that library is back on Outreach. So far, we have not broken it or even gotten more than a few code blocks worked out. It was first thought that we were getting some kind of interstellar or hyperspace interference, it's not like a box has been this far out from FedCom space before now. We still are not sure, but it looked like we were getting someone's encoded messages to my team also. Oh, and we even ran all of the Combine keys Wolf Net has on this problem. When they came back, it proved that it was also not natural with the few decoded blocks recovered. That was the first clue to get us looking a lot closer to the rest of the data coming through our systems."

Jaime kept flipping through the pages, but he was not really trying to decode them. He was just thinking about what he should do about this "little" issue. "Were you able to get a bearing from the wave detectors?"

The detectors were something that the Dragoons had used to "collect" some Combine agents that had been using their own type of Black Box before the Clan Invasion. It also was something that MIIO and LIC were kept in the dark about how those agents were "found". Jaime Wolf was not about to let the FedCom do to his people what the Combine had been able to do to the Dragoons in the past. Jaime Wolf was not the only Dragoon that had some long standing issues after the battles on Misery and the start of the 4th SW. Fool me once? Shame on you…Fool me twice? Then shame on me. And Jaime was not going to let that happen again under his watch.

The captain kept her face very still, and she was glad that she was finally getting to the real meat of why she was here in the first place. "Yes sir, it's right at 19 degrees off of our current course. After our next jump we might be able to get a base idea on the rate of wave degradation, and that also would let us get a better idea of the line of bearing that they might be working on. I would like to have at least a three day break before we start moving back down the line of our planned travel. Oh, and there is a lot of data, way too much for just for what one message should be able to account for. It's like drinking from a water hose pushing too much water for a person to take in."

Jaime knew that they had another six double jumps scheduled to reach the point that had been set up for the hand off point of the warship to the Dragoons. After the hand off, they would only have a week to get the crew ready to take command of the newest warship to be added to the Dragoon's growing warship fleet. That delay was more to check out the warship, before it took the first step in the long trip back to the Dragoon's home. Or maybe the delay was just to make sure that the Dragoons were not getting something they were not expecting….in a bad way. That kind of thing happened to the Dragoons, but only about once a decade and never twice by the same person. As the old saying goes, the roses needed fertilizer.

The "crew" currently in the staterooms on the liner had been keeping up on their training for that class of warship they were expecting as they moved through interstellar space. This handpicked crew to take over this small warship had undergone recertified training on the Mars before being picked for this mission. Now they were training to keep the edge they had and to work through a long list of what ifs. Some of the what ifs were almost crazy. But this deep into space, it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

Jaime clipped the papers back together and handed them back to the young Captain. "I think that is a good idea. Why don't you pass the word to the jumpship's captain, in my name, to deploy the sail and recharge the drive at a normal rate after the next jump? You will have that long to collect your data and then try to make any sense out of it. I want an updated briefing on this subject when we get back to our planned route, even if you don't find anything at the next jump." He didn't need to say that if they found something that he was to be told immediately or even just a little faster.

The outer edge of MoC claimed space.

Eight days later

Jaime was in the main room that had been set aside as the mission briefing room at the start of this very long trip. And so far, this had been only the second time that they had used this room for such a meeting. There were five ship's Captains strapped into the chairs with Jaime around the main table in this room. It was one officer for each of the ships assigned for this mission and the assigned commander of the newest to come warship of the Dragoons. Each officer had been brought up to speed during the "break" in travel between the stars but only as catch as catch can. Now it was time to get everyone on the same sheet of music, and it was past time for some of those on the back wall to let the "command group" know what had been found.

The Wolf Net Captain didn't have much to update the leadership on this mission, but she needed to pass along some information no matter how small it might seem to be to her and her small staff. "The coded transmission or transmissions still have not been broken by my small team. We have not even been able to get one additional code set after that first interception over a week ago. Whoever is sending these messages knows how to come up with some damn impressive encoding software. So far, we have found four million different characters in the data that we have collected…. so far. To give you a frame of reference on what that number of characters means in English? The Combine uses Kanji for its well-known hard to break coding systems, and Kanji "only" has 50,000 different characters in their cyphers."

The Wolf Net captain could see the downturned faces around the room and she moved to keep the people in this room focused on finding out the answer to this very odd mystery. "We have come up with a more refined bearing off of our travel course. Now that we have a few more data points to work with, we think that we have an end point for some of these transmissions. If my people have done the math just right? Whoever is using their version of a Black Box, and it is as at least as good as what the FedCom has been able to come up with.

She holds up her hands to stop a side bar conversation that she felt threatened to get out of hand. "Now, we have no idea if it is a "real" Black Box or something totally different at this point in time."

The Wolf Net officer was not going to say that the data rates were at least four times what the best FedCom Black Box was assessed to be able to do. And that was without counting the bandwidth that the encryption took up. There were some things that Wolf Net didn't like to talk about even among their fellow Dragoons.

Jaime looked up from his data pad that he had been given at the start of this meeting. "So, you think you have the starting location of these transmissions that we have been eavesdropping on for the last week?"

The captain stood taller in the slippers that held her securely to the deck of the Zero G room. "One of the sources that we have noticed, is close to us. We have been trying to focus on the one that is closer and not the almost half dozen different ones that we have found, so far. We also now think that there are three to four moving sources out there somewhere." She waved her hand round her head to mean out in space. "At least we hope that they are moving targets. It's that, or you have up to five different types of these Black Boxes in operation in this area of space alone."

