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.

84. Chapter 84 4 weeks later May 3053

Chapter 84

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

New Circe

4 weeks later May 3053.

As Admiral Ebon exited the Colonial made passenger liner, she had to fight to keep her smile from showing on her face and also in her body language. Her Raptor had landed onto a "civilian" craft ten jumps after leaving the Split system on this high speed run back to higher command housed on the home planet. The converted civilian ship had been modified to carry a Colonials/Cylon/SLiE combined computer systems a few years ago, and now it was used to support the ongoing war with the Cylon Empire. These modifications had been first installed during a normal maintenance cycle to test to see if it was worth the time, expense and more importantly the resources to be fitted into other like kinds of interstellar ships. Right now, most of the ships refitted with these systems were being used in supporting the patrolling ships of the SLDF or supporting forward bases. They were not given and there were no plans on giving this type of ship the super jump capability that they were looking at refitting into some of the main warships in the SLDF "soon" or at least soonish.

This was an important nonmilitary ship, but it was "only" a close second place in importance to the Rising Star class liner for her capabilities. That didn't even count about the area that the Rising Star normally operated being so much closer to the Cylons. The Raptor's crew could have pulled some fuel from the fuel tanks on this or a like larger vessel, and that had been the overall plan. Only this Raptor was more of a well-done prototype and not a production set of modifications. On the next to last jump the Raptor's Electronics Officer noticed a few red lights on his master caution panel. This caused a slight course adjustment to meet up with this particular vessel, and it was very good timing. When the VIP Flash Raptor made it into the landing bay of this modified civilian ship? The tail-tails warning screen looked more like a Christmas Tree, than a device used to manage the functions on an interstellar capable craft. This craft was deadlined until it could get some time in one of the higher level repair bays back on New Circe.

This was just a modified low rent passenger liner, and it was not the greatest way to travel any very long distance at a fast pace. The effect of jump sickness was amplified after each jump that they were not allowed a few hours break between going super light speed no matter if you were in the Flash Raptor or a larger vessel. But the cabins and food were a lot better than on any military craft, much less what the Raptor had been carrying for the crew to eat that the Admiral could think of. Oh, and it was a lot faster traveling than using the "normal" jumpship/dropship combination to cover that kind of distance that the clans and the rest of the house lords were still restricted in using for the last many centuries. You didn't even want to think about comparing the bathroom facilities on those two vessels. Using adult diapers fitted into your space suits was something few…. And I mean very few people ever wanted to have to use them once, much less be put in a situation that you would have to use them more than a few times before you could change them.

The Admiral pushed the thinking about the trip to the back of her mind as soon as her boots left the personnel ramp. A hover car that had been supplied to New Circe by a supply trip that had come from the Inner Sphere run by Copeland was waiting for her as soon as the Admiral had exited the space craft. Again, the modified passenger liner was a colonial designed ship, so the Admiral didn't need to be transfer to a dropship or "small craft" to make it the rest of the way dirt side after coming into this star system. The whole great ship had arrived in low orbit over the planet, and then it had started to land just like something out of a science fantasy book. It was something that very few of the passengers and crew being carried in that spaceship had thought about at the time. It was amazing about what and how fast you could get used to something like that.

The Admiral's alert message had beaten her home by at least three full days thanks to using the TacFax fitted into the Lyssa's communication section. Admiral Ebon had been on track to be arriving on the home planet within two hours of the preplanned arrival time of that message. That is before finding out that this liner or one like her would not be needed to refuel the Raptor that the Admiral had been using. It had been expected that the command crew of that vessel would not have liked losing a Raptor load of special fuel when this mission had been rushed launched. The massive fuel tanks on the civilian made ships had not been fully filled in many years, and any of it that the Raptor might take would cut into the safety margin required by SLiE regulations. All of those issues had been sidestepped when the jump engine on the Flash Raptor had started to fail, and no sane person ever wanted to make a jump with a jump engine that might be about to pack it in.

That delay of her arriving over New Circe gave the leadership on the planet time to do some deep thinking about the data that she had sent to them. While Admiral Ebon was still on her way to the planet's surface and sitting in her private cabin. She had been told that she would be briefing the Lord Protector in person and in as much detail as the Admiral felt was needed. After landing at the capital, the Admiral was rushed to the Lord Protector's command building complete with flashing light escort of police hover cars.

The Lord Protector would have to rapidly leave a ribbon cutting ceremony to open a newly expanded workmech training site over in the Victorian area of the planet. It was not widely known that this expanded facility was a facility owned jointly by Terrier and Talos Manufactory (TTM) and Callahan Munitions company. This joint expansion project had been pushed in the back offices by Robert and the Colonials to get Callahan to want to work with TTM. Robert had lost his heavy hammer with the sale of his stock before the deal was done. Oh, and there was more than a little bad blood between the board of directors and anyone with the last name of Copeland.

In the end Callahan Munitions reluctantly joined the project. After much kicking and screaming Callahan was "only" supplying any mech scale weapons that the advanced classes needed, a few small tech or support teams for those weapons, and a very small line item in the budget for the overall school and training site. That last part had only been gained by Robert and Terry signing a contract that would have them buying any of the now surplus colonial sidearms. The market was assessed to be fully saturated with projectile weapons in less than six months, barring something major happening. Even the Colonial government had refused to put out another contract for them. That would leave only the civilian market and any support to cache sites for future use bringing in money for the Callahans by those production lines. The market for energy weapons was still alive and well, and that should remain that way for the next decade. Shutting down those projectile weapons production lines and retaining its staff would not be a small cost that Callahan Munitions would have to eat within it's budget if a new market could not be found for the Colonial based designs.

Those classes taught in the Workmech school were on using these large scale weapons in countering light ground forces, but also in using flame retardant missiles and lasers to start counter fires and other non-combat uses. Those classes would also just happen to teach the basics of weapons training that could be carried over into "real" battlemechs, for those lucky few that would be found that had somehow slipped through the education cracks and not already picked up for mech warfare training. That kind of slipping within what would have been called Clan Wolverine would have been an extremely rare event. With the addition of the Colonials, Victorians, and the rest of the group coming in from the Inner Sphere there had been more than a few surprise diamonds found already. Even with the slow production of new workmechs this school had quickly been filled and then over full. Within only a few months, the school's faculty were having to turn away students in job lots. This latest round of expansion was hoped to fix those issues or at least make it more manageable.

#######

While Admiral Ebon waited for the boss to show up, she was able to do some work before both the meeting room and VIP were ready for her to cause them some heart issues. Some changes were going to be needed to be undertaken in the original plan outlined in the original message. That was needed now that the Admiral had access to the planet's data network and a staff to sort out a few ideas she had come up with on the way back home. Access to the global data net greatly helped Ebon and her new staff prepare for the grilling that all of them knew was coming her way when the Admiral went into that next briefing room.

#####

The Admiral left her temporary office exactly 7.5 minutes before the top-heavy brass meeting was now scheduled to start. It was rare "just" to brief the civilian and military leader of the SLiE without any hangers on clogging up the works and stealing most of the O2 from the room. That was something that Admiral Ebon had grown use to after reaching her current rank in the military pond. It didn't mean that she liked it, only that she had grown used to it. Kind of like hitting your thumb with a hammer, after a while it didn't hurt anymore. It still sucked, but it didn't "hurt".

The large briefing room was brightly lit from huge sets of massive armored glass windows made from the same type of glass found in a battlemech's cockpit. Those massive windows covered one whole side of this conference room and seemed to go around this whole level of the building. Most people didn't know that the designs of high end conference rooms had not changed that much after midway through the 21st century. If this meeting had been held within the Inner Sphere or even somewhere within Clan space? Then each of the chairs used in this room would have been worth more than what the average person on the planet could make in a few months of their labors.

On New Circe, the chairs in the Lord Protector's main briefing room were the same ones that had been made not long after setting up this planet as the Wolverine's new home. What did that mean? These were handmade wooden framed chairs that had been made by military members in their copious amounts of down time while they had been first setting up this planet for living was underway. Over the years the padding on those chairs would be changed out due to wear, or the odd stains inflicted onto them over the years. If one of the chairs broke? Then it would be collected, then a veteran's group would have it lovingly repaired, and then returned to this office.

The rest of this briefing office was classed as "a very spartan set up" and it was not unlike many, but not all, of the Khans in Clan space would have mimicked. It would stay that way for the next few hundred years, or unless something major happened to the planet's surface that held this building. You know something major….. like an orbital bombardment by the Cylons or Clans. You know the little things that could destroy this growing city and turn the whole surrounding area into a black glass covered crater that would kill lives for decades.

Admiral Ebon didn't take one of the open seats after rendering honors to the leader of her people, instead she went right to the briefing stand off to one side of the bright room. The projecting system in this room was already activated, but it was not displaying any data that was relevant to this meeting. Ebon didn't think that she would need that device, but it was always nice to have the 2D and 3D projectors warmed up and ready just in case something did come up. In meetings like this, it was not uncommon to have someone with too much gold on their jacket or have too long of a set of titles on their business cards. Some of them would love to play "stump the chump games" while the briefers were doing the job they were asked to do. It was thought that these types of people had been around even before the word "bureaucracy" had been invented.

