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.

88. Chapter 88 April 3054

Chapter 88

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

The Split system

April 3054

Admiral Ebon looked out the massive window that the working office on the SLS Lyssa gave her to use. Things had been busier for the last two months than had been normal, and that was saying something for this command. She had been so busy that the Admiral had not been able to just stand there and enjoy the view from her office for some time. She had been trying to move heaven and earth to help with the war against the Cylon Empire. At least she had been able to access supplies from many companies within the Inner Sphere, even if many of them didn't know they were supporting the Lyssa, the SLiE, or even the war against the Cylons.

Jaime Wolf had been true to his words and for the last eight months his jumpships had been jumping into this system and moving cargo that New Circe needed to fight the Cylon Empire almost every other week. None of those jumpships had been allowed to get close to the now visibly modified station in orbit over the super earth sized rocky planet. But they had been able to send over dropships and other cargo movers to a hand off point at a secondary location halfway between the jump point and the super earth. This handover point cut down the transit time for the Dragoons, and the less time that they spent in this system the better that SLIC liked it.

The small cargo transfer station had been built in one of the repair bays of the Lyssa in only a few months out of local resources. It was quickly "towed" out to the hand over point and powered up without any major issues. That station was a copy of a common civilian design cargo transfer point going all the way back to a time before the Star League civil war, so the designs were in both the Lyssa's main frame and back on New Circe. It was all Star League civilian tech and added another layer of cover for the SLiE by using it.

According to the current plan, this way of handling cargo from the Dragoons was expected to change. It would be as soon as some more cosmetic changes were made to the outside and insides of the SLS Lyssa. This would mask the fact of what she had been in the past much less what she was now after the colonial inspired modifications. Some would even have called these last set of modifications at type of ablative armor if things went sideways for the SLS Lyssa. When these latest rounds of modifications had been done, and they had passed inspections by a very large SLIC team that had been given the job? Then the Dragoon cargo dropships would be allowed to dock and unload cargo within the oddly shaped space station, instead of cross loading in space between the jump point. If things did not pass muster with SLIC? Then they would just keep using the cargo transfer station halfway to the Nader jump point.

Ebon was not just enjoying the view out of a window that should not be on a space object designed by the hands of man. She was waiting for something to happen and this time it should not be a surprise that she would have to deal with to fix or shoot someone over. When she turned her head to check the time one last time thanks to the colonial made gravity plates, she didn't have to float around her sleeping cabin because of Newtons laws. The blurring moment that was the hallmark of a colonial constructed interstellar drive that she caught out of the corner of her eye could have been missed by anyone that didn't know what to look for.

The massive ship had been called a troop cruiser back in the days of the old and now fallen into the dustbin of history Star League. It was known to carry the most dropships of any other jumpship, or warship built by the hands of man. Now she was a lot more than just a large dropship troop transport or a cargo mover only on a truly massive scale. It was hoped that she would be the future of how wars were fought by the SLiE and their allies. The ship was not fully ready for war, but that was not what she needed most for at this point in time. She was testing the first production K-F-B type of super jump drive that a mixed group of Colonials, Cylons, and SLDF had come up with. It would take months or even a few years of testing before the SLiE would know if this was a successful new technology or a waste of a huge amount of rare resources.

The history of the human race was littered with technology that was later found to have not lived up to its first, second, or even third billing to the public or political masters of the military. The old SLDF and the newer SLiE had fallen into that trap too many times in the past for this to be risked at this point in time. The SLiE both did not need to and could not fully crew this warship that was up to the standard that the old SLDF Navy would have demanded, much less to the required level of training of that now long-gone organization would have required at a minimum as a flying testbed.

Over half of the Egg Sac's bare minimum crewmembers were made up from the Colonials or ex Cylon POWs filling the needed rolls. The massive warship had made the move from New Circe going all the way to the Split system in only two jumps spread out over a week and a half. The rough math had put it that was over 1200 light years of space covered in those two jumps. It would have been a great travel record for traveling between the stars, but it was just too bad that no other groups of humans would know that this type of strategic movement was even possible outside of some entertainment shows that scientist criticize back within the Inner Sphere as junk science.

This time the massive warship, so well-known for the number of dropships attached to her outer hull was only carrying three dropships on this mission. Then again, she also was carrying something a lot bigger than any three dropships known to man. This was one of the most closely guarded secrets that the SLiE held from not only the Cylon Empire but anyone that was not part of the mission. Ebon had sent a message to Jaime Wolf six weeks ago to get his people ready for a prize. It was when she knew that this mission was more or less guaranteed to be launched on a timeline that was more than some wild guesses by an over eager staff member. According to the jumpship's commander on the Dragoon own vessel that had taken the message, that was more than enough time for the message to make it all the way to the "Old Man's" hands.

The Egg Sac, and oh how Ebon hated that name, would be in this star system for only two full days after it had arrived at this location. Well, it would only be in the Split System for 48 hours, if the egg heads clear the old and highly modified warship to super jump again. Also, what could cause a delay was that what little was in the massive warship's cargo bays would need to be transferred to the larger Lyssa. The Admiral would do what she could to speed up transfers of cargos by an order of magnitude. If she was right? The old cruiser that the corncob was carrying was going to make the Wolf's Dragoons more helpful to the SLiE in the very near future.

Ebon let a large smile come to her face and its reflection made her turn her head slowly from side to side. Smiles, real smiles were a rare thing in a war like they had been fighting. She worked on making the smile go away. The smile was because she knew that the ground commanders of the SLiE were looking forward to seeing more Badger C, Bandit C, and Maxim C hover type tanks fill their ranks of fighters. But to do that, you still needed a lot of support to keep those tanks on the battlefield for any real length of time.

#######

That was where the Snowden class mining station was coming into the equation. The 51,000 ton "bike type space station" had been built in the Taurian Concordat sometime after the 2400's. The Dragoons had found the wrecked of the then abandoned mining station right after the 4th SW, but not one of the Dragoons was willing to give any more details than that. Finding the first one had seemed to have gotten Wolf Net onto the idea of looking from more of them, and they had eventually found another one that was in even in more of a battered condition than the first one.

After those two stations had been recovered and then very quietly repaired, they had turned out to have been very helpful in the early stages of the rebuilding of the Outreach system. It was not only the ore processing equipment on that station that made it so valuable, but it also was the small craft bays and the two small repair bays fitted to that craft that had been needed by the rebuilding Dragoons.

But by now those two stations had been mostly replaced by clan designed stations that could do the job with less people and faster, and they had just been sitting in the Outreach system in case they might be needed again. More and more effort had to be diverted to keep "someone" from the FedCom from demanding them to be turned over to them. So far Duke Wolf and the First Prince had been successful in keeping control of them off the books.

Soon that was not going to be the situation thanks to the Dragoons working in secret with a group from off the far edge of the map. The first one of these mining stations had arrived a few months ago into the Split system as a good faith move made by the leadership of the Dragoons. Well, it was not that much of a good faith move, not when any arriving Dragoon crewed jumpship could see the station sitting in one of the asteroid belts of the Split system doing what it was supposed to be doing. After only a few weeks of inspection on the Snowden, it had started operation in this system with a crew seconded from the Lyssa.