As the Intelligence captain was talking, an image showed up on the digital display on the far wall to show a list of coordinates that even a navigator on a jumpship would have problem understanding if they were given the data flatfooted. Then again, the nav computer had been used to come up with those numbers in the first place.

Jaime looked at the data on his pad and not even trying to think about what was on display for the rest of the room to see. "That point source? The one that is not moving, it is on a line that passes only 47.7 light years from our hand over point of the warship." Jaime was one of the few on this mission that knew the location they were going to. It was not that he didn't trust the rest of the Dragoons that he was traveling with, it was just that it was something done out of long habit of keeping a lot of things close to his chest.

Jaime looked up and over to the Jumpship's Captain after he realized that he had spoken out loud. "If we divert to that location? How long would it delay us getting to the hand over site?" They had a window, and it was a large one as those things went. Well, it was not large when you thought about the distance the Dragoons had to cover.

The younger officer that commands this jumpship did not need to look at the data that long. "Sir, it would depend on how long we stay there, and if we take the time to charge the batteries also by using just the local star or if we can use the fusion engines for augmentation. If we just are using the sail for charging for both systems also can come into play." He was looking at "The Wolf" and he quickly came up with a number. "Two weeks, unless we try to fast charge for a double jump."

Jaime had wanted to get to the handover site with at least a few weeks to spare, and they had been on track to be almost a month ahead of the start time for the agreed-on windows. Even if this delay turned out to be three or even four weeks. They still would make the target time for the hand off of the warship and payment. You would be right in thinking that someone trading in warships would not be willing to wait for much longer than the agreed upon time. It was not like they couldn't find someone else that wanted the item in question. That was what would happen if you were in breach of a weapons contract for anything more valuable than a heavy APC in the 31st century. It was a seller's market for "normal" weapons, much less something as rare as a warship.

Jaime looked back at the data and let out a deep sigh. "I will never make it this far off the edge of the map again." After a pause of what seemed like half a lifetime, Jaime came to a conclusion. "Captain, take us to that location."

Now Jaime turned and looked around the room. "I want all dropships and fighters to be combat ready the second we pop into that system. I also want us there in three days." With the orders given from the as good as a god to them, the meeting broke up and the attendees floated out of the room. As Jaime watched the soles of the boots leaving the room via floating out the hatch, he made a note to get some time in the grav deck before calling it a day.

Three Days later

Unknown Star System

An alarm sounds throughout the massive orbiting space station as it sat over the massive super Earth that was slowly being explored from above and below. Very quickly crewmembers are running towards their battle stations with the ease that only was possible by long hours spent training, for just such an event to happen. The same was true of every spaceship that was in the whole star system when the E-wave detectors started to sing their song of danger to the occupants of this star system. There were no planets that could remotely support human life here, besides the one super earth. The star system was filled with small rocks and dwarf bodies and the odd oversized planet in the gas giant range that could have been another small star if they were combined.

There was not one good reason that someone should be coming to this star system. That is unless they were hiding from someone, like the people that had been calling this place home for the last year or so. Oh, or it was because you just had a major jump accident, and that event was not over just yet. Miss jumps happened all the time with some being a lot worse than others, and at least this alarm was not related to Cylons. The detection system used by these people could tell the difference between a "normal" jump drive and the one used by the Cylon Empire and the Colonial made devices still in limited use by the SLiE.

#######

The system commander came running into the command center of the modified Olympus class recharge station while the alarms were still going off. "Talk to me!" The voice was clear, but it held a marked increase in stress.

The current duty officer didn't even turn from the screen that she was watching with eagle like eyes and with bated breath. "We have a large E-wave coming in. The computer says that it is eight minutes or less out. All ships have reported to have started activating Silent 1 protocols." She was covering information, just like she had been drilled to do.

The Commander's eyes flew around to a dozen different screens trying to work out what was happening. He was rewarded with views of systems of the SLS Lyssa being powered down and/or going into passive mode, all so that their presence would not be betrayed by their output. He was just lucky that his command had been fitted with the low visible/radar style solar sails used by the SLDF version of the SLiE after they had been in this system for six months. Even the cutting-edge energy collecting jump sails from the Star League and used by SLIC before the exodus had a huge radar footprint compared to what this one had. It was not as efficient as the older style, that was still found on jumpships and space stations within the Inner Sphere or even out in Clans space. But it was a lot better fit for this tactical environment.

Everyone in this system worked under very strict rules, so that even if someone arrived at the edge of the star system. They would be very hard pressed to find anything out of line with this "abandoned" star system while the intruding jumpship was just doing normal operations. The Silent 1 protocol just made it even harder for the people not wanting to be found, were not found by the casual visitor as they recharged their jump drive. It was not unlike what Submarines were said to have done in times of war or missions going all the way back to the Second World War on Terra. At least that was how it looked like in the movies and other entertainment shows that people had been used to seeing for the last few hundred years within and without the whole of the Inner Sphere. After all if it had been used in so many shows, it had to be correct….right?

Something tickled the back of the Commander's mind. "Traffic Control! When is the next jumpship due in?"

The commander was hoping and praying that he was wrong about the data that he was remembering off of the top of his head. Not long later he was damning his luck for a visitor to come to this star system. Not for the first time, he wished that this mobile station had some of the salvaged capital weapons at his command. At least now there was not any sign of the SLiE at any of the "normal" jump points. That didn't mean that the SLDF could not affect that area of deep space, with just a little warning.

It took only a few seconds for a reply to come to him, and it was not good news. "Sir! The Styx is due in today with dropships and Super Cargo! The last update has her coming in between 1234 and 1245 New Circe Standard Time."