The Admiral pitched her voice to carry to the end of the room without blowing the eardrums out of those nearest to her location. This was a type of skill that any briefer quickly mastered, or they would not advance much further in the civilian markets or in the military profession. "Lord Protector, thank you for your time. This is an update on the mercenary slash exiled group called the Wolf's Dragoons in prior briefings to this body. This brief will have a focus on one of their leadership members finding the Split system. We now know that this event happened while they were heading towards the pickup point of the latest transfer of a warship to the Inner Sphere. The Dragoons on that one Tramp class jumpship have discovered our assets in the Split system, despite all of our efforts to avoid detection in case of this type of event. This discovery was linked to one of "our" captains deciding that they knew better than an older and more experienced captain, even if he was a retired senior officer." Her tone was ammonia ice cold as she spoke the last sentence to this room.

The Admiral waited to let that sink in for just a few seconds, and when she felt the time was right? She started talking again. "We found out later that "He", the commander of that corvette, had wanted "to test" his vessel's "ancient and decrepit jump engines" before they arrived at the Split system. And yes, that officer had read the regulation about working in that area of space before leaving New Circe to start that mission."

The Admiral gave a level look to the head of personnel placement within the SLDF. "I checked out all of the relevant logbooks and our files reference to this…. issue. The M/V Styx and her crew had been chartered to carry that warship all the way to the Split star system to fall under command of the SLS Lyssa, by a contract that was paid by the SLDF to TTM. The warship commander overruled the Styx's Captain, with prejudice. And when he was advised of this regulation by the contracted crew? He pulled rank as being the only active military ship's commander on site and the transport ship commander was just a well-paid trash hauler."

The Admiral was not going to talk about the copies of the messages and some of the CCTV that the security systems on the Styx had taken of the interactions between that military officer and others on the M/V Styx reference this action. That was something that would be handled at a lower level with the Navy part of the legal department within the SLDF. Having every second of your life recorded while on a warship was not something that this group needed to think about. The Admiral had no idea where Robert Copeland had come up with the idea, but she was going to make sure that this little good idea fairy didn't spread its wings into "the real navy." Having new TTP's (tactics, techniques, and procedures) was not a bad thing…most of the time.

Ebon stopped talking as the top dozen leaders on the Planet started to mumble like a low flying airplane, and she could tell that some of them were not happy with what they had just been told in the opening part of her briefing. There were very few people at this level within the military or civilian leadership that did not know something about "Captain Copeland" or his connections to the newest military support company on New Circe. And to almost all of the people in this meeting that knew him. Robert's reputation was known, admired, and he was both liked and respected by a very long list of people that was an accepted fact to be longer than an elemental's arm.

Even before she had to make some last minute updates to her briefing, Ebon had foreseen a change coming in a few of the SLDF's Navy regulations. Ones that were soon to be coming down the pipeline for the rest of the Navy and growing number of military Contractors to have to deal with. She was betting that many of those regulations were going to be re-looked at, and in a few cases, a complete rewriting would be done to some of them. That was not her department, but she had just pointed out a few dozen issues in her written reports which were already on file for people with less gold on their collars to read.

When the admiral had felt that she had let these issues settle long enough on the listener's minds, she started talking again. "I have met with what we will be referring to in our reports as Acting General, General, retired officer, Duke Wolf, or as Colonel Jaime Wolf, in person. This is to better help with our cross-referencing software. Jaime Wolf stated to me that he is not currently the top military leader for this Dragoons for day to day operations, but he does act as its long term commander and available to consult with the current leader who is accepted to be his daughter. He was a freebrith member from Clan Wolf, as we were briefed months if not some years ago. I don't think that he was aware that SLIC knew that much about him when we started our first interview. We had an interesting talk after we worked out how they found the Split system in the first place."

Every eye got larger, and every back got a little straighter at these words and the Admiral kept talking. It was very rare to have a face to face meeting with someone from the clans… and live to tell about it. "He transferred the agreed upon materials for the corvette, and he agreed to the cover story that the local SLIC team dreamed up on short notice. The cover story, is that the jumpship that "detained" them? It had just come in from a nearby system and not had made a inter system micro jump as they had first thought from the data on their systems. He still wanted to trade with us, and Jaime Wolf briefed me on how that would be an advantage for us in both the short and long term. I have a very detailed list of the topics and items that were covered in those meetings that is available for your viewing." There was no way that the Admiral was going to squeeze in that many hours of talking in this one meeting.

Ebon looked around the room, but she could not tell how they were taking this news. "General Wolf filled me in on a couple of blanks in our data that we were working under. After the Dragoons had found out about the improved ER PPC, what we call the Bear Slayer, for the Inner Sphere to use against the invading clans. They were able to copy and mass market the weapons for their own use, and now their own version of the Bear Slayer is for sale to a short but slowly growing customer list within the Inner Sphere. The other shocker was that their Wolf Net intel gathering apparatus informed them that ComStar was starting to bring warships back online, before the Clan had come in what they call Operation Revival."

#######

Some of this was new information or just confirmed for the first time in living memory. "This was after they found the battle site between ComStar and our Navy, but Wolf Net didn't know it was us that spanked ComStar. The Wolf's Dragoons and ComStar as well as the off shoots like Word of Blake, and Blake's Will do not get along with each other in any measurable way at this current time. They have been or had been fighting an undercover or Black War against first ComStar's ROM intelligence agents, and now the other splinter groups from that organization going back decades. But now that Anastasius Focht has proven himself as a good leader and has more or less taken over all of ComStar's operations as we know them. The fighting between Wolf Net, LIC, and MIIO against ComStar's run ROM has been put on pause for at least the near future. But they are keeping a very close eye on each other in case of one side deciding to slide the knife in from behind. That would not have been the first time something like that has happened in the past going all the way back to before the Star League fell. General Wolf even thinks that this warming up of relations with ComStar could last for at least the next half decade. That is barring another major change on one or both sides' leadership."

The Admiral stopped talking to let the data sink in one more time, she was very good at knowing when to take breaks and when to push forward in her briefing style. "I have a detailed report about that Black War, which I can send to the command servers after this meeting, and it can be accessed anywhere from within this building. It has some good details about a few of those operations that predate the coming of the Cylons." More than half of that information about that Black War was on items that no one within SLIC knew about before the data dump she had provided.

Now Ebon could see the surprised looks on a few of the faces in this room, and that was despite all of the political training people at this level normally had. Some of this was not "new" information in broad strokes to the people in this room, but before this latest data dump? It had only been based on guess work or third hand information that had taken months if not a decade for it to get back to them on New Circe. There was no doubt that many of these facts were only going to be good for filling out missing parts of the History books and filling the brains of people who spend more time in the past than in the present. Still even history books can provide a good guide for what the future might hold for those that had the wisdom to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The Admiral had to fight to keep a sly smile from coming to her face. "With these reports, and the income provided by those sales have allowed for an increase of the Dragoon's clan tech weapons output on the planet called Outreach. Jaime was able to provide some hard numbers in one of our many meetings, but he admitted that he was only pulling most of the numbers out of memory. After all it was not like he was planning on finding us and talking about them before he left Outreach. Query Affirmative. The Dragoons had a cache of six warships that they had brought with them in 3005 from clan space, but after finding that there were no warships in operation at that time. They were decommissioned and then hidden until it was noticed about ComStar and us having capital warship sized fights. They were able to get all six warships back into at least basic operation, and they have been working on training crews for almost a year to be able to take them into battle."

This news was greeted with looks that said most of this was now known to them, and the Admiral gave the room a short nod of understanding. "What we did not know was that they now have a lot of help coming from the FedCom military in getting other warships ready for combat. Even without the FedCom monetary and material support added to the Wolf's Dragoons. The Dragoons were able to build a nice sized space repair and building areas within the Outreach system. With that help and the Dragoons helping as best they could at other yards, this will increase the support for growing of a Warship fleet. The Dragoons and FedCom are currently at the level of hand making spare parts, for now, but that volume should increase in time as more and more support is built from the ground up. The Dragoons also have been the outlets to provide manpower support to most of the largest producers of jumpships by help in the repairing the damaged building slips around the FedCom. This and other help in making repairs had been done for the FedCom starting after the early 3030's."

Again, some or even most of this information was known to SLIC already and passed along to their masters, as long as those masters were willing to listen to the briefers. But it all had not been confirmed data, so at that time it had not drawn too much attention at this level of government. Then again some of the fine and not a few gross details had been mainly unknown or thought of as being of a low probability of being true before today.

And still the admiral continued with her briefing. "The assistance that the Wolf's Dragoons have been able to give is not so great that it could help rebuild the ability of the FedCom to make enough warships to make any kind of difference compared to what the rest of the Clan can call on from the Pentagon Worlds. The Aerospace division of Blackwell industries is growing like a bat out of the hells, but it had started from only three fighter production lines on Outreach after the 4th SW. But even then, those three lines needed to be almost rebuilt from scratch before they could turn out a single spaceframe. Those three fighter production lines have been running full out to help with the needed Dragoon production expansion, but most ended up going onto the open market. Those three lines were the patterns used to help with increasing the number of different space frame types that the Dragoons now have access to. They also are looking at mass production and selling full clan spec Odyssey class ships to anyone with the coins, but those new jumpships are more or less hand built at this time. The Dragoons also are using the repair slip at the Olympus when it is not supporting Wolf or FedCom warships, to refit older military Tramp class jumpships with clan spec LF batteries being produced by the Dragoons."