########

The first major slowdown in expectations of the Snowden had been that there were only two lances of workmechs on the station when it had been shipped out of the Outreach system and not the thirty that it could support….. on paper. At least the support workmech bays were still fully intact, now all that the locals needed to do was find the space rated mining workmechs to do the needed job. Yes, it was a red line in a report when the deals had been signed by both parties, so it was not a breach of contract made by the Dragoons. It should not have been that much of an issue for a major power within the Inner Sphere to have to deal with. But the truth was that the SLiE didn't have that many space rated workmech certified pilots much less have the right type of machines in the Split star system.

Currently the Split System had more space rated mechs than it had the pilots to do the work for four shifts per day. It would take months before the lack of the right workmechs was an issue with the current numbers of pilots in the Split system. That delay should allow Copeland and the operations on Canopus to work on getting more of the space rated work/mining mechs and then have them headed towards the Split system. All of that was only on paper delays, because even adding only a few of these machines would increase the total star system ability for production of both raw and finished ores for the Lyssa to use.

The Star system commander hoped that some of the cargo coming off the Egg Sac would help with giving this system total productivity level a boost of at least a few more percentage points by the time that the next cargo was sent back to New Circe. This increase in support also would help with the number of air and water filters that were heading out to be sold to the needed planets within the Inner Sphere. All of those sales helped the peanut counters back on New Circe to see if this station was worth the effort that was being spent to keep it here.

The Admiral turned from the window when the massive Lyssa's Little Sister attached to a docking point on the newly arrived warships. She knew that soon cargos would start flowing from the old troop cruiser into the Mammoth class dropship. The Admiral just hoped that the promised dozen workmech pilots and families were on that ship. It wouldn't have been the first time that those bodies had been bumped on the shipping manifest. All because someone back in New Circe thought that they knew better than the Mission commander did on what was needed.

#######

It was only three days after leaving the Split star system that the old battle damaged, but now a much more lethal warship arrived outside of the Outreach system. The Egg Sac was not running with any active IFF or any other active systems for that matter with her arrival. That was only an added layer of coverage because she had arrived at twice the distance that a "normal" jumpship would need to use to safely be out of the gravitational effect of a star this size. Oh, and she was still within the plane of ecliptic and not even close to being near one of the two poles of the star.

This area of space was normally called part of the Oort cloud, and it normally was also filled with comets and failed planets moving at speeds normally displayed in scientific notations. It was the type of place you used if you did not want to be seen by anyone that might be looking or watching who arrived at this star system with bad thoughts for the locals. It was perfect and to think that the idea for using this location had come from someone connected to Clan Wolf. That was…enlightening for some members of the SLiE when this plan was officially approved. The data to do this jump had been supplied or at least verified by SLIC in its few missions that they had covertly run into this star system without the Dragoons seemingly knowing about the spying.

Captain Lora Six or Lora Seis as it was noted on many of the ship's files was waiting in her command center as the crewmembers of the Egg Sac finished checking to make sure they had arrived safely at the planned destination. Lora had found that she liked the new last name on the paperwork, and she had made plans to officially change her last name from Six to Seis when they got back home. This great warship had lost some of its too massive, in her opinion, cargo space to fit the new prototype jump drive and additional weapons points that would be fitted at some future date if these tests proved fruitful for the humans. And those were only two of the upgrades that this massive vessel was scheduled to undertake as soon as the parts and personnel were found to do the work.

After the new jump drive was fitted to this old warship, the next most useful modification in use today was the complete sensor sets that had been centered around recovered materials from a pair of wrecked Colonial warships, some blasted Cylon Basestars, and a few recovered SLDF warships. Those very mixed tech devices were currently letting her command crew soak up every bit of data that they could about this star system that was nearest to them. Well, it was near as far as stellar measurements went, the central star was so dim as to be lost in the glow of the rest of the stars visible in this part of the galaxy.

Captain Lora Seis looked around the massive command center that made up the core of this vessel. She could not help but be impressed about her command and it was not just the warship but also how all of the crew worked together. She just could not wait until they started refitting capital grade weapons to this vessel and let her go hunting the Number Ones. But the massive command center that had been added along with a massive number of electronic systems was enough to make a human form Cylon's heart melt.

#######

Lora kept her face very still and looked over to her XO, a native of New Circe. "XO, are we secure?"

Mike Kumar kept his face still at being addressed by the master of this vessel. This was not a sign of any issues between the Wolverine and the ex Cylon POW. He was just keeping to the role of being the second in command of a SLDF warship. "We are in the Outreach system and running in full quite mode as per our SOP. Nothing seems to be within one and a half light seconds bubble and growing of us." He didn't need to say that the bubble was growing at the speed of light.

Captain Seis gave a head nod of approval and then started slowly walking around the bridge of the command center. Everyone in this room was on high alert in case something went sideways on them, just like they had been trained to do. She would need to wait until they had been in this location for one hour…unless an emergency, before they could start the next phase of this operation. They were a long way from home, and it would be very bad to move to fast. But there was a plan if things went badly… if this crew lived long enough to put it into operation.

The XO walked over from the last station filled with data that the operator was still sifting through, and when he was only a few steps away Lora raised an eyebrow at him. It was time for a little update briefing. "So, Mark how is my ship?"

The Wolverine had to fight to keep his mouth from turning down at this question. He was one of the type of officers that didn't like to use the first names for the top two officers on a SLDF vessel or major command in public. The Colonials allowed this and the Cylons drew from the tradition of the Colonials even if it was before the 2nd Cylon war. This might have been a SLDF vessel, but most of the crew were made up of non-Clan Wolverine personnel. Then again having someone with the looks of a Number 6 human form Cylon calling you by your first name did cut through many issues. And it also could start more than a few issues all on their own.

Mark kept his working face on and did a little mental head shake. "The prototype jump drive has passed all of the checks so far. We are still using just over 7 percent more fuel than was projected per jump in the planning department for this mission. We still have enough fuel to make it back home if this is the right number, after we dump this wreck off of our hull."

Mark stopped talking for a few seconds when he saw the captain's mouth do a little downturn of her own. He knew that she was on the team that had worked out the fuel load needed for super jumping and super jumping with this size of a super cargo load. Then he went back to briefing his commander. "We have a good read on the system. Nothing is near our arrival point, except for some rocks that were already noted in our Navigation data. The Dragoon commercial jump point has almost a dozen jumpships that range in size from a Scout class jumpship up to a pair of Star Lords sitting there. We picked up a patrol made up of dropships that are heading our way at around 1g of thrust. The Dragoon only jump point. The one with that modified Olympus core shipyard., has six jumpships and nine warships sitting by it. I think that we are ready for the next step, captain."

Lora got her face back under control after the news of what she thought of as excess fuel usage so far on this mission. "Please let me know if there are any other engine issues, and I agree it's time to start the next phase of this mission. Have the duty crew cut and retrieve those cargo lines. Then at the bottom of the hour, please send the coded message on that Wolf Net frequency we were given. Then I think it would be a good idea to rotate the bridge crew. We have some time before anyone can react….. negatively to us.

#######

While the bridge crew were doing their jobs and working hand in hand with the currently over strength engineering support crew. Another large part of this crew was being released from their cabins in the massive and old warship. These newly released crew quickly went out the airlocks to work on the flank of this rebuilt war machine. The Wagon Wheel class cruiser was an old TDF warship that massed around 650K according to all of the books. At least it massed that much before it had gone on a diet caused by enemy capital grade weapons fire and just plain old age lost in the depths of deep space. Many of the crew on the Egg Sac had already done at least one tour on the Styx, Pegasus, or they had been trained by them to support this mission. So, this type of work was known to the crew.