The commander and everyone else's eyes flew to the mounted clocks or the time counters on their computer's screens. 1234 was less than 34 minutes away. Even if they used the TacFax, they would not be able to wave the Styx off in time.

"Oh, this day just gets better and better," thought the commander.

The station commander looked over to his small craft commander. "Have the support team go and arm the ready Raptor, just in case." They didn't have any nukes to fit to the Raptors under his command, but as long as this was not a Warship. The "light" weapons that the support crew could fit onto the Raptor with the on-hand stock should be enough to stop a "civilian" jumpship from escaping. And unless the dropships that this jumpship might be carrying had something like Alamos in their heavy weapons bunkers, they were not that much of a threat to the Lyssa. After the jumpship was "disabled" a call could go out to the nearest patrolling SLDF "warship" to help with the cleaning up of this action. Handling any waves this action would cause was well above his paygrade… thank the gods as the colonials would say.

Unknown Star System (Split)

WDdS Orca.

The Wolf's Dragoons dropship Orca looked to be like any other Titan class dropship that could be seen in the history books and Tri-vids about combat from before the fall of the Star League. The Star League had this design of dropship going from 2647 to all the way to when it had collapsed hundreds of years ago. The WDdS Orca had the same outer hull as one of those hulls built back during the time of the Star League, but she was a product of the rapidly growing aerospace division of Blackwell Industries. The Orca was not only a carrier for a large number of aerospace fighters. She was also an assault drop ship and a patrol dropship all wrapped up into one deadly little package.

The Orca was not one of the Titan C type hulls that carried a lot more aerospace fighters than what the SLDF had liked before the Exodus. But the Orca needed space for more guns, supplies, and other needs to do her assigned missions than just more space frames to support. So, her total number of fighter bays were slightly reduced to make that happen, even when compared to what the SLDF used. It would be very hard for any outside observer to know about the reduced number of fighters, thanks to fake bay doors on the outer hull of the dropship.

The Snord's Irregulars had help recover an old Pueblo class spy dropship back during the early days at the end of the 4th SW. It had been a very badly damaged and abandoned hulk, and the Dragoons had not been able to repair or replace the outer hull at the time it had been found. There was only so much that they could hide before Outreach had fallen under the Dragoons control. But Jaime's tech support groups had been able to pull out some useable high tech systems from the old hulk of a spaceship. Sometime later those teams even had been able to hand build a copy of a few of them with some help added by the clan tech they had access to. The hull of the Pueblo was quietly scrapped and no one from within the FedCom was the wiser of the finding of the old SLIC owned and operated dropship.

By now the Orca had lost two of her aerospace fighters and their supporting bays modified to fit the spying equipment into her hull. But it did give the Orca some scouting capabilities that not even the Watch members of the Clans would expect from her base design. She was nowhere near as good at the spying game as what the old Pueblo class was recorded as being capable of, but the Orca did have a few tricks under her dress that even the Clans would be surprised to know about. Most members of ComStar and their splinter groups would have just died on the spot if they were briefed into the Orca's capabilities. Even if that body count could be counted on, the Dragoons would never trust ComStar with this kind of information.

######

Jaime Wolf was standing in the command center of the jumpship, as the data was collected from the Orca and then passed to the command center on the jumpship. There the data was added to her own sensors spread around her long hull. With the data all in one place, Jaime felt like he might be able to get a handle on what might be found when they jumped into this unexplored star system. There were a lot of combat units that ComStar had reported as missing, and that was on top of the hundreds of units that had taken a walk off the edge of the map for one reason or the other going back to even before the Star League's first invasion of the Periphery.

The Captain of the Jumpship was not happy with what had happened over the last few days. And he did not like anyone in what he thought of as "his" domain, not even the legendary Wolf. He also didn't like to be taken on a wild goose chase. Just like the one that he felt like he had just been given right now, and it was all thanks to the old man that was currently floating around in his command center like he owned the place. Yea, the jumpship commander was more than a little disgruntled with the situation.

The jumpship commander made one more turn around the data on display, then he turned to address Jaime Wolf. "Sir, we have been in system for half an hour. She is dead." He was very defiant in the tone that he used on Jaime Wolf. "There might be something useful for mining on those asteroid belts, but no one is here."

The officer could not keep a self-satisfied smile from coming through his voice and showing on his face. He was looking forward to firing up his massive fusion engine and getting back on to "the real" mission of picking up a warship for the rest of the Dragoons. Sightseeing was for passenger liners and the jumpships that were hired to support them on these frivolous travels. This was a combat ship, if not a war fighting jumpship of the Dragoons. He would carry supplies, fighters, or mechs, but sightseeing was just not his cup of tea.

Jaime Wolf had been around to many nobles in his many years of living in the Inner Sphere, along with those that wanted to be nobles, and the other people with way too much gold on their hats to be bothered by this officer with his thinly vailed attitude. Jaime might not be the current leader of the Wolf's Dragoons, but he was still the man in charge of this mission. He also was taking some mental notes to pass along a few suggestions to the Dragoon Admiral about some of her people that she had in leadership positions of "her" fleet. Jaime was betting that when they finally got back to Outreach, that this captain would be moving around like a monkey was gnawing on his…neck, not long after arriving. Jaime had to remove more than one commander within the Dragoons after they had arrived to start the spying mission on the Inner Sphere. It would seem that many of the younger generation had chosen to forget those actions.

Jaime kept his voice level and without showing any outward signs of noticing the tone of voice and body language coming from the younger officer. "We are just checking something out that looked promising in the raw data. We will spend a few days here recharging the drive and the battery, and then we will see what is found around here with our data gathering systems. If nothing else, the Orca can let her fighters run some drills while the jump drive is recharging."