"General Wolf didn't have the hard numbers in our meetings, but between what he knew and what SLIC had on file. It was a good bet that in half a decade or maybe a little less, all of the existing Tramp class jumpships known to be in the Inner Sphere would be updated with these devices. The only reason that all of them couldn't be modified would be due to the current owners not having the funds for the expensive upgrading or they liked having the open cargo bays. That was on top of the new built Tramp class jumpships fitted with the at least Star League tech LF batteries right off the building slips in both the FWL and FedCom."

This new information got a few more raised eyebrows from around the room and the Admiral kept talking. "The main production for warship parts is very limited within the whole FedCom to no more than three locations. The Wolfs says that Outreach will be the largest manufacturer of LF Batteries in the whole FedCom by the end of this year, but they still are going to be in second place to the FWL in raw if lower tech units. For Warship support, the Dragoon run Blackwell Industry are mostly planning on making some key parts for inter system drives that should fit some warships. These are being earmarked as being for trade to the FedCom. It would seem that ComStar was going to supply the FedCom these items, but they kept failing to make delivery dates. Now Blackwell is looking at taking up that slack until ComStar gets used to the new management they are having to deal with. Other warships systems are being hand made in the Outreach system for Dragoon only use. Jaime Wolf did not have any hard files with him or on his support ships, but he does have a very good memory. He was able to provide a list of warships in service or building for all of the major powers within the Inner Sphere. The General regrets that he and his Wolf Net do not have any hard numbers on what is being built or pulled out of cache sites left in the Pentagon Worlds."

The Admiral let the room digest what she had just said for a good long while. "He also updated us about an assault on a SLDF Navy base that the ROM part of "old" ComStar was hiding in the Odessa star system. It is confirmed that the FedCom and Dragoons used the data that SLIC had been approved to hand over to them. And well it was a bloody battle, but now the FedCom has a McKenna class battleship and a Tharkad class cruiser along with a few other types of warships that can be repaired or scrapped for parts to get other warships back into service. During that battle in Odessa, the Dragoons have taken a lot of damage to the core warship fleet, that they brought with them from Clan Space at the same time. But the contract for that action let the Dragoons claim a lot of the smaller warships that were Destroyer sized in the post battle cleanup operations. He reports that now all of the major powers within the Inner Sphere have now started relooking at all planets that have fallen off the map after the SLDF left Terra in the now known vain hope that it would cut down on the bloodshed the coming war was going to cause."

Everyone in the room could hear the sarcasm dripping from the Admiral's last few words. One of the first things that had been looked at by the leadership of the Clan Wolverine after it was known that they were not going to die, was what would have happened if the SLDF had stayed in the Inner Sphere. After a few months of work, the reports were done and passed along to the leadership of the SLiE. It was taken as a better than 60% chance that the Terran Hegemony would have survived if only one of the House Lords would have backed them.

Ebon had a sly smile on her face that was not forced. "This information was freely given to us, and Jaime Wolf also gave me a little briefing with a show and tell from his personal files in a few of our meetings. That last one data hand off he wanted to give us had a string attached, and it was one that I agreed to."

She and SLIC now had a detailed copy of what had been found in that station going around Odessa IV that a Wolf Net team had taken the time to make a hidden copy for the Dragoon's own use. That was nice, but the data file also came along with what was noted as an early assessment of the damage to each capital asset in that one time hidden base. Now that data was going to drive a few hundred members of SLIC nuts for the next few years.

######

The Lord Protector's eyes narrowed a little and she did something that she rarely did in meetings/briefings like this. She interrupted the brief in an area that was not set aside out of accepted areas for questions. "And what was this little string that you have tied my hands without checking with me first? query negative."

The Admiral made eye contact with the leader of the planet, and she felt ice go down her spine at the tone of voice. "Lord Protector, Jaime Wolf and his Dragoons would like to be our main supplier of weapons and also be the weapons' sales representative to the rest of the Inner Sphere for our products. To help with this? Jaime Wolf and his Dragoons will put in place and oversee what they called a "almost" command circuit to rapidly move our cargos to Outreach or other transit points run by the Dragoons. Right now, the idea is that this high speed route will be run from Outreach to the Split system and only use jumpships, dropships, and crews that Wolf Net will had vetted and pay for."

The briefing room was no longer quiet, and the admiral kept right on talking over the growing volume. "Only two full command teams on the Dragoon's jumpship's bridge will be read into the information about Split. And only information that we have cleared them to know will be in these Dragoons staff's briefing packet. Also, only one jumpship will be allowed to make the final double jump into the Split star system at any one time. If ever a second jumpship arrives while the first one is in Split? Then we will fire into the hull of that second jumpship without any attempts being made to contact them." This speaking just below a bellow got the room to get back to a level of volume normal for a briefing like this.

Ebon automatically lowered her speaking volume as she had to compete less and less with others in this room. "Now that one jumpship and her dropships will offload the support items that we ask the Dragoons for, and those cargo ships will be reloaded with items that we wish to trade to the Inner Sphere. Duke Wolf also gave me a list of ores that the Dragoons needed in making some of the key parts needed to support the production and or used in maintaining many of the Clan designed combat systems. Jaime Wolf was very concerned that after decades of looking on the sly, and so far, they have found out that many of the ores used in production for Clan tech might not be within the Inner Sphere. General Wolf seemed very let down that we do not have access to the products needed to make HarJel. That is the magical substance needed in Clan battle armor and warships to seal any outer armor breaches."

The Lord Protector spoke, and her voice cut through the noise like a knife. "Were you able to find out what these Dragoons knew about production of this sealant?" HarJel had been in many reports that SLIC had been able to get before the coming of the Colonials. By now, they had even been able to get ton sized lots as samples of this substance, but all of the assigned scientists of the SLiE had come up blank on what it was made up by much less on what it would take to make the stuff."

Admiral Ebon let a frown mar her pretty face that raised a few eyebrows in this room. "I regret to inform you Lord Protector, that Duke Wolf and his Wolf Net are at an equal loss on that subject. About all that any Clan but the Diamond Sharks, has is a list of suspected components for the making of this HarJel. I was given a copy of this information, but Jaime was not confident that it would be helpful if we didn't have this technology already."

#####

The Lord Protector gave a slight nod of her head and the other woman continued with her briefing. At least the Lord Protectors interruption had caused the rest of the room to quiet down. Ebon had to look down at her digital assistant to re-find her place. This took all of four seconds. "The Dragoons will take care of selling, buying, and all shipping cost after Split of any cargo traded between our two groups. The Dragoons seemed to be very confident that they have a handle on the transport cost this operation will generate, and he has planned accordingly on what they think they can get out of our side of the agreement."

The admiral let a little snicker out of her mouth that was fake as all frakk. "We didn't talk about the capabilities of our transports, so they do not know about the super cargo or rapid jump ability of our colonial supplied drives. The Dragoons will not have any idea of how far we are from the rest of the Inner Sphere and what it might cost to get cargos to and from the Split system from our point of view. It seems like a good deal for our side and the Dragoons, and it still leaves more than a little meat on the bone for each cargo we trade."

Admiral Franks had a deep frown on his face when he spoke to both the briefer and the rest of the room. "That seems more than just a little too good to be true, and at the same time that it is very risky for us. But what about the briefing that he gave you about exactly how the Dragoons were able to find the Lyssa?"

The Lord Protector was nodding her head in agreement to what Franks had said, and Admiral Ebon address the question. Her face went still as a stone and Ebon made sure to look at the other Admiral but at the same time watching the Lord Protector out of the corner of one eye. "What we call the TacFax system, and its base technology is not as groundbreaking as we at first thought that it was. The FedCom has what they call a "Black Box" that does much the same thing as our system. Oh, and they are up to at least the 5th production improvement model that is coming into active fielding for the FedCom and their allied forces. From what LIC and MIIO said in a briefing to Jaime and key members of his Dragoons, this Black Box device was first copied from a lost tech device that was found by someone in the Lyran Commonwealth. The Duke thinks that this event happened some time before the 4th SW, but that is about as close as they can get for a found date. That was how the young FedCom was able to get around some parts of the ComStar interdiction of HPG traffic during the 4th SW that had SLIC scratching their heads. Or doing the mission without needing a whole lot more jumpships than both sides of the FedCom were reported to have on call."

It was well known that the interdiction of faster than light communication provided by the ComStar managed HPG should have caused more and faster disruption of the FedCom military than it had been noted in all of the publications the SLIC had been able to access. SLIC had fallen back onto the idea that the FedCom had fallen back on sets of main operation plans and sets of "what if" back up orders to their combat commanders. That was not a very flexible way to fight a war, and it was a quick way to lose a war…. only it hadn't been the case in the 4th SW for the FedCom.