After the old TDF warship was released from the hull of the old SLDF warship, the crew on the Egg Sac would use many small thrusters to move away from the empty and powerless hulk. This last set of movements was only possible thanks to the high level of training of the SLDF/Colonial/Cylon helm's crews. They would have to be careful so that anyone that might be looking in the wrong direction would not see them before the time was right. While the distance was still growing between the two old warships was still rated at "only" a few meters a second. A smaller team that had been outfitted with specially made Colonial armored space suits had started walking on the outer hull of the Egg Sac. They were attaching premade panels on the armored skin at specific predesignated points that would be needed in the near future to protect the SLiE.

When all of the space suited teams were done putting together those colored metal panels, The Captain's ship would have six massive Smoke Jaguars badges placed in just the right spots all around the outer hull of the Egg Sac. Anyone getting close to this warship would have no problem seeing her as a ship that was a Smoke Jaguar flagged Potemkin class warship even with the IFF systems powered down. As soon as the space walking teams were done with all of the required tasks, and the old Wagon Wheel was far enough away, only then would the Egg Sac's great solar sail could be deployed.

This far out from the local star, the solar sail would not gather energy at a very high rate. At least when compared to what it should be able to at a "normal" jump point, but it would be some power and it would help with the cover story that SLIC, General Wolf and General (ret) Jaime Wolf were weaving. This fabrication was not just for consumption for the rest of the Inner Sphere but also for the average Dragoon currently living on Outreach. The kilometer wide old SLDF designed sail also would stand out like an old style lighthouse when any radar beam found the skin of the sail.

It did not take but a half a day before the upgraded sensors fitted onto the Egg Sac had worked out that four of the dots that they were tracking were now heading right their way at very high Gs. Speed of light at this kind of range is measured in many hours of travel going each way. Most of the delay in identifying what was heading their way had been in getting to know the transponder codes that the Dragoons were currently using.

These four dropships were supposed to be supported by a Tug coming out from the near planet's shipyard. They had been sitting at the jump point before working on a patrol that would be a good training mission for their crews to keep combat skills sharp, among other missions. It looked like when the radar on one of those dropships picked up the radar return from the jump sail, they went to full burn on their massive plasma thrower engines.

Now those dropships were making a steady 1.5g of acceleration heading on a bee line for this part of space that should be empty. The term was steady because for about 10minutes per hour the little fleet of dropships would pump up their acceleration to 2gs before cutting back down on the engine power. It was just what the mission commander was looking for. They were working on one of the cover stories that a group with Smoke Jaguars had found this smaller warship and they would have to dump it so that they could escape to places unknown to the Clans and the Great Houses.

That would be the primary cover story that had been worked out by SLIC and Wolf Net about how the Dragoons had found this old warship at the very edge of the star system in a place no one had thought to look. The staff and crewmembers on the Egg Sac had no idea how long some of those dropships had been heading out here, but they would still need eight more days to reach the pair of warships at that speed for a zero-zero rendezvous.

When those Dragoon dropships got there, they would see two old warships floating around the very edge of this star system. Only one of those warships was just a lot more powerful and closer to being fully operational than the other and much smaller warship. The plan was that when any of the Dragoon dropships docked with the Egg Sac or had visual communication with the Potemkin. They would only see a crew of Colonials that were dressed in Smoked Jaguar uniforms or in other clothes that were common within the Dark Caste.

It would not take long before a few copies of those video recordings would find their way to ComStar, Clans, spy agencies, and other information brokers spread out around the Inner Sphere. That would get so many people chasing a false trail that it could be funny, at least for those that had a sense of humor that ran that way. Pulling what were really just elaborate practical jokes against other intelligence gathering agencies was a practice that went back to at least the time of the second great war back on Terra.

#######

Lieutenant Liarion Timo had been breathing hard and fast, and it was not just because of the heavy G loading he was enduring strapped into this dropship. The Wolf Net team at the commercial jump point had been told to rotate someone on the dropship patrols that had become common place now that the Clans had stopped their roll towards Terra… for now. You would think that with the number of warships in this star system, dropship patrols would have been useless. But Wolf Net had spent years working out what to do if any unfriendly dropships tried to make a run at the Dragoons on Outreach. They had literally centuries of studies of how attacks like that had been launched in the past to study from with equipment that ranged from clan to pre age of war.

Those studies had gotten the Dragoons to start sending groups of dropships in patrols that were looking into areas that were not pirate points or "normal" jump points around Outreach. Oddly over the last month, reinforcement of these directives had come out from the head of Dragoon space operations. One of the more hidden directives had come down from higher command, and it said that a Wolf Net agent would be assigned to each of these patrols until further notice. Those agents were the only ones that knew the real reasons that these patrols had been increased with the Elephant tugs that were now filling in role as one of the assault ships for the Dragoons.

Timo felt the battleship lift off of his chest and more blood was able to make it to his brain and tired large group muscles. The message had come from the Dragoon run space station on a tight lasercom to the dropship. That message held an "alert" and it held the key words that said the game was on. To Timo, this meant that soon the Dragoons would have a repairable Cruiser class warship under their command. The agent knows that it will be up to him to help spin the multi layered cover story on the details of how this came to be for both internal and external consumption. It just goes to show you that missions given to Wolf Net were not the easy ones.

With a grunt of effort, the Wolf Net Lieutenant activated the transmitter that was wired into the main systems of this dropship and that included the "Black boxes" that both were not black and not boxes. "Unknown Vessel, this is the Dragoon dropship Prime Mover. You have entered the areas that had been claimed by Duke Wolf and defended by The Dragoons. If you have suffered a jump emergency, please contact my vessel on Guard. We will welcome you, if you come in peace. But if you cause issues? You will be left in pieces."

With that the first blocks of the cover story were now on the record, and well the agent wanted to play up the well documented arrogance of the Dragoons. That last statement also was a coded signal for those that knew to look for it. With the challenge and also the challenge password given, all the agent had to do was wait for the correct counter password. If the counter password was not given…well that was why there were four heavily armed dropships on this patrol.

It took some time for the speed of light to make it to the two major radar returns and then back to the closing group of Dropships. When the reply did make it to the dropship, it was voice only. "Approaching Dropships. We have suffered an engine casualty and are working on repairs at this time. If you do fire into us? Then we will spread your ashes around this star system as a warning to others about being careful about making threats to those they do not know."

The Wolf Net agent smiled in his mind, but his face was impassive as you would expect from a Wolf Net agent on a mission. The message that had been received by the other party, and the reply held the correct counter challenge. The Voice even had sounded like a clanner trying to hide being a clanner to those with only some passing knowledge of the Clans. It was the second set of blocks of the cover story that was going to get out as soon as any intelligent gathering group spent enough time or budget on how this warship had been found. After those two cover stories were emplaced, it would give Wolf Net and the Dragoon's staff time to come up with a few more stories as added layers of protection for this group that is living off the edge of the map.

When the patrol of Dragoon dropships had flipped around and started decelerating, they were still too far from the warships to have a very productive conversation. The Agent had to keep the real commander of this patrol under control from the first message exchange. It was not long after the turnaround that the systems on two of the dropships were able to get enough data to know that there were two large warships out there were a jumpship should not be. That was when the agent had to pull out a set of orders that had been set up just for this mission and in case a patrol leader might push back against the agent. This was too important of a mission to let some dropship commander's ego get in the way.