Jaime was just about to leave the jumpship's command center and return to his cabin to catch up on more of his reading that he had put off for the last few decades. Jaime had given his orders, in "the tone", and he expected them to be followed. His mind was snapped back into the world by an alert being shouted from one corner of the bridge.

"E-Wave! Big one, but its crazy short! It's close into the star! Looks to be over that super earth sized planet at an L2 type point. They must have a good read on this system to plot a pirate point that deep into this star system!"

Now all eyes were on the display screens that were scattered around a bridge, which were designed for showing mass data. Those screens could be updated faster than any one person could call out the data to the rest of the bridge to be effective. Jaime was not a space combat person, but he did know a thing or three about data management and he was very good with complex math. But almost all of his time had been as a ground pounder or commander of a ground pounding unit. It was not like the House Lords had space battles when he started on this recon mission back in 3005. Still, that didn't mean that he was useless on a bridge of a jumpship.

The jumpship's captain was not speaking and his mouth was hanging slightly open as he read the data on the screen mounted eye level to him. Jaime had a sly little smile on his face, as he framed his next statement just the right way and used the right tone of voice. "Looks like the E wave is a dead-on match for a Vincent class corvette doing a micro range jump don't you think."

Now Jaime started speaking to himself, but still speaking aloud. "I wonder, what are the odds of that happening? How could it be a coincidence that we would find a second old Star League warship in this area of space, and one that is of the same class that we are buying. Something is not adding up…..or is it?"

At first not one person on the bridge of that jumpship noticed when the second jumpship had entered this star system, after all she used an interstellar drive that was not known to anyone outside of the Colonials, Cylons or the SLiE. Still, it would only be a matter of time, before the people at the "normal" jump point would have found her. How long would it take them to find the rest of the structures in this system was another question?

3 light years from the Split star system.

M/V Styx

Robert was finding it hard to get used to not being in command, doing what he wanted, and how he wanted any given job to mostly be done. TTM and the Styx as the company's sole interstellar capable craft had been chartered to carry the latest warship to be brought to the Inner Sphere. This one had not been modified like the other two vessels of this class, but it had been completely repaired up to most of the standards of the SLDF and the SLiE before being "sold".

The ferrying warship's commander had been a pain in the…..neck for the whole trip and it was Robert that had to deal with him most of the time. More than once, Robert had thought that he was not getting paid enough for this job. And not for the first time, Robert was second guessing his decision to not take up the posting of being Rear Admiral Xi's executive officer and her eventual replacement when she was promoted or retired from active service. That job had it's own set of issues, chief among them was the amount of political games that had to be played at that level and in that position. That had been the main reason he had not so politely declined. It had been an unofficial notice of this possible job, but it was made clear that it was a very real job. Oh, and it would fit nicely within the medical department's recommendation for him, if he wanted it.

On their last stops on the trip going from New Circe to Split, that the Styx had made before moving the last 3 light years to finally arrive at the Split system. The temporary commander of the light warship had wanted to be cut away from the transport being paid to carry them. The issue had been addressed to Robert as more of a demand and not a request coming from one ship's captain to another. The warship's commander had stated that he had wanted to test his own ship's jump engine, and he wanted to make the last jump into the orbit near the Lyssa.

Robert could not come up with a good enough reason to deny that request coming from the active duty SLDF officers and warship's master. So, Robert had complied with the all but order from the younger officer on the bridge of the corvette. Thanks to so much traveling into and out of the Split system, it was not that much of an issue for Robert or the other ship's navigator to have to deal with. The navigators only needed to put the right date into the system, and the computer would come up with a long list of "pirate" points that could be used. That kind of jump now would not even count as good training in any of the SLDF's training books.

Robert took that data, and he chooses the arrival location that was only about an hour drive for a dropship to make it to the modified Olympus class station called the Lyssa. The commander, Robert would never call that little…. jerk a Captain, had chosen a location that was a lot closer to that manned outpost….the dumbass.

So instead of a low signature jump into the Split system that was normal for a colonial made jump drive. The warship's massive E-wave blasted any receivers in the local area like the bell the size of a star system for a solid fourteen seconds. The Commander on the Lyssa could only try not to yell when the conventional energy wave that should not have been there, came in. It would have been bad enough when the Styx was supposed to arrive, this was so much worse.

The E wave made by "normal" jumpships acts a lot like a rock thrown into a puddle of shallow water. The waves "washed" up against anything in the local area, and if you had the right equipment, then you could see what was being washed up on like a powerful radar beam. This added energy voided any stealth effect that being powered down might have given to the station. Someone was going to have a very bad day that they would later wish that they could forget. And when the reports made it back to New Circe? Someone was about to be removed from the command track and sent back to command school with the early teenagers…..if he was very lucky. That was about as skilled as this old Vincent's commander had just shown to a very senior officer with boat loads of respect within the active service of the SLDF Navy. He might be put in charge of a Kit squad after he proved himself up to that level of skill…..in a few years

######

"Radar and LIDAR warning. We have active systems at the jump point! It's reading as a very old clan grade Tramp class." Robert's head snapped around at a warning that had come from his bridge crew.

Robert was quick off the mark at the warnings that were still just starting to come from around his command bridge. "Battle stations! Nav put us in their hair, now!" Robert's words were loud enough to cut through any other conversation.