Admiral Ebon had not stopped talking. "The FedCom has spent a lot of time, brain power, and funds into improving this type of device now that it was proven to be both effective and a secure way to run a war. That device also just happens to work along the same lines as our TacFax, or at least close enough as to not make a difference for this briefing. Jaime also told us that the Combine has their own copies of these types of devices, and it is very likely that Combine scientists are also working on improving them as they can."

That was a surprise and the shocked looks showed this to the Admiral standing at the front of the briefing room. Having someone that can both read your mail and track you down with it was a nightmare come true for those in this room. "The Dragoon's have access to these Black Boxes, but they are at least one generation behind what is currently being fielded by the FedCom to their top of the line combat units or special actions units like the Rabid Foxes. And that was how they found us! The Wolf's staff have one of those Black Box devices on his dropship, and it was able to pick up some old transmissions as they came towards the pickup point for that warship. That would not normally be an issue with our encryptions, and General Wolf said that they had not been able to break our codes. But they have a trick that only the Dragoons have come up with, and it is not known to any others as far as Wolf Net knows. Somehow, they have worked out a way to back track the transmissions threw the lower edges of hyperspace using those Black Boxes."

You could have heard a pin drop when the admiral stopped to take a breath and then let out a sigh. "They could not read any of our messages, but they could work out where they had come from in only a few weeks of looking closely at the received odd data. That analytic work let the comms team on his dropship to work down our location to within just half a light year. This technique was meant to be used to backtrack the Combine made and operated Black Boxes and their hidden agents within the FedCom. And now it has been proven to work in backtracking TacFax signals against us. One of our tech crews was able to look at and crack open the lid on their Black Box on a promise that we could "pay" for a replacement if we broke it." The admiral was not going to volunteer the price Jaime Wolf had given her if this operation had damaged the device.

The Admiral had to hold up her hands so that she could keep talking for just a little longer. "Our team only had a few hours with the device, and at this time the cracking was withheld from the other members of General Wolf's staff. By the way, one of our tech teams is still working on some of the data we got in cracking this Black Box back on Lyssa. The Commander of that base will file a full report that should be working its way back to us between a few days to a few weeks from now. On a side note. I think that we impressed Jaime with that we were able to do that inspection without breaking the device in under a few hours of looking at the paperweight." The device was being hidden as a very expensive light sculpture on the desk in the VIP lounge. A paperweight in other words, but one that was plugged into the jumpship's power supply and very well hidden for those that would not even know to look for it.

The briefing had to stop while the leaders talked about the impact these communication devices would have on any future use of the TacFaxes by the SLiE. The SLDF was not the only group that had become addicted to the shortened communication loop that the TacFax had given them. Admiral Ebon waited until she was told to continue with this briefing, but this had been planned for by the support staff. They had even put a note in the Admirals briefing cards to warn her about this expected pause in her report.

Admiral Franks waited until he thought that some of the "slowest" members attending this meeting had vented a little spleen before giving the briefer a head nod to get the briefing rolling again. "I need to let you know. I did ask, to see if we could get one of these Black Boxes from the Dragoons of our own to test. Wolf did not think so, but he could try to get one that is even a few older generations than what the Dragoons might have and one the FedCom might not miss. But he did not think that it would be easy to do or be a cheap mission to accomplish. I do not know if this is true or not, but The Wolf thought that this was a very tall order. The cost he was thinking this device would be worth was almost the cost of a mostly repaired Corvette class warship. I told him that a price like that was over my pay grade, Query Negative."

The Admiral was not going to say that she was betting that "if" the Dragoons did come up with one of these devices to trade to the SLiE. That it would have a distinctive smoked dragon smell coming from it. Ebon had no idea that she was very close to the truth. Jaime planned on launching another mole hunt to collect any handy Combine spy network. The idea was that as soon as he got back within range, he was going to send Wolf Net on the hunt. Jaime had been planning on making sure that the action team knows to collect the Combine Black Box and hide it from MIIO and LIC along with any documentation that had been recovered on that mission along with others. All the data, but only Combine data, would be handed over to this odd group.

The Admiral had to flinch away at the sudden turn of volume from the people around the room as it went into a whole new level of loud. After what seemed like ten minutes of being exposed to that kind of abuse of noise, and when she hears the same question half a dozen times. Ebon holds up her hands one more time so that she can continue with her briefing. She now also was going to do a change of subject referenced the cost of one item and hope to maintain control of this situation. "I did tell Jaime Wolf that even if we agreed to his plan on being the sales representative for us? We would still be running our own missions into the Inner Sphere, and he did not object to this statement in voice or actions."

Ebon raised an eyebrow. "From the look that he gave me when I brought this up. I think he considered it self-evident that we would do such a thing. I know that the Styx was going to leave on her next run into the Inner Sphere as soon as the Dragoon's were gone. We did a handshake deal on this request before putting that idea on the back burner so to speak."

######

Lee Adama visibly relaxed at this part of the Admiral's news. His government had been the key outside shareholder on this run, but only just behind Captain Copeland and his new wife as the leaders of TTM. Lee felt that it was time for him to say something in this briefing, and after making eye contact with the briefer, he spoke to both her and the rest of the room. "That seems like a good plan, but that all seems kind of…..small scale. I would expect that this Colonel or General Wolf would have bigger plans that would just pour out of his mouth fully formed and ready for implementation. At least coming from a person with his reputation. That is unless maybe the reports have been…. adjusted to make the man more formattable than he really was."

Ebon let her face go very still and she turned to look directly at the young man. But she knew that this new leader of the Colonial city state was very sharp even if he looked young for the job. With a father like Admiral Bill Adama and a Stepmother and mentored by Laura Adama. Well, he frakken well should be very damn sharp.

She gave the young man a look that would have made a lesser person take cover. Ebon was not surprised when it didn't seem to faze the man. "Mr. Adama, you are correct in the first part of your statement. Duke Wolf has concerns about the MoC and some of the other smaller powers in this area due to the active presence of Word of Blake and Blake's Will. From our point of view, the WoB and WB are the worst of the worst of ComStar and the old version of ComStar is worse than we first knew about. What that group has done in the name of Helping humanity, should be right up there with Nazis, Stalin and that baby bib wearing animal in human form Amaris." She was not going to say that more than a few people had raised ComStar's past to be equal to what Old Nick had done back in the Pentagon Worlds before his last "training accident".

The Admiral stopped talking, but this time it was to put even more force into what she was about to say. "Duke Wolf put on his official hat as the leader of an almost independent world within the FedCom. He strongly suggested that we speed up any additional warships being sold to them or others that are working against those two ComStar splinter groups or standing up to the Clans. I know that we were going to slowly move the rest of those corvette class warships to Split and then trade them to the Inner Sphere. This was for many reasons, but one of them was to keep from flooding the market with something so expensive. After all warships are called capital expenses for a reason."

Ebon waited for the soft chuckling to end at her gross understatement. "Now I think that we need to move all of our cached warships to the Split system and store them there until we can drop them off in a "Hand Over" for the Dragoons to deal with. I think that the sooner we can move them out of New Circe, the better we all will be. Then those warships can be brought back fully into service by their new owners to fight something that is almost as bad as the Cylon Empire."

Selling even a corvette class warship with only a markup of a few percentage points would be a huge boon for the Dragoon's bottom line. Jaime also gave a point of reference that there would not be a chance of "flooding the market" when it came to warships needing new homes. Well, that is unless they had a few hundred corvette class warships that needed a few new homes in the next handful of years.

Ebon hit the button and the flashing images of the warships in question were now floating in the open space of the room on the helo projector. "General Wolf also offered up another trade for a warship to fall under the Dragoon's flags. He has no idea of what we have in storage, but he stated that he wants a "real" warship to defend his people with while in their home system…Outreach. He only asks that we trade in good faith for the value he is offering. His offer?"

She stopped talking and waited for a few seconds and Ebon schooled her features. She wanted everyone in the right frame of mind when she walked them right off of the cliff. "SLIC thinks that with this new information about the Dragoons sudden windfall of six destroyers, another cruiser, and that is after its own capital ship is repaired. They will need another training ship for the few capital warships that they have on hand and help in training up the crews for the FedComs new or old capital warships under their flag. Also, there is another odd data point that "we" were able to get out of Jaime in our meetings."

Ebon could see that many in the room were sitting on the edge of their seats. "It was that in the taking of the Odessa IV ship base, the Dragoons were given a Dante class ComStar warship that was being worked on or undergoing final fitting out before taking her first war cruise. Well unless we are looking at a Mer-el-Kebir type situation and the FedCom and Dragoons have not noticed it right off the bat. Now we have those two damaged hulks of that class sitting near The Station, and I understand that all the departments within SLIC have been done with them for some time now. The Dragoons might could use them, if they found out we have them in the first place."

Ebon thought that she was risking farting in the car, but she was paid to think a little out of the box. It was not like the SLDF Navy or the Colonials would invest the time, effort, and resources into getting even one of those ships ready for combat against the Cylon Empire. At least if they traded those ships, then the SLiE would get a few billion worth of support that could be used in this war that had fallen into a stalemate. And everyone in the military knew that stalemates only lasted until one side of the conflict made a big enough mistake. Then it was called changing the whole course of a war by those writing the history books.