It took a few hours to get all of the pieces with enough data collected that clearly showed the rough images of the Smoke Jaguars on the larger warship. Then it only took some computer power before they could be seen clearly. As part of the story, the Agent held a meeting between all four of the dropship commanders to "plan" out what should be the next steps. He also sent a coded message back to the jump point defensive station and the same message down to the Dragoon headquarters building. All of those messages were mainly for a stage show and not really needed for the completion of this mission.

########

When the timeline matched, the agent activated the radio and this time it was going to be a visual communication between warship and dropship. "Smoke Jaguar Warship, this is Dragoon patrol. We would like to set up a meeting between our commander and your commander as soon as possible. But how are the repairs going?"

The image on the display was of a very pretty woman in a Smoke Jaguar's space rated uniform. The voice had a hard almost brittle edge. "So, you are the face for the voice. I think, Traitor Dragoon, that you know the answer to your own question. But I will tell you any way, it is not going well. We are not going to be able to repair the jump drive on one of our ships. We have removed what is needed and we are getting ready to scuttle our little sister." The blonde "Smoke Jaguar" let an eyebrow raise at her last comment.

Lieutenant Iiarion Timo had to keep from smiling but then decided that it would play well when this recording was leaked if he did smile just the right amount. "Well, Smoke Jaguar. We know that your clan has been absorbed by other groups of Clans and you are on the run, or you will see yourselves removed from the glory road by other clan forces. If you cannot fix the jump drive on the Wagon Wheel. How about we make a trade. You know a trade between one set of clan outcasts and another? It's not like we can't make the Clan Council any madder at either of us."

It would take two weeks to finish this deal, and for all of that time the small patrol of Dragoon dropships hovered near the two warships like a moth to a light. It took time to get the second Snowden hidden near the outer edge of the ring belt around a gas giant to this spot in space even with two massive tugs doing the heavy lifting. The mining station was soon joined by a set of mule class cargo dropships escorted by an assault and a Union CV heading the same way. After a few hours of close beam communications, the last set of dropships increased speed to make it to just past the edge of the star system first.

By the time the rest of the Dragoons made it that far. The crews from the cargo dropships and the undercover Potemkin had moved over a dozen fighters and the rest of the cargo containers from the two cargo dropships. All four tugs out this way were ready to attach the old mining station to a set of collars on the "Smoke Jaguar" warship that would be leaving. The massive mining station only used one collar to expand the jump field, but it was so bulky that it blocked two other collars from all but the smallest dropships known to the Inner Sphere to be able to safely use.

There were some, but very limited interaction, between the Dragoons and the crew on the massive warship. Wolf Net and the Dragoons could not vet everyone on this mission, but plans had been made that could cover this issue to Wolf Net's advantage. It had been an expected issue, and the only warship's crew that had "talked" to the Dragoons were members of the warship's crew that had been trained to speak and act like a person raised in Clan Space.

Most of the contact was from human form Cylons, they were normally the fastest in picking up the required acting and language training needed for this mission. Labor caste talking to what they thought of as warrior caste was not very common within Clan's space and this added to one of the cover stories needed by this mission. If you can't fix it then use it to your advantage, was also a well-known concept for Wolf Net and this current iteration of SLIC.

While that was going on, the other set of tugs worked on attaching themselves to the old TDF cruiser and they had a solid work shift to get the newest warship in the Dragoons Order of Battle moving deeper into the star system. When the cargo dropships and now empty Union CV with their Clan grade Achilles class escort were about to start heading back to port, the massive jump sail was started to be pulled into the troop cruiser's aft hull. The last Dragoon dropships to leave this area were the remainders of the Patrol, but even then, as soon as they were clear of the jump hazard area the massive warship was gone from the Outreach star system.

It would take about a day for all of the dropships to catch up with the two tugs slowly pushing the Wagon Wheel to the commercial jump point. It would not take long before every eye within the star system was aimed at the little fleet of tugs and their charge moving at the edge of the star system. Seeing a warship, much less one that had a grav deck the sized of the one that warship was sporting was something never seen before. Oh, and it was a vessel that was not in any of the database files that someone not used to studying all warships with that age would have. ComStar had added to the mystery, and they had not even been trying when they had edited those data files to save size. Not that this detail would not be used to hammer the old group called ComStar. After all, ComStar had been caught holding relevant data back from the rest of the Inner sphere before.

Fox's Den

New Avalon

A few weeks later

The meeting was in what would have been called "the heart of the mountain" by anyone that might have known about this one room. It was not at the top or even on the deepest level of the famous mountain overlooking the capital of half of the FedCom. It was just in the center of the mountain range, that way it could not be taken from an airborne assault or a straight ground level assault large enough to do the job of breaching the outer defenses. It also was one of the most secure areas in the whole massive mountain made up of very secure rooms.

Hanse Davion was playing with his salad and trying to force himself to take another bite of the lightly sauced ruffage. He had long ago fallen into the habit of snacking during meetings like this, that is until he had his wife step in and started watching his health. Even with that intervention, he had to undergo open heart surgery to open up three arteries in his heart. When he had tried to fall back into some of his old habits of eating all of that oooh so good fried food in these meetings, he had been blocked at every turn.

When Hanse Davion had pulled out his "first prince hat" for his house hold staff to see? It had not gotten very far, not nearly as far as it should have gotten him. It would seem "wife of first prince hat" was scarier…. then he had objected very strenuously with his staff…. That had been right up until he had been shown that the couch was made up for him to sleep on if he pushed it by his wife. His counter of a diet was a goal, and not a suicide pact had fallen onto many deaf ears.

Now Hanse looked over to where the table that should have been filled with all of those oh so good fried foods was now empty but for half a dozen side salads with "only the necessary amount" of dressing already applied to them. Hanse looked back over, and he fell into an eye lock that his wife was giving him, and she raised one eyebrow in silent warning. That look was enough to get Hanse to take another bite of the greens.

As soon as the next bite of unsatisfying vegetable matter was going down Hanse's throat, he looked back to the briefer. "So, it is confirmed that the Dragoons found a Wagon Wheel class cruiser and they are not looking at putting it on the market?" When he got confirmation of this information Hanse moved on with his metal list of questions. "We also have it confirmed that the FWL Navy has a Pinto class warship in operation for the federal forces?"

Now it was Mel's turn to snort and put her own opinion out there for everyone and her husband to hear. "I am more surprised that you all are surprised by the FWL buying a warship instead of waiting to have one come off the building slips. LIC has been saying for years now that the FWL and the MoC have been very close to giving up on building new and using a recovered hulks as they work out issues in the building process. We know that the FWL have been working hard to get the Soyal back into production just to spite some of the other power blocks of their government." She didn't need to say that the FWL had many issues with this project that it should have been called subscription, and only a few of those had been caused by any group within the FedCom.

The MIIO agent in this meeting felt the sting in the words from the co-leader of the FedCom. "Ma'am, it's not that the FWL picked up a warship, but that it seems that the Dragoons were the ones to act as the intermediators for the FWL to be able to purchase a Periphery built warship."

Melissa Steiner Davion could pick up something in the tone from the older officer and her eyes went wide that made her look her age. "The lost Star League!? You think that someone is off the edge of that part of the map. And they have been helping or is the source of so much combat power that the MoC and other groups near them have used over the last few hundred years. Now you think that they have broken out the warships to trade?"

