Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
I do not own BattleTech, Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series) or Hunted Tribes/But Somehow a Most Melancholy. Those last two are by Hotpoint and Cannonshop, and I have been cleared to do a spin off.
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.
By Cliff
Beta By Nathan
Reviewed by Hotpoint.
Chapter 1:
The Beginning: 22 July 3046 CE
Planet surface of New Circe
Robert was walking down the brightly sun lit hallway with his back ramrod straight. He was walking at a pace that few people his age, or a few years younger, would have found comfortable to copy. He was moving with a sense of purposes, but he was able to make it look like he was not rushed or in a hurry of any kind. It was a commander's walk, and it was recognized as such by anyone and everyone he passed. He was scanning his surroundings as he went looking at everything going on around him, as he counted down the passing closed office doors.
"This hallway has way more people roaming around, than I can ever remember happing in the past," thought the tall salt-and-pepper haired man as he came to the last turn, he hoped that he needed to make.
"There sure have been a lot of changes since the Munchkins have arrived on our planet, and war had fallowed them. Who would have thought we would be fighting robot beings from the edge of space, and not those Clanners."
Robert was mumbling has he found the number he was looking for. He stopped at the door, which he long ago had given up hope of ever entering again. At least not after having been retired from active service for a few years now.
The opening of the heavy Spartan wooden door, made the young and dapper Lieutenant look up from his keyboard and desk.
"Oh, great another lost recalled oldster to deal with." said the younger man with a sign. He had clearly meant to be heard by the intruder. He had a slightly down turned frown on his face before he tried to expel the intruder.
"Sir? The Reserve Reporting Office is three floors up and on the south side of the building. You must be looking for them, Query-Affirmative?" The young Lieutenant's sad eyes locked on the intruder who had dared to come into his domain. He was trying his best to intimidate the older man. Surely the old man must have been in the wrong doorway.
The older man knew exactly what the younger man was trying to do. The lad's condescension rolled off of him like water on a duck's back in spring time.
"Negative. I am here to see the head of Naval Personnel. I need to speak with Admiral Whitfield," was the flat response he gave to the annoyed young officer.
The young officer quickly looked at his boss's event calendar displayed on one of the computer screens flat and vertically mounted on his desk. Nothing was marked about any office meeting for the next few hours. The Lieutenant looked back at the older man, and he felt the corner of his mouth dip down even further.
"I'm sorry…Sir, but you must be mistaken. The Admiral does not have any appoints, that I do not know about. I would know, if you had an appointment with him." The tone was pure dripping with scorn.
Robert felt his blood pressure rising like a launching DropShip, and he had to take a nice slow, deep breath before he made his next move. He knew how the game was played in command. He just did not want to deal with this young pup anymore. He felt that it was time to drop the hammer on him. Robert reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out an off-white envelope. It had a seal embossed on the outside. He passed it to the clerk.
The young officer took the offered envelope and started to absent-mindedly open it, but stopped when he read the outside. It did not take long for confusion to run rampant on the younger man's face.
"This is impossible! I did not send this out! It's my job to send all the correspondence coming out of this office!"
With wide eyes, he reached into the envelope and pulled out the folded high-end paper. The young man carefully unfolded it to read what was written on it. He read the short few lines of the typed message and when he made it to the signature block, he knew what he had to do.
He did not like it. Not one bit. He rose from his chair and turned to the only other door in this office. He gave the hard, off-white painted wooden door two sharp raps, and then he entered the inner domain. He quickly closed the door behind him as he left the front office.
The young Lieutenant was gone for only a few seconds. When re-entered the office he was visibly paler than when he had left. Robert had heard nothing, but knew what had happened..
"Sir! The Admiral will see you now."
The shaken naval officer stated, pointing to the open door to his left with a wave of his right arm. The young officer stayed as far as he could, from the only other person in the room that was his office. He was very rattled, by what had just transpired.
"Thank you," was the simple response from the older man. He walked past the Lieutenant. A younger man who now had all the classic signs of having a strip of his hide removed by a senior officer. It looked like it had been done by one who was a master of doing such things.
Robert entered the spartanly furnished office. It was dominated by a large wooden desk. Off to one side one whole wall were large, thick-paned glass windows. Outside was the cool morning on cold city spread out in the sunlight.
The man sitting behind that massive wooden desk did not look up from the "paperwork" he was doing. He only pointed to an expensive high-backed leather chair. It was one of only two chairs in the whole office, other than the one behind the massive dark wood desk.