The Admiral put up another data slide for the rest of the viewers that was titled "supplies" at the top of the image. "What is Jaime Wolf putting on the table at this time for trade for these hard-to-find items that we might have on hand?" Now she smiled and it reached her eyes. "He offered a copy of cutting-edge Inner Sphere data and new Clan military, industrial, and some historic memory cores that will be coming from at least the Nova Cat's and Goliath Scorpion points of view. It will be updated with all of the data that both groups have gotten from bondsmen's and other sources from and on all of the other clans used in this wave of the invasion. He also has a Snowden class mining station that could use a new home outside of FedCom space."

######

Now Ebon was not able to talk over the eruption of noise coming from around the room, it was like someone had just let lose a box of snakes. You could feel the temperature drop a few seconds after the S word had fallen from her lips, and the bad part was that she was not surprised by this. There were some things that just got a gut response from those with Clan Wolverine blood. It was a holdover from the time of the old Star League and its conflict with the TDF.

When Admiral Ebon could hear herself think again, the admiral continued with her briefing. "I know that the Snowden being made in the Taurian Concordat is going to be an issue for a large part of our population when someone in the press finds out about it. But that is only if it's brought all the way back to New Circe for it to be a worthwhile space station to us. What would the backlash be if the station was not brought to New Circe? What if it was not, and maybe it was "only" left in the Split system and put into operation exploiting that star system a little better? If we can get a second one down the line? Then we can bring it all the way back home, after we carefully release the data on the existence of the first station and what it has been doing while supporting the war effort. I don't think that we should hide it, but just not wave it around everyone's noses. Query affirmative."

Admiral Ebon could tell that a few of the faster thinking individuals in this room were already thinking about the pros and cons of this idea. "Oh, and you should know that each one of those mining stations are worth about four billion C-bills. That is if they can marginally hold air, much less what one that is more functional can command on the open markets of the Inner Sphere. The Command group on the Lyssa have been using small craft or the underground mining camps to supply themselves with the ores they need for local operations and the support to operations deeper within the Inner Sphere. If they can increase the mining capabilities in that location of raw and even lightly processed ores? The Lyssa could use part of that increase output in ores to build more items for trade to the Inner Sphere or they could just ship them back as lower massed refined metals for "our" factories to use. That alone would lower the stress on our mines and refineries. Gods forbit that we could do some maintenance on them before there is some kind of catastrophic failure somewhere in the supply chain." She was not going to cover that this had happened almost every other month after the third year of the war starting against the Cylon Empire.

The admiral could see that the room was now thinking about what she had just said and thinking about the possibilities maybe only known to them. Now she changed the subject on the room one more time, and this time it was not just as a way to keep the people around this room on their toes. "I have recently reviewed what has been found to date by our clean up teams referencing recovered warships. The original idea of those recoveries was just to keep them out of the Cylons or anyone else's hands at the time that could be a threat to us. We have a Wagon Wheel class Light Cruiser that also was part of the Taurian Concordat fleet back in the day of the Star League. We know that the jump core is shot to Frakk and back, and it stinks so badly even Centurions do not like walking her decks unless paid double time for the job. Her inner system drives are listed as still working along with most other systems outside of the jump core. I like this idea because we are trading a Taurian design for another Taurian design. The one good thing about this part of the plan? It is that at least this station is not a Rim Worlds design."

The admiral could tell that she had their attention, and Ebon knew that she needed now to strike while the iron was hot. "I would suggest that we use the Egg Sac, but only after her prototype K-F-B drive is safely ready for large scale testing. If the math is even close to being right? We can use her super jump capability twice, and that will move her from the Split system and get her with a super cargo to the Outreach system in one piece. After arriving, we wait in the deep black areas of that star system. The staff reports say that it should be best if the arrival point is well past the areas that "normal" jump drive equipped ships can pop in. We let Wolf and his team send out a "search party" that just happens to have a large dropship sized tug assigned to them, like an Elephant class or something. We trade the old and damaged cruiser for whatever we think that we can get out of the Dragoons. It will not take long for the story to get out about the cruisers, no matter what cover story is developed. We just have to make other ideas that might get kicked around to be better than looking for us."

She makes a sour face. "I feel that I need to reiterate that the ship has a bad jump core and that would affect any asking price. That fact cannot be hidden from those within the Inner Sphere, at least not for long enough for it to be fixed with the amount of attention that warships are currently getting within the Inner Sphere press services and intel services from the Great Houses, Lessor Houses, and the different types of Clan Watches."

She now grins at an evil thought that had been slowly working its way through her brain. "That old Wagon Wheel would make a nice little system gunboat with all of those energy weapons and NACs for popping dropships. At least until the Dragoons can get a replacement jump core to fit a 650kton warship spun and cooled in the limited repair and support bases that they have on hand. Query Affirmative."

She was not going to say it, but the Admiral was thinking that soon the Dragoons were going to be looking for a yardship to support the Dragoon and the FedCom's growing warship fleets. If one of those two groups found one or if they just started building one? That would be another thing that the Inner Sphere could trade to the SLiE on the sly for some big guns. Because if you can build one, then why not build more. It was not well known among civilians, but the Navy had two backbones. One was the building slips to make the warships, and the other one was the yardships that did forward repairs and heavy recovery missions post battle.

######

Admiral Xi was the first person to recover from this verbal assault that the room had just been subjected to by the slightly older woman with her booming voice. "I like the idea, in theory, and on both counts you have brought up today. But how long will this General Wolf need to set up his trade route you were talking about? Using Canopus as the main collection point and then having the Styx as the prime mover has the advantage of using the high speed trading routes already at our disposal and proven to be secure." Admiral Xi was really only playing devil's advocate with this statement. She could already see a few different ways that this idea would help the SLiE and not one of them was related to the SLIC missions.

Now Ebon put another chart up for display for the room to review, having anticipated this question for some time now. It was a star map of the Inner Sphere complete with names of major worlds to help those that were space navigation challenged. Then finally some dotted lines started to be displayed on the image. "General Wolf and his Dragoons will start working on setting this up as soon as his Black Box can reach one of their agents deeper within the Inner Sphere. The Wolf thinks that he can have most of it set up, in less than six months. He also thinks that it could take up to eight months, if something drastic happens to delay him, but he feels that most of the line is pretty much set up already to support the war effort against the Clans. The big challenge will be to make sure that only Dragoon crewed jumpships make up key parts of this line. After all it's not like anyone has tried to do something like this before, not even the old Star League."

######

The meeting would go on for almost an hour longer than had been planned for by the supporting staff. Even then it had only stopped when the Lord Protector had to leave for another meeting that could not be delayed any longer without it drawing too much outside attention. When the meeting was over and as the room emptied, Admiral Franks waves his hand to an open seat for Ebon to take.

From the look on his face, Ebon knew that now it was time to do some planning and working on some of the finer details for the plans that she had laid out during this very long briefing. For the second time in this room today, a meeting that should have only lasted an hour ran long. In fact, this meeting ran way longer than that. It lasted the rest of the day and went deep into the night. Even then it was not done to the pair's satisfaction even if their support staff were more than a little bleary eyed when they were sent home.

The planning group had about another dozen additions when it had started up again very early the next morning. This meeting went from just after local dawn until late in the afternoon one more time and still the plan was barely more than a detailed outline. This long meeting was noticed and reported on by many within the news media, because not even New Circe didn't leak. When no more new news alerts were sounded by the end of the second day from the military or high government officials. The story was regulated to the news talk show circuit, but it never was totally forgotten by those that found this kind of thing interesting.

One week after Admiral Ebon's briefing

Canopus IV

The M/V Styx arrived at Canopus IV just like any other of the dozen or so jumpships that currently were supporting this growing in political and manufacturing power capital world. She had taken "The Back Way" to get here from the Split system, and thanks to the active message ability of the HPG being removed from the use of the Styx's command crew. She had not even tried to fake it like she was using her original drive, while traveling in those dead spaces between those two stars. That action caused wear issues on the mobile HPG that Robert and his wife could not currently cover the cost of. It was risky, but the odds of someone being in the wrong enough place to see them moving between the stars was so small as you would need a computer to calculate the odds of being seen.

The Styx had not been seen in this part of space in some time, and there was no way that anyone would have known how fast that she had moved, all thanks to sticking to the deep black of interstellar space. The last jump of the Styx had been using the old mobile HPG to announce their pending arrival with a "normal" E-wave just like in the old days. Only this time no one in the system's traffic control office knew that she was coming, well at least until her IFF went out at the speed of light when the jump was over. It was something that the command crews on this jumpship would have to get both used to and plan around in the future. Some habits would be a lot harder to break than some of the others.