Moving faster than light this soon after an engine had just moved your ship a few light years was a risk in damaging an almost impossible to replace colonial engine. This jump was not going that far, at least compared to moving dozens of light years at a go. Besides the colonial made jump drive was still spun up, so it just used fuel and generated a crap ton of heat for the jumpship's systems to deal with. It was not going to be good for the engine or the crew, but then so would it be if that unknown jumpship successfully escaped out of this star system. There was no way to know if that jumpship had a LF battery or not, and it was going to be too dangerous to wait before finding out. Besides it was known by SLIC that many Clan run Tramp class jumpships were outfitted at building or modified later with those advanced battery systems.

########

The Wolf's eyes went wide as the new data was displayed for everyone in the room to see. There had been two E waves in the last few seconds, which was something that should not have happened in an abandoned star system. One E-wave was large and was a perfect match for a known warship class to both Jaime and the computers on this jumpship. The other E-wave was smaller, and the sensor readings were not a match in any of the records.

The gathered data was so far off of what a normal E-wave should have been, that the computers didn't know what to call it. So, the computers had just labeled it an E-wave on the displays also with a huge red question mark next to the displayed data. It was so low powered that if the spy systems had not been looking at just the right spot and at the right time, it might have been lost in the background noise of the first and larger E-wave. The reflective energy of the larger E-wave also showed a massive Olympus class station hidden near the rubble belt but in a geosynchronous orbit over the super earth on the very high tech passive systems fitted onto the Orca and Tramp. It also showed a Star Lord sized object nearby that same massive space station.

Wolf looked around, and then made steady eye contact with the Jumpship's master. "I think we have found something, and I think they might not like being found by anyone. Alert the Orca, we might need them." He didn't need to say that the Titan and her fighters might be left behind as the jumpship left the star system in an emergency jump. A dropship currently as rare as the Orca and its modified spying gear was very valuable, but it was not worth the Clan made Tramp class, the warship crew, cargo on the Rose class dropship, and one person called Jaime Wolf.

Wolf looked at the radar data one more time, and then he looked back over to the Tramps commander. He was having a bad feeling about this. "I think you might want to start quick charging your drive and working up the numbers to get us out of here. We might need to get out of here, and we are some distance from where we might be able to get a call out for some help. While we wait on that, I think we might want to send a greeting to…."

Before Wolf could finish his orders. The game pieces on this star system wide board moved in a way that the chessboard should not have allowed for them to happen. "E-Wave?! OH GOD! IT'S RIGHT ON TOP OF US!"

Jaime Wolf's head snapped up and over to see the odd frequency E-wave forming right on top of his command. Wolf had been around enough jumpships to know that the safe distance from the E-wave generated by a jumpship was measured in a few thousand kilometers. This ship was already a lot closer to his jumpship, and they should already be dead. Jaime had read some detailed reports about that happening when he had been working in the Marik Civil War to three of Anton's supporting jumpships. But what was that ship carrying to move at faster than light speed and jump this close to them? Oh, and do such a thing all without killing them all.

The shocks kept coming, and the short ranged radar station started yelling at some impressive volume. "We have fighters launching 4, 6, 12, and they are coming off a Triumph! What in all of the hells is going on out there!?"

Before Jaime could order it. The Titan launched her own brood of aerospace fighters, and they soon joined the newly arrived attackers in open space. The Titan was not just a carrier, she had teeth and the Orca has some clan made long ones on top of that. The Orca was not a Warship, but she could hurt one, even if she didn't have the fighters in support fitted with nuclear type weapons. The master of that vessel knew that he might be left behind and she was willing to do so… if only to make sure that The Wolf was able to live another day.

Wolf looked at the data and his mind started working on a dozen problems all at once, it was another day that ended in Y for him. Quickly Jaime comes to the conclusion about these events. It was that he could win this fight, and he knew it deep in his bones. But then what? You had to do more than just win the battles, which was the Clan way of fighting. The Inner Sphere way of battle was that you had to both win the battles, and then win the war.

This left Jaime with only one move, and it was one that he knew was not going to be popular with the crews supporting this mission. Then again, that was why he was the leader of the largest, most powerful, and most would say the most successful mercenary unit for the last half century working across almost 1,000 light years of space. "Have our fighters and the Orca hold at the outer marker. After they confirm those orders, then send a greeting to the new ship…try to keep most of it on tight beam laser coms as you can." Jaime didn't have to tell this commander that if tight beam failed than he was to use something…. louder. And he would do this without needing to consult the leader of this mission. The Dragoons were a very well-trained unit, no matter what type of combat they might find themselves in.

#######

Robert was looking at the data coming into his ship's systems, and he was both shocked and dismayed at the data coming in on the active IFF receiver systems. "Wolf's Dragoons? Well, Frakk me." Then the crazy movements that were so common in aerospace fighter operations in deep space comes to an almost screaming halt.

The woman working the Styx's updated radar systems spoke loud enough so that the whole bridge of the jumpship could hear her. "The enemy fighters seem to be holding at a third of the way to the edge of the jump field normal for a Tramp class jumpship." The voice was loud, but it didn't sound like it was that stressed, even to Robert's trained ear. The Dragoons were not the only group working in this part of space that was highly trained.

Robert mentally grabs his…..ankles and takes a step on the wild side. In as calm of voice that he could muster, he took that first step off the cliff. "Hold all of ours at the halfway point between them and us. Send a warning to the jumpship Foresight. They are not to jump, or we will fire into them so fast they won't be able to seal their suits."

Robert was "only" now a merchant commander, and not the systems military commander or even an active or reserve member of the SLDF any longer. He had been officially medically retired, one that might have been technically more than a little overdue. Then again, he was a member of Clan Wolverine and that gave him some accepted avenues for actions.