Robert took the offered seat and waited for more information to flow his way. He knew how the game of "wait" was played. He was a Master of it, with many years of playing it under his belt.
He had learned it as a master merchant for the Star league In Exile, or as the most people on this planet would call it, Clan Wolverine. The rules were always the same, no matter what type of power was being displayed. It was always about dominance over someone else in the room. Robert could and would play that game all day long, with no problems and across many worlds.
It was the man behind the desk who broke first, with a flash of a brief smile and waving hands in the air. He was older than the Lieutenant, but younger than Robert.
"Okay! Okay you win!" he said, "It's good to see you again Robert."
"Good to see you too David," Robert replied. "So, I see that you are robbing the Iron wombs early for assistants. He looks like he still should be still in school, not wearing a uniform. Much less being an aide for someone of your current rank. What, are you that short on personnel, now? I thought that the personnel losses had been pretty light so far."
This was the offhand response from Robert, as he hooked a thumb towards the outer office. Undoubtedly the younger officer left there was trying to figure how he had messed up so badly today.
"He is not that young, Robert. You are just that old. It has been a long time since you were so junior, Query-Affirmative?" Admiral Whitfield stated with a smirk. He had lost a point, but he had just made one back against Robert and he knew it.
Robert did not make a reply, and only sat there. He was still waiting to find out why he was in this office, of all places. The office of the lead officer in charge of all of the personnel assignments for the entire space navy for this little system.
The Admiral made a show of looking around his desk. He picked up and put down different folders, searching for one in particular. After a moment he picked up a red one.
"Oh, here it is." He stated.
Robert's heart sunk to the tile floor under his feet. Red was the color of a medical file. He knew what was in his medical records all too well. The Admiral flipped through a couple of pages, and then sat the file back on his desk, waiting for a response. Time passed in silence.
Realizing that he was not going to win this round, the Admiral finally relented. He tilted his head to one side and looked the older man in the eyes. "Robert, have you been keeping up on all of the news, Query Affirmative?"
Robert levelled a look at the Admiral. "David. If you have to ask that question? Maybe they need to start looking for a replacement, for you. I could call for a circle, and try for your job." He let this tone of voice go lighter and take the sting out of the words. It wasn't a threat, exactly.
"Yeah, right." said the Admiral, dismissively. "Although, there are days when I wish that someone, or anyone, would have this mess to work through other than me." The younger man leaned back in his chair and looked up at the white ceiling.
Robert could tell that the statement he had just heard was only in half jest. David was clearly under stress.
"Robert," said the Admiral, "I want you to command a JumpShip again. With the new drives that the Colonials have been selling us. They have caused me some problems which I had never thought I would have to deal with. At least one problem is one I am not all that sorry to have."
He continued. "We now have more warfighting ships in service than at any time since we first landed on this planet. I'm not sure I have enough officers for all of them. I certainly do not have enough for both combat and non-combat ships."
He tapped the medical file with his index finger. "I cannot assign you to a WarShip. Unfortunately, you failed your last physical in one important area. Your heart will not stand up to sustained three to five g acceleration or rotational loading. That is something we expect a WarShip officer to be able to do for hours and hours in time of battle."
He watched the older man, his friend, visibly deflate at his statement. Both men knew it was true. Robert might never know the glory of a naval combat command.
"If I cannot legally put you in one of the modified Titians," said the Admiral, "I had to come up with another idea. We are still gearing up to full wartime production levels, and we will be at that higher level of production for some time. This has caused some issues, which we hope have been caught in time."
David rocked back and forth in his office chair distractedly. The Admiral was building up to something, but Robert wasn't sure it was something he was interested in.
"As you well know, we have never been completely self-sufficient with some very important items. There just are some things that we had had to decide that it was too resource intensive to make with our limited manufacturing capability. That is why we did those supply runs."
"With the increase in production at wartime levels, we are wearing out tools we cannot replace quickly. We would have to decide to stop making both Mechs and fighters to make those new parts and tools. After that we would have to re-tool factories back to making the war-machines that we need."
David could see that Robert was about to start rolling his eyes. "You commanded one of those JumpShips on the last supply run to the Inner Sphere. The last one did well enough that higher command had not planned to make another run for another ten years are so. They were hoping that we could wait till to maybe around 3055 if we were lucky before we had to send anyone back. This war has changed all of those plans."