Robert looked over to his wife and he had a too large of a smile on his face, the game was now on and there were not any backup saves. Terry was not traveling under any kind of fake identification with him at this time. The whole rest of the crew had a pair of back up fake identities to go with fake IFFs for the jumpship and dropships, but they were only to be used in a major emergency. Terry was only listed as Robert's wife, with his last name, and there was an absence of noble or other local titles on any of the data systems and files on this ship. There had to be many thousands of Terry Copelands living within the Inner Sphere, and only certain people would connect some of those dots that were out there. Not even Wolf Net could cover all of those loose ends, even if they had wanted to. If something was said? Well, they had a SLIC approved plan and paperwork to back it up. If things went really sideways, good luck on following this ship after it made its first jump.

Normally the Styx and her dropships would have just been waved through customs at this capital system, but only if the locals knew that the Styx was coming there beforehand. Without those skids being very well greased, the people at the jump point had a standard operational plan to work off of when a jumpship arrived in this star system. After a quick boarding and inspection, and a look at the ship's papers, Robert was cleared to launch a dropship towards the planet. The other change from most of the past visits, was that Robert was charged a fee for using the jump point. That was just like any of the other jumpships that were not connected to many very high level power players of the MoC or other great house in good standing with MiM and the leadership of the Moc.

#######

When the Mule class dropship was about 30 hours from landing, Robert sent a message to have a high level meeting at one of the departments of the MoC. At the time Robert was not that concerned that he had not received a reply to that message before they had landed at the capital's main drop port, but now the pair of them had been sitting in this waiting room. Robert now thought that maybe a noble title could have sped things along a little bit in this one case as he took another sip of a cold drink. When the cold but warming drink makes its way to his stomach? Robert started thinking about making his way to the male gatekeeper to express his concern about all of their waiting. That thinking stopped when a woman in a nice suit fast walked in from the massive glass doors.

Maxine was scanning the room as she almost broke an ankle fast walking across the compound to get here, but her eyes had not adjusted from the bright light outside. She was the deputy to the undersecretary to the Magestrix, the highest leader within the whole MoC. Her distress was that some VIPs had landed, and somehow this information had not made it to the right ears in the proper amount of time. These were a pair of the most deadliest of sins for a bureaucrat to be exposed to. When word had made it to her boss's, boss's office that Commander Copeland had been confirmed as returning to this system? It had caused some great and very visible excitement in people who didn't get normally visibly excited about anything that was not covered by a Tri-D camera. Well, that is unless a major power player from the House Lords were coming out this way leading something other than an invading army of mechs and dropships.

Then when Maxine's boss had asked when this commander was going to see someone high up in the government and who from the defense department was on deck to talk to him in person. She had been told that no one from the supply department of the military of the MoC had asked for this to happen nor had any of the combat commanders. That answer had fallen into the "all hells" category. Under some very pointed orders and some not so vailed threats from the leader of this part of space, Maxine went looking to see where these VIPs had gotten off to. Maxine knew that if she was not fast enough, then it would be her head used as a scapegoat.

Maxine had no idea why these VIPs were wanting to see someone over in Colonial and Environmental Department, and she was new enough to this job not to wonder to deeply at this information. She had been lucky that the office was only in the next building over as she made a run for it, and it was not figuratively a run over to the next building.

As her eye's finally adjusted to the softer light. Maxine saw her target standing off to one side, and that was a surprise that a VIP of this level was still cooling their heels in a waiting room. And just as quickly Maxine could tell that the tall male was board, and he was about to make contact with the local gatekeeper. Maxine gives a nod and a chin point to her trailing assistant to go find out what was going on at the gatekeeper's desk, while she worked to mend any fences with these VIPs. This had all of the hallmarks of a brewing political faux pas or even a low level disaster in the making. Both of those could be a career killer for her even if the VIP was only a male.

Maxine dropped her chin and took aim with her perfectly trained voice. "Commodore Copeland! I have been looking all over for you! But I have to ask. Why are you at the Colonial and Environmental Department?" Her trained voice got softer and lower as she closed the distance to the tall man with the very sharp eyes. Only her training kept her from looking over to the woman that was sitting in a comfortable chair near the man's legs. Maxine's training said that a male could be a powerful person, but her upbringing said that the woman would hold all of the "real" power in meetings that covered anything of real value.

#######

Robert's head snapped over to really look at the charging woman and only for a second did he want to reach for his side arm. Luckily that feeling went away as soon as it had arrived, thanks to him noticing that a political player was heading his way and not a physical danger… not that politics hadn't caused it's own fair share of bloodshed. Robert had just enough time to put his work face on and use his left hand to let Terry know that she might want to stand by his side for this confrontation. After all both of them had years of dealings with the female dominated worlds in the MoC, if they had only done it from different points of view.

When Robert felt his wife start to rise from her nearby chair, he addressed the smartly dressed if slightly sweating woman. "Well, I have not opened up my sale sheet yet for public release. I just thought that purely military matters could be done later. And you are?" He gave the now slower walking woman a raised eyebrow to make a point of his question.

Maxine saw a woman rise from the cheap but still comfortable looking sofa and walk towards the side of the man. "Maxine Heather, I am the deputy to the undersecretary to the Magestrix." She gave a little bow and not a handshake. The Locals thought that handshaking was to male of a thing to do, as was seen in the rest of the Inner Sphere.

The title the woman used ran off Robert's back like water off a duck, but he knew that this was a way higher ranked person than should have been used to run him down. "Miss Heather, this is my wife and business partner Terry Copeland."

Robert and Terry saw the eyebrows raise just a little on the other woman's face. That didn't stop Robert from continuing with his prepared remarks. "We found out not long ago, that the MoC has come up with a new set of atmospheric and water filters they are looking at trading on the open markets of the Inner Sphere. We would like to pick up a few of these systems for our travels, and we were told that we needed to stop here first before going to the manufacturer of the devices to make sure all of the right paperwork is filed correctly." Robert held out his hand to force a handshake, more as a slight power play than anything. He was not surprised when Terry also put her hand out to the other woman to match her husband's move.

Maxine shook hands with Terry, and she now connected the woman's face with the one in a rather thick file of the now missing/not missing Duke Terry. The same Duke Terry that had been missing after the local chapter of Operation Scorpion failed in all of the ways that mattered to the average person in this part of space. That planet was now under the control of the central government of the MoC, and it was expected to become a nice addition to the tax base in the next few years. … Well, at least once some of the issues were fixed that Operation Scorpion and her leaving had caused to the local economy. To see that Terry was working and seemed to be now married to Copeland connected a lot of dots in the data Maxine remembered. But it still didn't cover what happened to all of the factories, mines and to the highly trained people to get them to run and be disappeared at the same time that the old planetary leader had performed her own little act.

After releasing the hand of the ex-planetary leader, Maxine turned slightly and gestured to the door that she had just come more or less barreling through. "Why don't we go to my office, we can talk in private." Maxine made a mental note to make sure all of the security and recording systems were secretly activated before she let them into her office. She was betting the MiM would love to review every word that this pair were going to say in that meeting.

#######

The rest of the day was taken up in the high ranking meeting between this trio of operators. The war with the Clans was over…for now, but that still left a lot of units that needed rebuilding or outright needed to be remade. How did that translate to how it would impact the MoC? Besides the fact that over 40 combat units had been destroyed, many of them regiment sized or larger. The few planets that had been able to throw off the Clan's yoke were going to need major capital repairs to get them back to contributing to the tax base of their respective great house. In shorthand? There was still a huge demand for weapons needed for those repairs as well as new tanks and mechs needed for replacements, much less any growth in those now resting combat units. Then there would be the need to replace older tech mechs, tanks, and aerospace fighters to start leveling the playing field between the top of the line Inner Sphere units and Clan forces.

So, the MoC government used this meeting to get Robert to get a list of the items in his cargo holds and their cost, for those things that she might be able to bring to their supervised trading table. Very little of Robert's weapons or combat related cargos would make it to any secondary markets with his name connected to them. Still Robert was more worried about getting all of the funds needed to help his buying for a mostly Colonial supplied shopping list, than he was worried about more or less evenly spreading around powerful weapons. This was the first trip that he didn't have the safety net of having at least the possibility of the SLiE government bailing him out of any major missteps he might have made.

It was only at the end of that long meeting did Robert get a memo saying how much the MoC government loved one Robert Copeland and his company. It was going to be great window-dressing on the Styx, but it was not that much of a fit for the "real" current plans of Robert and Terry. The MoC had no idea that most of the environmental systems Robert wanted to "buy" from MMM were really made in the Split system, and one Robert Copeland had a large amount of them hidden on the Styx and on the cargo dropship that he had landed in.

#######

Early the next morning a message was passed to Robert and Terry that a "high ranking" member of MMM would like to come over to the dropship at noon to discuss a memo from the Magestrix's office. It was all going as planned out by SLIC and then passed to the TacFax sitting at the Resort to make sure all of the players were on the same sheet of music. The last thing anyone wanted was to have a miss step in the game and compromise any part of the SLiE. When the woman that was a "retired" General in the SLDF entered the briefing room fitted on the Mule class dropship, the pair rose from the deeply padded office chairs.

General (in hiding) Cersei Gao gave a head nod to the two civilians, but she was already sporting a sly grin that was quickly becoming her hallmark by those that had seen her on this planet over the last few months. "Oh, please take your seats you two. You both are not even in the military anymore. The last thing we need is MiM to know we are connected outside of this meeting." Cersei had grown to give a lot of credit to MiM and their ability to widdel out some of the strangest information. Those had been some eye-popping weekly briefings in her first few months of living on this planet.