########

The two forces of aerospace fighters and assault class dropship were held for two days at the jump point as things were slowly worked out between the Dragoons and the locals. That was how long it took for a message to be sent to higher command and for them to send Admiral Ebon to this location in a FLASH level message. Her arrival was via a Colonial Raptor that had been outfitted as little more than a very cramped flying fuel tank. It also had been outfitted with the latest SLiE made computer filled with Cylon made software.

That was all so that the Raptor could hopscotch to the Split system or like system in case of a major emergency. When the small craft "popped" into the jump point with only a few seconds warning given to the waiting Dragoon vessels. The visiting jumpship went, again, to high alert. Right up until the 50ton craft was visible to the bridge crew of the Dragoon jumpship. It had showed the smallest jump craft was no longer the Bugeye class spy ship, and she sent her own greeting to the Dragoon jumpship. The first of the meetings between the Wolf's Dragoon's one-time fulltime commander and the Admiral with a very proud name was held on the Dragoon crewed Tramp class dropship's only hamster wheel deck.

WDjS Foresight

Tramp class jumpship.

Jaime Wolf could have had this meeting on the Titan class dropship Orca, she did have some command facilities that came standard with her design thanks to someone deep within the SLDF Design Staff. That move might have been seen as aggressive, but the flag bridge was small on the dropship, and the meeting would have had to be conducted in Zero G. Now that they had been in this system for a few days, with the passive systems and its computer support working overtime. Jaime knew that he was in a very weak position, compared to what he had first thought when things had first started going sideways.

Now he thought that there were at least two warships hiding somewhere within this star system not just one. That did not count all of the fighters and these small armed craft that can jump like a Jumpship but with a lot faster recharge time between jumps. All of that should not have been possible under the laws of the universe as Jaime knew them. That watching changed when a small team arrived on the Foresight, and they had ordered the bridge of the jumpship closed.

It had taken that small team less than two minutes to disable the systems set up to keep an eye on things on the bridge. From there Jaime and his staff were confident that these locals were hip deep into the jumpship's systems in less than half an hour. Doing what? They didn't know for sure, but they were betting that they were cleaning out any data that they wanted. It was something that Wolf Net had done more than a few times in the past for their own reasons.

After almost three hours the strange team left the jumpship. But before they left the ship, the jumpship's security chief was shown a customs seal placed on the hatch. It took the security team less than four minutes to find the alarm on the device and to conclude that it could not be bypassed without an alarm being sent with their on-hand tools. Jaime had ordered that it was to be left alone, the locals were playing fair so the Dragoons would follow along. But they did come up with a few ideas if things went sideways on them. It was just the Dragoon thing to do.

######

By now Jaime knew, without a doubt, that these people were what remained of a major part of Clan Wolverine. There was no way that these were just some small group of holdouts that had somehow survived escaping clan space by the skin of their teeth. This had to be a major splinter that should not exist and didn't exist according to the founder of the Clans. It was just a good thing that he had all of that time to get used to that idea of them being out here and that he had a very flexible mind for someone of his age and upbringing. Oh, and it also helped that he had been a Free Born warrior, or as others would call it a second class citizen in Clan space.

In all of the mental war gaming that Jaime had been doing on this trip, he had expected that these people would have maybe a few more surprises compared to what the rest of the Inner Sphere might have already seen. The need for Clan weapons and captured examples of mechs were proof that the Wolverines were a little behind the general tech level of the rest of the clans alone. Then there was the need for the machining tools they had been on the record as being requested by these people. Add to that was their request for battle armor suits of any kind. Jaime understood that this SLiE would use those captured examples as trainers to develop tactics for when the other clans found out about them at some near future date. With this group being active, it was only going to be a matter of time before this happened. Jaime thought that they also were short on the technology or maybe population base to support any "normal" Inner Sphere battle armor production above hand making them one at a time.

Now Jaime was not sure about the things that he had been working under the impression of as were known facts before leaving the core of the Inner Sphere. Something was going on behind the scenes, and he longed to find out what it was. One part of him was starting to fear that some of the reports coming from the Nova Cats might be closer to the truth than anyone had thought possible. Now he had an Admiral Ebon coming to have a face to face meeting with him. That name was only heard in whispers among the clans, and even in the Dark Caste this name was never said loud enough to carry more than a few meters.

That name was one that was known to "only" belong to one of the key leaders of the No Named Clan. Now Jaime knew that it also just happens to also belong to one of the parts of the Wolverines that had been "known" to be able to avoid the wrath of the whole clans. At least a body had not been found that was tied to that last name when Clan Wolverine was supposed to have been wiped off the face of the universe. It was also on the list of most hated names within the Clan home worlds for the last over two hundred and twenty years. That name alone would have caused whole clans to attack someone without care or quarter given before the echo of that name had finished going around your average sized room.

Jaime thinks about all of the Bondsmen and women that his Dragoons had collected in combat or threw trades with the FedCom and Combine to take responsibility for. If the wrong one of them found out about a meeting with someone with this last name and a senior member of the Dragoons? Jaime gave a head shake, but he was again very thankful that the Clans didn't go for assassination of a troublesome leader. That didn't mean that groups like the Smoke Jaguars would not try to stir up trouble so that a circle could be called to remove that commander even if they were in a different clan all together. Then again maybe some of them would stoop to that type of operation, for this kind of thing. This high level meeting was a lot different than just trading with a lost colony hiding off the edge of the map. This was a meeting with a high ranked leader within a fully functional Clan Wolverine.