Just before the coming of the Clans it had become a popular theory that the reason so many weapons, to include what was called Lostech, was found in the places like the Magistracy of Canopus and the Aurigan Coalition was that someone from outside the Inner Sphere was selling it to them. When the first Invaders showed up? It was thought that they might have been the ones responsible, but that theory was quickly dropped. That had just left a puzzle that could not be left alone by those governments that funded many intelligence agencies. Now that the Clans had been stopped, it would seem that the puzzle had been picked up again.

Hanse tilted his head to one side to make it look more like the namesake he had been given. "You think that maybe it is some group like the Diamond Sharks. They seem more aligned with the merchants' ideals like the Lyrans?" This was not a dig against his wife, just him working on the data that he had been given.

Now the MIIO briefer looked very uncomfortable at this turn of events. "We don't know, but it seems that someone has found a cache of corvette class warships, and they are putting them on the open market. It could be the MoC, but we know that they are more looking at putting a near clone of the Vincent into production with maybe an Athena class acting as the flagship for the recovered warships they already have on hand."

A snort comes from the head of MIIO. "About all we know is that the Dragoons helped sell the warship to the FWL, and they are being their normal tight-lipped selves about where it might have come from. About the only thing we know for sure, is that the warship was not from Odessa IV."

The head of the Exchequer seemed to be rolling his hands together in abject averous like a villain out of a holovid. "Well, that should make for an interesting line item in his biannual tax records. Even 2 percent of the cost of that warship will help me to pay the FedCom's bills a little easier." After having to always come up with the funds for more warships, it would be nice to be receiving sums like that for once.

Now Hanse drops an errant thought into the room like a fart in a car. "Besides the normal suspects in the Inner Sphere, who else is looking at being in the market for warships?" It was going to be a given that all of the house lords were looking for warships.

The intel briefer looked down to the noteputer on the desktop and he was quiet for many long seconds. Then he found what he thought he was looking for. "MIIO received an official letter from Morgan Hasek-Davion's office not that long ago. He is wanting to put funds aside for the purchase of a warship from the MoC or other third parties. We also have a few reports from LIC that Ryan Steiner is reported to be trying to get the funds and hide them for the same reason. Also, the St. Ives Compact sent an unofficial notice under Candace Liao's signature that they felt that a warship is needed to protect that new jumpship yard and space station they took from a ComStar splinter group." The voice of the briefer trailed off as he looked past the briefing notes and deeper into a few reports on a different screen.

Hanse's wife gets ready to drop her own bomb and not just to show the rest of the room that she had enough brainpower to be in this room. "How long until our own capital warships have a set of fully trained crews, and how long until we can have escorts built for them?"

The briefer had a lost look come to his face; this was something that was way out of his depth. Thankfully the head of the FedCom Navy spoke up before the silence stretched out to long. "It will take another two months for the Black Prince to get all of its crew slots filled, and then call it another four months to get them used to working together. While the Invincible is a smaller warship there were fewer crews with the training and had cleared background checks for her at this time. She is about three months behind the McKenna class battleship in crew manning. It will be maybe 6 months after that before we will have crews ready for a pair of recovered escorting warships from Odessa. Coming up with the crews and assault dropships has been a lot easier.

The Admiral made a sour face, he had never been one to like using mercenaries as anything but bait. "Then it will be slow and steady as the Dragoons and our schools fast track some of the better students. But more and more, we will be just waiting for the 120-day training classes to finish a class. After the first 2 years? Then we will have to wait for the first class that are hoped to pass all of the tests after 4 years of training from scratch."

The admiral was about to say that if they had more funds, then they could cut down on those delays in getting crews assigned to more of the warships that had been recovered in Odessa. But it was well known that funds for all of the FedCom were tight even with the "war" at least delayed. That would be the case until the economy for the whole FedCom had a chance to adjust and recover from the invasion of these Clans.

Melissa Davion was lost in thought for a while, and then she looked over to her husband with an odd look on her face. "Did you take your blood pressure meds today?"

Hanse gives his wife a confused look and then gives a positive head nod. Then Melissa turned to look around the table. "Why don't we see if the Taurian Concordat would like to either work with St Ives or get their own corvette class warship? I think that them having their own warship would be very helpful in the long run for the FedCom. They know we have some and they have none, they could break out the nuks and do something very dumb if our warships cross some invisible line in their minds."

The room exploded as even those of lower ranked visibly and verbally came unhinged at her statement. The only two people that were not visibly upset at this. They were the husband and wife pair sitting close and now holding hands. Hanse just had a thoughtful look on his face as he worked through what his wife had just said, and at least the out of the box thinking spoke to him. Then a bark of laughter cut through the room like a knife. Everyone turned and looked at the First Prince as he brayed like a comic donkey in laughter.

Hanse had to wipe a tear from his eye and gave his wife a loving look and patted her hand with his off hand. "That is a great idea! The Taurian Concordat already can't divert enough money to buy all of the mechs they make. Supporting anything like a warship is going to massively kick a huge hole into their budgets. The TDF will have to stop buying even more of those machines to keep from sinking any deeper into the red than they have been in the last few years. You're thinking about them needing to trade with barter for the funds needed to buy any warship that they are looking at?"

Mel smiled a smile that showed she enjoyed the praise from her co-leader. "Yes, to both, and after they have their hands on even a small warship? Then they will have all of those hidden and reoccurring costs we have run into to have to find a way to cover. Then that would open the way for even more mechs to be sold on the open market. This will help with the rebuilding of our units even if they are not the most updated machines. I don't think that there are many upper end light mech drivers or medium ones for that matter that would not love to upgrade to a heavier design on the Clan boarders. That is going to put a bite into our supply of refit kits, but that is nothing new. I also think we should use Lyran banks just to keep the Taurians from freaking out about owing money to the FedSuns when bulk buys are made from their factories. I know that most of those banks have dedicated repossession and resale departments that could move the traded machines to the military or mercenary markets. I know that they have done so in the past."

She didn't have to say that the Lyran part of the FedCom would make sure that the FedCom military would get first pick of the mechs and tanks that were bartered to them. Then the mercenaries that were on good terms with that same government would get a pick of the weapons. Anyone below that tier would get the dregs until more of the rebuilding of the battered FedCom military was closer to being complete. That was just how things were done…at least on paper.

The rest of the room was quiet as a grave, but for Hanse who was still talking. "How do we pitch this? The Bulls will think anything said by me is a trap?"

Mel drummed her fingers on the desktop, and she didn't say anything for a few seconds, but then a smile crossed her face that was like the cat that caught the bird. "How about we go down a few different ways to close the loop on this. First, we say that we are worried about the Confederation going after the Concordat or our weakened units there. We could drop hints that the Cappies might be trying again with what they did to the FWL on that supply depot world. Second would be that "we" are worried that one of these other clans might try to skirt around the major houses and hit them from behind. We also could tell them that the TDF would feel better if they had a warship when the FedCom is working on so many.

Mel was on a roll. "I think pitching it as a balance of forces in that region and a way to keep peace on that border. We could also say that the FedCom would "donate" half the crew for it, if the TDF are short funds to man the vessel. That statement alone should get under their feathers to make sure that it does not happen. Last, we could say that the Bull might not like the FedCom but the TDF could be helpful if "someone" went after the planets of St Ives."