When Robert and Terry retook two of the chairs in this room, all three of them had their work faces on. Then the General got the meeting off to a fast start, "First off, how many filters did you bring with you on this trip?"

Robert didn't bother to reply to this question, and he just passed over a noteputer that held some of the key data for this part of the mission. The General was still the youngest and newest member of the Board of Directors for MMM, but she had settled in like an old hand at this kind of thing. She looked down at the data, and quickly worked out that there were filters measured in 100 ton lots to keep the numbers more manageable and at the same time hide the true numbers of the devices if a person didn't know the code. That was something that had not been in her briefing papers, and she made a note to see what else might have been missed. She was only aware of this tactic thanks to her years in supporting roles of the SLDF.

She looked up. "Good.! We can work with that. I will need five shipping units worth of sets to be set aside. Before you lift "we" will need to move those sets over to a warehouse that I know is controlled access." She didn't need to say that this movement would need to be done without any outsiders seeing or knowing what the move was all about.

Now the head of all operations for SLiE in the Inner Sphere as well as being on the Board of Directors of MMM handed over her own noteputer back to Robert. "Now let's give you an update on some things that might have been missed in your last update brief. This has your copy of the official memo from "my" division over at MMM. It says that you're the official independent sales representative for MMM at least related to atmo and water filters that "are made" by my division of the company. That device also has an updated list of IFF codes and crew IDs that you can use, to cover the use of your drive as a Plan B." Terry reached out and took the small electronic device and started reading the data on display while the General talked.

Gao noted the action of the other woman, but she kept with her steady pace of talking while looking at both of them. The hidden SLDF officer made a note to add this information to her own data to be sent back to New Circe. "I will also tell you that you need to avoid saying that you're selling Bear Slayer class PPCs for the near future. The Legal department over at MMM is starting to come up with a very Combine like enforcement plan on that now trademarked name."

Robert gave a head nod in understanding and Terry didn't even look up from the digital device in her hands. This type of move was not unexpected by him or anyone else with half a brain, and the SLDF Navy and SLIC didn't tend to keep personnel that were less than half smart. "I will have the ones that we have remaining stamped with the Shangri-La name and glyphs. It might slow down some of our sales, but it shouldn't be a showstopper in this kind of environment. At worse we will have to do a few more test firings at the point of sale."

General Gao let a smile come to her face. "Good, now what of your plans? Oh, and by the way. Lora and Kimberly Jay are looking forward to seeing you before you head back to the jump point. I made sure to let them know that you were heading this way…not that I needed to. They already had known but were keeping it quiet. They were not hiding this information, but they were not talking about it to anyone."

More items were covered in that meeting under the protections of the dropship's metal hull and passive counter spying systems. With input from "the Boss", a leave system was approved so that many of the ship's crew could have some free time. That free time would also just happen to provide cover for the offloading of 500 tons of filters, and at the same time give Robert and Terry time to have two overnight stays at a nice resort some distance away from the planet's main drop port. It would be good for both Kimberly and Lora to catch up with Robert and for Terry to meet the pair of women that she had heard so much about over the years.

Only a few hours after the meeting, a crap ton of paperwork was filed that would move funds from one part of MMM to another, and the cargo would be listed as being sold. Only it was cargo that very few on this planet knew was not made there or anywhere else in MoC claimed space. This paperwork shuffle was required to make sure all of the books were balanced for MMM. After all, MMM was a publicly traded company. And as such, its books could be forced open at the whim of the regulators of the MoC.

8 weeks later, Early July 3053

Manaus system.

Near the FWL part of the Duchy of Andurien and the Confederation borders.

Robert looked out the window onto the planet that gave the star system its name…. or was it the other way around. Robert had not taken the time to ask how this planet got its name, and really, he didn't care. At least he didn't care when you were looking at something so heart breaking. It was called Manaus and only the crazy would live on it's surface, at least as it was now. At one time it had been part of the Duchy of Andurien and at the same time it also was part of the larger FWL. It also was on or had been "near" or across into the borders of the MoC and Confederation off and on for the last few hundreds of years. Like many other planets within the Inner sphere, it had been fought over many dozens of times, and that was even before the time that most would say had been the fall of the Star League. It had only gotten worse after that time and the damage had never been fully repaired even when the Star League had been around. They only had come up with work arounds, and now even those work arounds were not cutting the mustard.

By now the planet had been bombarded with every capital scale weapon known to man, nuked, bioweapons, and chemical weapons dusted. Still, it had been reported that it had not been that great of a place to live even before all of this damage was done to the biosphere of the planet. But the planet did have great value, at least for those that were trying to take it for the governments of the Duchy and the FWL. It also was well known that even the Confederation still wanted this death world. The MoC had other ways to get what this planet offered, and it was currently a lot safer for all parties. Robert and the FWL were hoping to change that in the near future.

This planet also was only 34 light years from Canopus, and it had mineral wealth coming out of its rocks that was hard to match if a few things could be done. And that mineral wealth could be used to help support the whole MoC and the FWL at the same time as they made the weapons of war that the whole Inner Sphere needed to help with the rebuilding from the Clan Invasion. It was hoped that the latest offering from MMM would pull this world out of its decline and help every other planet within a double jump of its location.

#######

For the last week Robert and a good part of his crews had been in orbit of this hell planet with all of TTM's dropships. There was only one bio-dome on the whole planet that was still working "at full capacity" when the Styx had arrived at the jump point. At least it was working for the value of working if you looked at it just right, had a few drinks, and closed one eye just enough. If you didn't to those things, you would know that even this habitat dome was on its last legs. The locals on the planet had dozens of other huge housing domes spread out over the planet, but none of the others could support life much less human life anymore. Oh, and that number of domes did not count all of the mining sites that now were idle due to the lack of life support that those pesky workers needed to drag the mineral wealth out from under the ground.

In that week Robert's people had not been idle and just sitting in high orbit of the nearly dead world enjoying the sites as they pass below them. They had been bringing down supplies and equipment in small craft and not risking the cargo dropship on a drop port that had seen a lot better days. The locals could only "safely" land one dropship at a time, and that single dropship slot was currently filled by a MoC government owned craft carrying some key members of the Duchy of Andurien's government and other VIPS from within the federal government of the FWL along with a larger team from the civilian side of the MoC.

Robert had been looking forward to this day ever since he had found out about what was being slowly built in the Split system. This planet was on a list of about a hundred others in Robert's private files. That file was filled with worlds that were dead or about to die and that might be helped if just the right bit of tech could be passed along. By the end of today, Robert was going to be a king or a clown. To those in the know? It was not a bet on what way this was going to fall, it was easy money. Anybody betting against Copeland was taking a suckers bet or just okay with flushing money out the air lock. There were very few people in this star system that knew the history of these devices. Yea, Robert and even some of the MoC were playing with a loaded deck, and this time the house was not going to win. Well, everyone would be helped but for those few evil souls that were okay with the status quo of this planet.

#######

Terry came up behind Robert as he was looking out the thick window, and she slowly moved him towards the landing craft that would be taking them to the planet in just a few minutes of powered flight. The ride down to the battered planet in that small craft was not enjoyable for any of the passengers. It was like landing onto a too small of a runway in a blacked-out airplane….. during a Texas spring thunderstorm. When they did land on the planet's surface, Robert had nothing to do but watch what was going on around them. This was some of the colonial or colonial trained engineers show, even if they were wearing generic space crew one piece ship's suits. Robert was only there to sign the contracts and pay any bills that might come up during this little dog and pony show. Oh, and he was the face of both his company and one of the fastest growing divisions of MMM. Being exposed that much was now something that he had been able to get used to, even if he both didn't like it and it made his skin crawl at the same time.

#######

Robert was walking around the surface part of the dome with his escort just far enough back as to not crowd the VIP, and not all of those escorts reported to Mr. Copeland. Besides the escorts, Robert had two of his people for physical protections that had arrived on the Styx with him, a woman from Canopus, and a local woman. The last pair were walking to Robert's left and right side as they all walked under the dome that let them do the little things… like breathe. Behind them were the people from the nearby local Duchey and the Federal level of the FWL.

Robert could not get over the smell of the place, it was one that was so strong that it made his nose hair want to turn brittle. Robert had to keep his face still as he thought that at least it was not a burning smell that was so alarming to the spaceship's crew from across the whole of the Inner Sphere and even deep into clan space. Fire and spaceships were not two words that those groups like using in the same sentence, much less living through. This smell was more like a cross between a very old gym locker and a workshop, but the mix of the worst of both locations. There were low mounted lights in the areas around Robert and his convoy, but as they walked around the corridor the lights behind them would dim to save on power. You could barely see the outside world through the supposed to be clear material of the dome that stretched over their heads. Then again there was a major sandstorm blowing out there according to the local weather report. So, who knew if you would have been able to see anything if the expected amount of light had been around.