######

Jaime's thoughts were interrupted by the hatch to the gravity deck opening to signal that his meeting was about to start. Jaime could not help but let his eyebrows raise as a person stepped into the meeting room. The woman that stepped in was impressive of built, and in a uniform that had not been seen outside of an entertainment show in centuries. Well, that is unless you worked with the ELH or had to deal with the leadership of that ex SLDF unit in some kind of social setting outside of a battlefield. It was the uniform of a flag ranked officer of the Star League Navy. Not even the Goliath Scorpions would have allowed someone to wear something like that in public much less on a mission. Jaime had to fight down a smile as an image of one man that he knew would have no problem in wearing that uniform in public. That person even would do that to just to twist the tail of any active members of the clans that he might run into by chance or could at least possibly see an image of him wearing it. Then again Cranston Snord was a force unto himself.

Admiral Ebon smiled at the older man rising to stand at the briefing table and chair. "Colonel Wolf or should I call you…. General Wolf….. or Duke Wolf?"

The admiral made her way across the room and a sly smile comes to her face as she closed and shook hands with the older man across the table from her seat. "It seems like your name has been connected often with major changes needed for plans that "we" have taken lots of time and spent a lot of effort into laying out."

The Wolf recognized that tone that the gene modified woman had just used on him. Jaime had heard it every time that he had worked on a new contract or coming from someone that was wanting something from him and his Dragoons. Oh, and he was sure that there would be some threats coming his way in the near future for one Jaime Wolf. And he was sure of that fact. But there just might be a few rewards to follow those vailed and not so vailed threats that were about to fly around this room. It was all going to come down on how Jaime was going to handle this meeting, but there would be more ways to get ahead than to get into some short term trouble. Oh, then there was the little fact that Jaime was still thought of as the leader of over five regiments of warriors and a squadron of warships. That left him with a very large hammer that he could use in this meeting, if he so chose to do so.

Jaime put his work face on like it was a second skin. "That is not the way that I would look at it. I think of it, that we just cut down on the transit time for the product that we were going to trade for any way."

Admiral Ebon could not help but snicker at the older man's dead pan tone to her opening statement. The older man had a point, in more than one way. The pair of them spent the next hour working on some fine details that would guide the future of the deals done between Jaime Wolf and the SLiE. The meeting ended when the Old Wolf boarded the Raptor for a short "hop" to the Space Station closer to the sun and in orbit over the super earth.

Jaime was not allowed to have an escort drawn from the ships under his command when he took that trip closer to the star. That had not gone over well with his staff, not at all, but Jaime kind of likes that little requirement. Well, it had not gone over well for the small Dragoon staff, until a warship jumped into the space not far away from the Dragoon owned jumpship and its dropships. It was only a corvette class warship, but it still was a lot nastier customer than this Tramp class ship even if it was packing a Titan class carrier would want to deal with.

Jaime was having a hard time believing the briefing that he had been given about human sized AI's that these people were calling Cylons. AIs that wanted to wipe out the human race, but after the history he reviewed. AIs that wanted to kill humans was something he could at least fathom…. after a fashion. Then again it was hard to explain away that someone had made a jump drive that was small enough to fit into something the size of a medium sized aerospace fighter. That was something that even the fabled Star League was not able to do with the smallest jump drive on record being fitted into the Bugeye class spy ship.

The kicker to get Jaime to understanding that things were very different than he was used to, was the artificial gravity he found on the SLS Lyssa. He stayed on that amazing station for three days getting a tour of the base and the tunnels being used for testing or as sources of ores from the planet that it was sitting in high orbit of. That mining part of the tunnels had turned out to be another surprise, and it would be something that the Dragoons could make some use from the output and Jaime was willing to pay threw the teeth to get those rare ores.

Jaime had come away with a few other things by the time that the amazing tour was over. One thing was that he wanted to visit this planet called New Circe, and another was that Apline Wolf would never know about these people. Jaime thought that he had grown too close to some of the more closed minded of the clan Bondsman working in support roles now that he was not going to be a combat leader of the Dragoons. Not for the first time, Jaime was glad that he had been able to get rid of so many of those with the strongest crusader leanings that could not be down checked from combat slots in "his" Dragoons. Still even the Clans bondsmen with Warden leanings would not deal with the No Named unless it was to kill them. At least that was a good bet on Jaime's part.

#######

When The Wolf had arrived back to the jump point, he did so by heading to the small but still impressive Corvette class warship. The whole jump point area holding the Dragoons was shadowed by three "normal" dropships, they might have been trying to be there but not be there at the same time from the Dragoon's point of view. All anyone on the Dragoon ships knew was that they were very hard to detect with the passive sensors they still had access to.

Not long after the Raptor had slipped into a docking point on the small warship, it was powered down to standby mode. Very quickly the crew of the warship was taken off by a set of small craft that could jump, but this jumping was still hidden from most of the Dragoon ships by blocking their line of sight to the event. In less than half an hour the old SLDF warship was cleared of its onetime crew. Now it was time for the new crew to take command of this one time SLDF warship. When the old crewmembers were safely away from the jump point? Jaime used a short ranged radio that had been intentionally left powered on by the leaving crew to contact the WDjS Foresight. He needed to let them know that the warship was ready to be taken under new management.

The passenger liner type dropship undocked from the jumpship and made its way to the docking point on the small warship. While the 115 new crewmembers were shifted over to their new homes on the warship from the Monarch via the small passenger tubes, the next phase of this operation could start. While the liner unloaded, a massive Mammoth class dropship moved closer to the Dragoon jumpship from the deep dark of this part of the star system at 1/10g of thrust. Quickly it was joined in the darkness by the cargo ship that the Combine had paid to the Dragoons to save face. The Rose class vessel was joined in deep space by the local cargo ship for a rare dropship to dropship cargo transfer in deep space. Normally this was only done by pirates or the most desperate owners and crews of dropships.