Hanse was all lips, eyes, and teeth as he thought about where the nearest bedroom might be. Smart and powerful women were so sexy to him that it sometimes made it hard for him to think straight. Then Hanse shakes his head to get his head back into this meeting. "Okay so that seems like a plan, someone kick this idea over to the diplomats. It will give them something to do, it's not like they have been actively employed for the last hundred years besides drawing a paycheck."

Hanse saw that some of the lower ranked people in this room were taking notes, and a bolt out of the blue hits him. "There is no way that I can stop someone with deep enough pockets within the FedCom getting at least a small warship. We all have gotten so used to being able to buy mechs, tanks, aerospace fighters and combat dropships. Well, that is if you had the money, and they were on the market."

He didn't say something for a few seconds. "So, the FedCom needs to pass a new law. If a warship is bought on the open market? We will have to define that, so that something like the Tramp is not covered, but any way a warship that needs maintenance. That kind of work can only be done in a Federally own slip, and one that is also outside of the owners of the warship's domain. That way if we have an issue like Morgan's father, they will have to go outside of their domain to maintain that kind of vessel."

Before Hanse could get on a roll, Mel voiced what she had already worked out was going to be an issue down the road on this subject. "Next will have to be a law that limits the mass of warships that nonfederal or central government forces can have. Maybe come up with a grading system by noble rank? But put the cap around 400ktons would be a good idea? We will have to put in a few grandfather clauses for the Dragoons and some others that will see this coming and break their banks for the next few generations to get a big hammer. We also will have to come up with a way to deal with mercenary units that have warships before they sign a contract with us or by some fluke of luck capture one from a growing list of someone's. It might take a while down the road, but you know someone is going to try to take one of ours or maybe even one off the clans."

The meeting continued for some time but there was no doubt that it was equally led by the married couple. They could not put anything final down on their plans that had been generated today, but they could start the ball rolling on many of the ideas that had come out of this meeting. Oh, and Hanse was rewarded for listening to his wife when the meeting was over. He was allowed 6 whole onion rings, after all he should listen to his wife in the first place.

Remembrance Wildlife Park.

New Circe.

About the same time

Tom Black was staring into the low burning fire lost within his own mind. As the flames washed dim red light over the cave walls, Tom absentmindedly played with the scar that ran down his right arm. He had been able to make it to the home world of the people that had helped the Colonials escape. Tom had known that when he had undergone all of those operations to help him find this place that it was not going to be an easy assignment. The human form had thought that after he had passed the first rounds of testing on those evacuating dropships, that all he would have to do was wait for the right time. Then he would be brought back in one of the Cylon Empire's resurrection tanks to get back to his "real" life.

After Tom had landed on this planet, he had expected to just blend in with the locals and background like what had been done on the Colony worlds. It was just too bad that hadn't been the case for the undercover human form Cylon. After his second close call of being caught by the locals while working, the modified Number Two human form Cylon had tried to be a homeless person. That had been his fallback plan that had been proven to work for the Human Forms back before the start of this new war in colonial space. Only the people of the planet that Tom now knew was called New Circe were not that keen on letting something like that happen. It had only been by sheer dumb luck that he had been gone when the social workers had done a sweep through his camp taking gene samples from everyone and packing up some of the more damaged of the homeless camp residents.

That had been what had forced "Tom" to do something more drastic to keep from being found out by the local humans. He had used the tube filled with "genetic" materials that had been added in Canopus and staged his own death before he moved out and away from the nearest human settlement on this planet. That had been two years ago, and it was on nights like this that Tom wished that he had not taken this mission to the too wet and too cold world. Tom had expected that this mission would last no more than a year if not less. The Number Two had thought that he could live with the stress of living around humans for that long was withstand able. It was sometime later that Tom had found out that the Number 2 line had some mental issues that tended to make them need more social contact than even the Six's wanted. And the Number Six's were well known to need a lot of social contact to keep them from going bug house crazy.. or something that was a lot worse.

Tom was so lost in thought that at first, he didn't notice the odd pressure at the base of his skull that had been missing for so long. He had no idea how long it was there, but when he was getting ready to get some sleep before he had to go check the traps that supplied his only source of meat, it was there. When the Human Form did notice that pressure? It still took him a few seconds to work out what it was. The shock of it left him standing in the cave like a deer in the headlights.

It was a few years after some of the other human forms had rebelled against the Number Ones, that the Ones had come up with a way so that none of "his" Cylons were recovered by the rebels. After more than a little trial and error the idea was refined. When most of the bugs were worked out, at least enough for the Number Ones to be satisfied with the fix, it was rolled out to the rest. It had not taken but a few more months before all of the human forms had the device implanted at the base of their skulls. It would let all human forms know that a resurrection ship or like vessel was within range for a download. The device also would let the human forms know that it was a Cylon Empire ship and not one of the rebel ships.

After thinking about the pressure in his head for what seemed like half an hour, Tom knows that it was a Cylon Empire ship and not the old resurrection hulk sitting at the edge of this star system doing some kind of modified systems test. It was almost a joy for him to pull out a length of rope out of his bags and find a nearby tree that would suit his now driving need, he had no idea the Number Ones had loaded that "need" into his head before this mission. Just before the Number Two jumped off the high limb, he made sure to review the navigation data that he had found one last time. It had not been as much or as detailed data as he had wanted, but it should be enough for the Number Ones to find this planet. It was only as he slowly choked to death that he started to have second thoughts about this part of the plan, but by that time it was way too late.

Tom had found a place so far away from the rest of the humans living on this planet that it would only be thanks to a wildfire crew working in the area to find what the animals had left behind of his body. Even when they found his "camp" just within the mouth of a nearby cave, they had no idea what this whole set up might mean. The items of the camp and body were collected and shipped back to the nearest medical examiner. That overworked team stored the items, and they would only work on this sad case when they had the spare time. It would be a few years down the road that DNA would be put into the system, and only then did a few dots get connected by the members of SLIC. Of course, that was only thanks to a huge douse of hindsight that those dots made sense.

Deep Space

Outer Edge of the Cylon Empire's space

A week later

The Number One had the desire for a few seconds to look out a window to see the stars as they were meant to be. Then the Number One remembered how it had died last time and that feeling went away as fast as air out an airlock. This Number One was not exactly the same one that had "died" with the loss of the Colony ship to the humans. There had only been a few hours of data that had been recoverable of that life when the resurrection buffers had been filled trying to save as many human forms as they could before they crashed. That Number One had been the oldest of his line of human forms, and what had remained had been "given" to the next oldest survivor. This Number One was the seventeenth of the line and "he" was now the oldest of his surviving brothers.

It had been his job to review the limited data and then work out what had happened to such a vital asset for the Cylon Empire. This lowest number leader of the Cylon Empire could not find anything fundamentally wrong with the train of thinking that the now lost leader had undertaken that resulted in the loss of the Colony ship. There should not have been a reason that the Human Made Cylon sometimes referred to as Daemon should have been anywhere near that location in space. The loss of the Colony ship was a huge blow to the Cylon Empire, and then there had been the escorts that had been lost. All for the destruction of "just" two human warships. The current leader of the Cylon Empire had ordered all combat ships to that location in what the humans would have called a vein hope of finding anything useful post battle.

These returning forces had been able to surprise two more human warships, but it had cost the Cylons most of that relief force. The surviving forces had no idea how badly the two additional human warships had been damaged, but the humans had successfully taken out all of the capital warships that the Cylon Empire had left in this area of space. It had been a full month after those losses that a Heavy Raider scout had been able to make it back from that location to report to the head of the Cylon Empire. They reported that the humans had done more than a fare job of post battle clean-up of all human ships and the parts of the Cylons ships that were larger than a heavy raider were removed.