The off-world visitors were told that those types of storms lasted from anywhere from a few hours to going on for many weeks. These massive sandstorms had only started after the last orbital bombardments had been unleashed onto this planet, which had also caused the die off of all of the surfaces visible plant and animal life. This planet still had microbes living on the surface and in the subsurface water areas around the planet. It was just too bad that almost all of the surviving life was deadly to the humans that still lived on this planet. The group made a turn and Robert noticed the outside wind sounds noticeably drop in this location in the dome.

"Is the storm blowing out?" Robert turned and looked at one of the locals with a raised eyebrow so that the rest of the group knew who he was addressing the question to. He was hoping that this storm was not going to delay this stress test. The key in any testing was that it had to be repeatable and consistent with its output.

She was a very pale woman with oily dark hair, and she didn't even make eye contact with Robert when she started talking. "Ohh no! There is another dome, a big one, about 1.5km that way. It acts as a wind block for this part of the dome when storms start blowing from certain directions." She weakly points off to one side of their path of travel.

Before Robert could ask more questions, they made another turn and entered a little square within the dome. In the center of the little square was a knee-high concrete box that was about three meters square if not a little smaller. Robert's scanning eyes stop when he noticed that sitting on the edge of the pony wall was a disheveled crying woman. Robert altered course towards the scene, but before he could reach her. He was passed by a quick stepping local from his group. Robert had an odd feeling, so he slowed down his walk and watched to see what was wrong and if there was any way that he may help.

The local woman with the dirty hair put her arms around the weather-beaten crying older looking woman sitting on the short wall, and they spoke in low tones that didn't carry far enough for Robert to hear what was being said. When Robert slowly drew closer to the pair, he could see that the manmade stone box was a small fountain, and a very small trickle of water was coming out from one of the dozens of fixed spigots that feeds the public water fixture.

The local escort wave this group away from the crying woman, and after a few seconds she rejoined Robert and the rest of the group that had been waiting at the outer edge of this public square. She could see the questioning look in the off worlders eyes. "None of the homes in this part of the dome have had running water for more decades than I want to count. All of the water has to be imported from off planet, and it comes at an extreme cost. The old Star League processors are only able to supply air, but then only a limited amount. Also, that amount drops every few years and more of the imported water has to be cracked to get at the O2."

She could tell that the off worlders were not getting exactly what she was meaning, so she dumbed it down for them. "The reason we do not live in that larger dome currently blocking the wind, is that we cannot make enough air to fill it. Our people that must work there need to wear protective suits from the time they leave their homes until they return no matter how many hours they were gone. We even have had to strip out what parts they could to keep this place running from other domes across the planet."

She hooks a thumb back towards the concrete box. "They put those water fountains in each housing area a few decades ago, and when a dropship lands. The water is pumped out for the locals to use it through these fountains. You have to stand in line to get your drinking water for hours. On special holidays the fountains are turned on at a very low flow rate. Ms. Bell thought that she had forgotten a holiday or something. I told her that they were just testing the pipes, but that we had a water shipment coming in soon."

The escort from Canopus had an odd look on her face. "I would bet that there was only a wet spot in that box from the odd few drops of water I saw coming out of the fountain heads. Why would she be upset?"

The local had a little fire in her eyes when her head snapped over and looked back at the Canopian woman. "I'm surprised there is not a line of people with sponges trying to get every drop of water out of that damp spot. Ms. Bell was afraid that the water would be turned off before she could go home and get her own sponges."

The oily haired woman looked back at Robert and her tone was as dry as space. "It looks like your system is working…. somewhat. Our population and our productivity have been limited by the amount of air that we can clean and the amount of food and water that can be brought in as dead head cargo on visiting dropships. Do you really think you can change this situation?" She waved her hand around to indicate the whole dome or maybe the whole world.

Robert did not say anything, because he didn't know what to say and it would just use up more of the local air. Robert just pulled out his communication device and decided to find out what was going on. "Bill, this is Copeland. How are things?"

Robert put his finger to his other ear so that he could hear a little better. When Bill was done talking, Robert closes the device with a soft click. He looked to the people from the Inner Sphere, and he made sure that his voice was pitched for them all to hear but not go that much further. The last thing he wanted was to start some kind of riot if he was proven right or wrong.

The voice carried just as Robert wanted. "They have only two of the six MMM made filter cylinders going at idle level at this time. They are about to take down the old systems, to test the new MMM system all on its own. Then they will stress the new filters by ramping up their output to full but not emergency levels. If we see any emergency lights? Then we will know something went wrong with the handover from the old system to the newer one. So far, the only issue has been the locals having a few problems on their end about supplying enough power and having the wrong sized outlet fittings for the other filtering cylinders. My people say that they should have those few issues worked out in a couple of minutes. Then they will have all six cylinders working as soon as they each pass the final self-tests." Robert had no idea how long all of the filters would be active, that would be up to the people in the command center of this dome.

#######

Robert and this group quickly walked back to the command center of the dome and the whole star system. He didn't need to be told that the command center was why this one dome was picked to be the one to have the most effort to keep "viable" while others failed. As soon as Robert entered the room, he was met with wide eyed looks from half a dozen different people…..none of them were his. The Mayor/System Governor quietly pushed Robert and his group into a handy side room. The group was briefed that all of the MMM made cylinders were now in operation and the surviving old Star League era processors were in back up mode in case of any emergencies.

Clean air and drinking water were already starting to flow into the Dome's emergency storage devices at rates only seen when a Mammoth class dropship had dumped her load into them. That was something that the command staff in this building had to read the manuals to work out how to do that from ground based systems. That Mammoth dump was something that had not been done in anyone's living memory. To get a Mammoth load of air and water for the domes on this planet? Well, you had to have a Mammoth size order of cargo going out of the system. At the current rate of operation of those six new filters? The locals would have over six months backup air and water supply for the 3000 people living in the dome, in only a few hours. In a hyper given statement, the mayor said that then she would start to release fresh water for the fountains. If there were no issues, then they would start cycling out the dirty air so that they could start pumping the dome full of fresh and sanitized breathing gases. That should cut down on the smell nicely.

The Canopus representative and the locals needed some private time after that rushed briefing, and they asked the mayor and the rest of them to leave the room. Robert and his team went to the main room of the command center and watched a large waterfall display move from red zones into the bottom of yellow, but they all were climbing in a good way. Robert didn't need to hear a word to know that everyone in this room was ecstatic. They had not even needed to push those six filters to more than half output to achieve this victory.

By the end of the shift, Robert had his documentation for the sales sheets. He also had an order for twenty more filter cylinders with a supporting maintenance contract in his documentation. All of this would be passed back to MMM as soon as the Styx made a stop in a system with a working HPG. The locals were even paying for a High Priority class transmission rate to make sure that all of the paperwork was submitted to the right people. The locals were that happy with the six 20-ton filters they had been testing to come up with this amount of coin.

Robert left five of the twenty requested filter systems on this planet when the contract was signed. The first six filters that were already on the ground had been paid for by the MoC with Robert just dropping them off and helping with setting them up and doing the demo. Robert had no idea if those five additional filter systems were going to be used for added supply for that dome or if they would be kept as backups for the six donated devices. They might even use them to help rehabilitate one of the other domes for living space or improve ore extraction. It was none of Robert's concern one way or the other, and he was just happy if the locals didn't fall any further in their decline to a fully dead world.

Robert would have to go back to Canopus and drop off the government rep and get paid his final payment for this run. Robert was already planning his next few jumps, after he made his first paycheck in the Inner Sphere that would be just for him, his wife, and their company. Robert had a list of places that might need these air and water processors. Besides he had some ideas on what those commission checks would be used for, and those checks would never see the insides of a bank on New Circe. The trip to Canopus also would allow the news and data to percolate deeper into the FWL, all with the FWL federal and local governments footing that bill all on their own.

News flew both ways and the last data update on the news from around the Inner Sphere had been news talking about how the Peace Summit on Terra had failed. This had not been a surprise for those that knew about New Circe. That same reaction was not copied from the residents of the rest of the Inner Sphere. After this drop off of personnel and data using "normal" jumps routes and procedures common within the general areas of the Inner Sphere. Then the Styx would be following along those rumors into FWL space.

Robert and Terry made plans as their dropship made a steady 1g burn towards the jump point and their ride out of this system. Their last image from the dome that was sent up to the dropship was from a security camera. This feed was because someone on this dropship had been able to remote into the camera without the locals knowing about the hack. It showed images of all of the fire suppression systems in the dome dumping fresh water onto the residents of the dome in a light but steady fake rain. It looked to be a nice party developing within the dome, as the first safe water rain was seen in this system in over a century.

#######

Notes:

The ship's papers: The ship's papers that are in the safes on the dropships and jumpship still say Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale. But now there is an added line of TTM that has Copeland and Terry listed as the owners headquartered on a fake planet not on any map. It is just another layer of crap for any outside parties to have to sift through.

The filters in this story. I wanted to show that not only military weapons were flowing out of New Circe to the Inner Sphere.

The Snowden mining stations. This was one of the things that was added due to reader input. Yes, I listened. It just took me a while to find a place that it would fit. It also shows that the Wolverines still have some issues with the past that the rest of the clans will. They are not perfect, and they have issues that need to be worked on.

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