The Rose class cargo dropship was emptied of her cargo of Clan mechs, Elemental class battle armor, and a long list of parts to keep them in operation. Then all of the space rated shipping containers were moved over that carried the remainder of the payment for the old but functional warship. At seeing the name on the IFF broadcast from the Mammoth, Jaime had to agree that the name was a nice fit for the massive dropship.

The Lyssa's Little Sister had been added to Wolf Net files many moons ago and another piece of a very complicated puzzle was added. It was just too bad that only those with a need to know would see this piece. Trying to understand the meaning behind the names of dropships and jumpships that were moving around the Inner Sphere was a well-known game that those within Wolf Net like to play. They even had set it up as a bar game early in the founding of the Dragoons. The game was always held in the pub called the lizard lounge, no matter what planet it was currently on. The game was to try to make heads or tails of the names on dropships and jumpships, and extra points were given if they could come up with back stories to explain the names.

Jaime delivered the cover story that he had been advised to give "his" crew, that had at first seemed a little too much when he had been coached on it. The training handover of the small warship would be a little more rushed, and soon the Dragoons were leaving this star system with a "new" warship free and clear. The old warship still had some food left in the larders of the vessel. But beside 50tons of ores in one of the cargo bays, the ship was empty of any other item that might point to its previous owners. And that my friends was just as the old owners wanted.

Jaime almost had a heart attack when someone had brought up blowing the rocks out of the bay to save reaction mass. It was only thanks to his years in command that he had not blown the identity of those refined "rocks" sitting in that one cargo bay in that chance meeting. These 50 tons of ores might not seem that much and compared to the mass of this small warship it was nothing but dust and getting in the way. But what most didn't know, was that this was the one ore worth more than gold to anyone that was working on making the fusion powered hearts of clan mechs. Blackwell had been buying up every kilogram that they could as soon as the Dragoons had started rebuilding, even before the Dragoons had moved to Outreach. They even had paid to have mining companies looking for it, only those companies had no idea who was paying the bills. It was a fine line to walk to get the ores, but not make it so that others would want them.

This 50tons of ingots was almost six times what Blackwell had been able to import in a full calendar year at the best of times. They didn't need much of this ore per clan grade XL engine, but they had to have it to make every last one of them. The massive Heavy Force 380XL engine found on the Executioner (Gladiator) class Battlemech "only" needed a few hundred kilograms of this ore to be made. But without those ores, there would not be any replacement engines to fix battle damaged machines or even new machines that could be used to help the rest of the Dragoon regiments maintain their strength. If they could get enough of this ore from these people? It would be well worth the risk of the other clans finding out about this contact…. At least if they ever found out about them after a few more years. Still now the council of colonels had a very good reason to also want these people to remain separated from the rest of the Clans.

#######

When the invisible jump energy left his belly, Jaime could not help but let out a little breath and he deflated in the command chair he was strapped into. It had been when they had completed their first double jump with the Tramp class jumpship to get away from that very odd little star system filled with more questions than even he had wanted to ask. One part of Jaime's brain had been convinced that this SLiE was going to blow them out of space even after the meetings were done. They still could, but then again being 60 light years away made that a little more difficult to pull off. Or so that was what his instincts told him.

The now unnamed warship needed another week to reach the double jumping Tramp at this distance from "that star system". Soon the pair of vessels would be back on the main shipping lanes that had been set up running from MoC space going towards the Clan invasion routes for the moving of supplies and other cargos. It would not take long before the WDS Ares was going to be in the Outreach system, at least that was the working name of this vessel that the crew had come up with. The small warship's name would be up in the air if the rest of the senior leaders of the Dragoons didn't agree with it. Right at this moment, Jaime didn't care what the name might end up being.

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Robert watch the Dragoon's jumpship and its new escort as they started to "flee" back to their part of space. When the two interstellar capable ships were gone, only then Robert could jump back to the SLS Lyssa and pick up the cargo that needed to be sent to Canopus that the orbiting Lyssa had been collecting. A key part of his current contract had him running any needed missions to the Inner Sphere that the SLiE needed done. It had been worked out that only using Inner Sphere type jumpships was dragging and delaying the flow of supplies getting to and from the Lyssa too much and could possibly be impacting how the SLiE conducted the war effort. This was something that Robert and Terry had been expecting and now they were positioned to take advantage of this shipping issue.

After the supplies got to the Lyssa from other parts of the Inner Sphere, it was faster to get them back to New Circe despite being a longer straight-line distance than it had taken to gather them. Right now, the plan was that a private shipping lane needed to be set up to run cargos from Canopus to Split and then back to New Circe if needed. It there was a break in those needs? Then Robert and his crew could "go looking around" the Inner Sphere for anything that might be interesting. But Robert and the TTM owned ship must always be able to make it back to that hidden shipping lane quickly or there could be hell to pay.

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Notes

The ores and Clan grade XL engines: If the Dragoons can make clan mechs than why did they take the time to develop Light class engines. To fill this plot hole, some have said that it was because of the cost and some magic rock was missing. So, I came up with a way to help out.

Name for the New Dragoon warship? Well, I'm coming up blank. I also don't have the skills to set up a Poll for the list of all of those recovered warships from Odessa and now need names. Thinking about Ares for now.

WDdS wolf dragoon's dropship Orca: The SLiE didn't know that it was a spy ship and Duke Wolf didn't tell them about it either. That is a lot of data they were able to collect. The problem will be if anyone back on Outreach will believe them.

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