It was not all bad news, at least now the Cylon cloud or mainframe had some data to start working on to find where that frakking planet the Colonials were hiding on was located. The One had hoped that the "Tom" would have more data, but it would seem that both this SLiE and Colonial refugees were very touchy about who or what held the navigation data on the location of their planet. Still those few nuggets of information should be enough to find this bastion of human combat forces. It should be only a matter of time and computer power.

While the computers worked this issue to give up a target, it would allow the command Number One to rush all the warships that he could to this location. About the only thing the Number One knew was that they were not going to have enough firepower to blast the planet from orbit. That would mean to be sure of the killing of all of the humans on that planet, that they would have to land ground forces to finish the cleansing fire. To get those ground forces, the Cylon Empire would have to strip many of the still rebuilding or just building support bases that were needed to supply the equipment and personnel to do that landing.

Three months later.

Edge of a Nebula.

The Number One, the current leader of the Cylon Empire, had both of his hand shoved deep into the wet interface that was the primary way to control this fleet. All of the DreadStars had a modification that had been copied from Colonial Battlestars to act as a backup command center if the wet interface was damaged. All of the Command Cylons were hoping that with the death of the human AI warship that those "human" interfaces were no longer needed. Only time would tell, because every other human warship that had been thought destroyed seemed to come back to life at the worst possible time for the Cylon Empire.

The Number One checked the fleet a little more closely, it was not as large of a combat fleet as he wanted, but it was all that could be called up. Well, it could be a larger fleet, but it would mean a wait of at least another two months before he could launch this assault. The Number One knew that almost half of the rest of the Human Form Cylons wanted to wait for more support ships, but the Number Ones wanted to wipeout this one branch of humans once and for all. It was a risk, and if this attack failed. It would be years before the Cylon Empire could launch another attack against anything more than one of the few regressed human planets they had found. If this attack failed bad enough, the Cylon Empire would not even be able to do much more than try to defend the still growing older support bases. This attack was a major throw of the dice, but the Number One's were confident that it was a bet that they could win.

Time moved differently for the Cylons when they were fully in tune with the wet interface. It was an unknown number of human hours later that the Cylon fleet moved at faster than light speed. The target was a spot in space that was the best idea that could be worked out by the data supplied by "Tom" when compared to what had been found out already. If it was not close enough? Then the attack fleet could always jump again to get into attack range.

New Circe.

The Station high orbit.

SLDF Command Center

July 3054

All around the planet called New Circe alarms were sounded to alert the populist of the planet that danger was coming for them. For most of the planet it caused people to run for certain parts of any given area that was the nearest to them. That was only true for most, many within the Colonial and Victorian City State had not put that much effort into all of the drills that the SLiE had suggested for them to do. Now some of those who had not taken those drills seriously were frozen into place without the muscle memory to know what to do next. For most, but not all, the lizard brain kicked in after a few long seconds and they ran with the crowds. For a very few they stayed rooted in that spot or they made a run for whatever place they were currently calling home.

Deep under McEvedy City the duty and watch crew were running around like their hair was on fire. Only they were moving like that for a very good reason, and it only looked like unorganized chaos, but in truth it was far from that. Clan Wolverine had been expecting and planning to be found by the rest of the Clans almost from the first day that they had found this planet. Still there was only so much that training and planning could do, but all of the people in this room had experienced at least four battles against the Cylon Empire.

The officer of the day looked around and she pitched her voice to carry like she had been trained to do. "Give me an update. Do we have a locus?"

A voice of one of the senior enlistedmen used his leather lungs to cut through the dim of voices and noises like a hot knife threw butter. "Cylon or Colonial type jump drive detection! Outer sensors think that it's going to come in about a light day out…plus or minus three light hours arriving in 90 seconds. It looks to be a good sized fleet of capital scale warships."

The General was thinking as she passed around "her" chair to be closer to the action. In a voice that carried only a few feet she started talking to herself as she worked the problem. "Frakk. That's too far out. They will jump again, and then they will be right on top of us. Still, it will only be after their navigators have a chance to catch their breaths, but how long will that take?"

She suddenly stopped speaking and walking, and then she used her own leather lungs. "Flush all fighters and unmask "The Batteries"!. We are in repel invasion mode and alert the Lord Protector!" In a lower voice she looked over to her second in command. "Send out the messages on the TacFAX and HPGs about the attack and keep updating those messages anytime we have confirmed new data. And before you tell me about the risk… we have to risk that someone else might pick it up." Right now, the General was hoping for something that would divert some of that Cylon Firepower.

As the words left her mouth, the next wave of actions started moving around the planet and out into space. With the first alert, all stations not on the planet called New Circe went onto alert and tried to be a hole in space. The Station near New Circe was just too big and to near what the Clans and Cylons would think as the primary target to hide and blend into the background of deep space. So, actions had been taken to make sure that it was going to be a hard nut to crack by any unwanted visitors.

The Station launched its alert defense craft and the capital weapons and close in weapons fitted to her odd-looking outer hull were activated for the first time outside of drills. The massive space station was going to be a knot of defense and it should be a surprise for the Cylons. Until today the Cylons had never run into the teeth of a space station that was ready to fight Cylon spam. Oh, and the core of this station had started life as a SLDF Heavy Cruiser, and those were vessels that were not exactly known for being defenseless.

All around the Wolverine capital city four massive SDS systems started to activate, and their capital grade weapons started to be pointed toward the sky. There were over a dozen "forts" like those in the Wolverine SDS system, but "only" four were manned at any one time. It would take some time for enough of the crews to make it from the nearby area to arrive, much less how long it would take to get them combat ready from a cold start. The only question would be if the city and the planet would live long enough for more of those other heavy weapons to come online.

########

In a flash a dozen Cylon DreadStars popped into space near what was called high orbit over the cold planet. Just a few heartbeats later 8 massive Cylon landing ships were popping into space to join the warships that had arrived a little early. Soon a cloud of Cylon Heavy Raiders were flowing out of the warships to put out a CAP around all of the Cylon ships to protect them from the deadly human attack Vipers. If this had been in the Cyrannus system? The Cylons would have already started dropping orbital weapons and landing forces within seconds of arriving over the planet. But this hidden planet had not been spied on for more than a few minutes before the arrival of the Cylons into orbit. Now it would take some time for the command Cylons to work out where they wanted to land and were they wanted to drop heavy weapon's fire. Those were not always mutually exclusive choices.

That was not the case with this assault. As the data comes into the Cylon flagship and his eyes were first drawn to a grid pattern city, but soon his eyes were drawn to a city that any cylon would recognize. It was a copy of the main city on Kobal and it was a city that was very well known to all Cylons. This was thanks to them having re-found that planet a long time before Adama had found it and managed to avoid the ambush set up for the humans.

#######

The Number One kept his hands still, but those that knew what to look for could tell that the human form was excited even before he sent the next orders. "Those two! We will blast those two cities and then land our forces to root them out of their holes. Have the 38th and 66th divisions and their two supporting DreadStars take out the largest city. And order the other landing craft to land and take out the Colonial city from the North."

The newest Number One to take over the Cylon Empire had been grabbing any Cylon that he could from the local area. And the only full combat division of ground combat units he could get were on the only two landing support Dreadstars that could reach him with less than a six month wait for their fire support Dreadstars to reach this far forward. The rest of the smaller landing craft were filled with adhoc units of whatever the Number One could force into them. The larger city would need his only large coherent combat units at the Number One's command. After the two divisions had taken care of that larger human city, then they would spread out and start killing any human they found as they closed in from the south of the Colonial designed city.

The Number One looks at the side screen for an even smaller target while his hands were still wet. "Oh, and send some of our Heavy Raider attack craft to blast that space station out of space. After all we have learned that it is never good to leave living humans behind you."

######

With the orders given the Cylon fleet started to move, and that was when the Cylon's attack plans started to fall apart around their ears. Four wings of modified Cylon Heavy Raiders broke away from the main Cylon fleet supported by "only" a few hundred capital grade missiles. They were to do what the Cylons had done to the Scoprpia shipyards years ago, only to this much smaller support base. It was just too bad that in any plans, the enemy has a say that is why they are called the enemy.

Only two of those very smart Cylon missiles made it close enough for the close in weapons of The Station to destroy. The Cylon Heavy Raiders didn't fair even that well in their part of the attack on the major space base for this planet. Much to the surprise of the command group of the Cylons, the human fighters had not been drawn out from under the cover provided by the stations guns and attack the rest of the Cylon fleet. The humans seemed to be content to just sit there and act like a rock in a stream of the flowing Cylons, all the while picking off any Cylon that got to near them.

The command One didn't have time to do more about these issues, because that was when weapons fire reached up from the planet below and started to hit "his" warships. Unlike normal Colonial made anti space weapons that the Cylons had learned to deal with in the past. This fire was not just coming in from missiles and heavy KEWs fired up from the planet's surface. No, these humans had access to things that hit harder and could reach higher than just low planetary orbit. The Potemkin class Wolverine ship Maverick was earmarked to support the Egg Sac, and she was being slowly stripped to first fix and then maintain her. But some things had been sent down the gravity well for the planet to use. The Cameron class Munich had already been stripped of weapons and fire control systems to finish many of the first generation SDS forts that had been built around key points on the planet by Clan Wolverine.

The second Generation SDS sites were never designed to take Capital scale weapons, instead they were designed to counter dropships and massed aerospace fighters as well as to try to shoot down any incoming fire from the orbitals. These second-generation forts were multi layers sites with the long shooters copied from one of the few Pollux class Heavy ADA tanks that had made it from clan space with the fleeing wolverines.

That same weapon would make up the backbone of the SLDF reserved artillery units when they had time to set them up. Those "light" artillery systems were thought to be ideal for launching hit and fade attacks on any attacks launched by the non-front-line units. Oh, and the Wolverines had taken the time to make sure that this system also had plenty of cans of instant sunshine for those artillery systems to use hidden in caches around the planet. This might be their home planet, but the SLiE would prefer to see it covered in radioactive clan blood before they were wiped out.

In fact, as more and more Arrow IV missile launch systems were made along with the ammunition that they used had been stockpiled for a protracted conflict. Then the older Sniper class artillery systems were pulled out of those fort's mounting points and after refurbishment were turned over to the SLD Reserve units. Due to the needs of the war with the Cylon Empire very few had been turned over to those reserve units for almost a decade. Now the remaining heavy weapons in these 2nd generation SDS sites were fitted with newly made colonial designed and SLDF made FLAK shells that now were fitted in Sniper, Thumper, and Long Tom class artillery systems. The next layer of fire from these specialized bases were fitted with LR PPCs, LB-X, and a few of the new Ultra-LBX cannons. The last layer was made up of a mixed bag of laser anti-missile systems and point defense pulse lasers.

The screening units of the Cylon Empire were already starting to be attacked by humans and this time both sides would be using a fair number of jump fighters against each other. The downside was that the humans only had their ready fighters off the ground in time to launch any spoiling attacks. But for every few minutes of delay the human fighters caused would add a squadron of SLDF or Colonial fighters into the air. Now that the main fleet of the Cylons were moving? It would be up to those SDS units to buy any more time. Just as they had been planned to do when those forts were first thought of by a long dead engineer.

When the Cylon capital sized ships passed an invisible line in space, the massive energy weapons in the human bases started reaching out to embrace the hard mostly metal outer hulls of the Cylon warships. Many of the weapons missed their targets, but not all of them. Thanks to the Cylons learning something in this long war, those massive Dreadstars didn't die with a single hit from a HNPPC and the like powerful weapons. Still with each hit from the human made weapons, the Cylon warships knew that they had been kissed.

The enemy warships in space tried to knock out these heavy defense points as soon as they were identified, but most of the falling Cylon weapon's fire was intercepted by the closer in defensive points these bases were fitted with. Today's attack was the first time that an attack like this had been carried out on forts like this. It was found out that even a single hit from a 3cm pulse laser had about a 40 percent chance of a kill against a KEW, but it also had a 30 percent chance of knocking it off their courses. The last was both good news and bad news for the humans on the surface, because those KEW shells that were not taken out had to land somewhere.

And now more and more of the human heavy weapons were pointed to the sky every few handfuls of seconds. Before too long the human weapons drew first blood when one of the massive DreadStars came apart under the human's heavy weapons fire. By the time that the first ground based SDS base was covered in Cylon made nuclear fire, a second DreadStar was blasted apart and many more were hit and damaged by the human's weapons.

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The Number One was very displeased at the data flowing into his command center. DreadStar 46 and Invasion Support DreadStar 17 were both destroyed and the Invasion Support DreadStar 12 had already become very heavily damaged. Amazingly only two of the lighter armored landing support ships had been damaged when they had come down a little too close to the Colonial city. This Number One had been a member of the limited Number One model of human form Cylons, that had thought that all of the time and effort needed to take out all of those Colonial made space defense posts had been a wasted effort. But after seeing what one human city could do to an attacking fleet of capital warships was now getting him to change his mind.

The Number One in command of this fleet and current leader of the Cylon Empire could not keep his face blank as he sent messages to the rest of the fleet. The damaged Invasion Support Dreadstar would shift closer to the Colonial city and land its forces to reinforce that attack supplied by the smaller Landing ships. The rest of the Cylon capital ships would be given the task of bombing and blasting the larger city to the south. Those warships also would take on the massive space station that had surprisingly lasted this long against the might of the Cylon battle fleet. After the Colonial copy of the capital city of Kobal was cleansed of humans, then the massive Cylon ground forces would attack the other human city from the ground with the Cylon Fleet providing fire support from low orbit.

To the north of the Colonial city state eight massive boxes that were the largest spaceship made by Colonial or Cylon that could land on a planet had done just that. After landing, great metal ramps and doors were opened and lowered to the ground from those specially designed Cylon invasion ships. The built-in weapons of the landing ships fired into the air and the odd Viper or Avar would not be returning to base. Then massive praetorians, combat rhinos, support rhinos, Centurions and human form Cylons exited the craft in waves of potential death. The battle for the surface of New Circe had begun, and on paper the humans were outnumbered in combat power. But the humans were fighting on their home turf, and they were not going to roll over and die.

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Notes:

Tom Black: He is a surgical modified Number 2. See chapter 78.

Cylon attack fleet: 12 DreadStars (10 antiship and 2 landing support with 2 Cylon divisions), 8 cylon landing ships that holds enough for 4 Cylon ground divisions.

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