The head of Naval Personnel stopped talking, and let that sink in. It was time to cut to the chase.
"Robert. The Styx is coming out of one of the Main Drydocks on The Station. She will be cleared for operations by the end of the week. They want you to take commander of her again."
The Admiral looked his old friend dead in the eyes. "Do you want to captain her, Query-Affirmative? Then take her and make another supply run for us?"
Robert took a moment to consider, then spoke.
"Admiral Whitfield, why do you want me for this mission?"
He wanted to jump up and down and start doing a dance right there in the office, but he had to find out a little more information before he could agree. He needed to see if there was a hook hidden this bait somewhere. Something could be waiting to ruin or otherwise take his life. It would not have been the first time he'd seen something like that.
The Admiral cracked a little grin at his old friend. The man was just as sharp as he remembered.
"You were selected for a few reasons. First, you commanded the Styx on the last supply run in 3030. Second, you are on records as the fleet commander who took command of a few of the independent interaction stops. Those were very successful. Third, you worked with Commander Xi on that mission, and she will be your boss again. We like to keep successful teams together. Fourth? You will do whatever it takes to protect us out here from being found out by anybody from the Inner Sphere. Higher command knows this. Lastly, you have worked with 'The Families' before, and know how to find them.
The Admiral stopped talking for a few long seconds. "Commander Xi being in command is non-negotiable. Higher Command insists. I just offered to be the pitch man. But, Robert? You will be a ship's Captain again.
The Admiral put his hands flat on the desk top. "I am hoping that with some of the tech we are getting from the Colonials that we will be able to change the medical requirements for warship crews in the next eighteen to twenty-four months. If I can, I will see about moving you over to a real combat command when you return from a run successfully."
The Admiral shrugged, "That is, only if I can get them to relax those requirements. If I cannot? Then you going to be stuck in a support role until the end of the war."
As the Admiral finished his practiced speech, he passed a blue folder to the older man across the desk. He clearly wanted Robert for the job. He was the best choice for it, really.
Robert was one of the few people who had ever met any of the "family" in person. There might be half a dozen that were left alive on the whole planet.
The Family were a close kept secret. Not even computer notes were kept about them. They were the ones that the Wolverines had used as go-betweens and spies in the Inner Sphere. They also had been the keys to supporting supply missions in the past. They were so secret that no one in the planetary government knew who they were and how they might be contacted.
No one knew who they were except the Copeland family. They had provided most of the warm bodies for the formation of the group. They also had been the ones that had helped smuggle those people to their new homes, off planet.
Robert flipped open the folder and signed the back page on the appropriate line. He was taking the mission. He passed the folder back to the head of Navy personnel.
The admiral took the folder and put it in the box marked "Out". With that bit of work done he stood up from his desk and walked over to one of the massive windows. It had a wheeled, wooden-topped serving cart beneath it.
He took his time in selecting a decanter from a selection of a dozen bottle. He then poured a generous amount of liquid into two old, very ornately carved and inlayed tumblers. He made sure that each glass had an equal amount and then offered one to Robert.
Robert pulled himself out of the comfortable chair, stood, and took the offered glass. The two old friends touched glasses and took a deep sip. Robert recognized the drink as soon as the liquid touched his tongue. It had to have come from the case of real Terran whiskey that Robert had given to David years ago as a gift. It had been when he had come back from the last supply mission, to the Inner Sphere.
The two men were quiet as they savored the drink bottled on the surface of Terra, the cradle of mankind. After the second sip, both knew it was okay to talk again.
David spoke first. "Robert. I will not say you are the key to winning this war, but I do not think you understand how much effect you could have on how this war is going to be fought."
Each of the men took another sip of the amber drink. The younger man gave the older one a sly smile. "I hope your uniform is ready. You are going to report to Commander Xi in three days aboard the Station. Your time on the sidelines is officially over, my friend." He could not keep his poker face on any longer. A wide grin came to his face.
"Not a problem sir." Robert gave a grin of his own. "I have been waiting for this day ever since I found out that we were going to have company on this planet. Company that has been running from machines trying to wipe out all human life."
Robert finished his drink, put the glass down on the wood carrier, and reached out and shook the other man's hand. He turned for the door. Just as he was opening it, he looked back at the head of Personnel.
"Thank you for the drink David," he said, being sure to speak loudly enough to be heard in the outer office. "I hope to see you when I get back."
Robert knew he was being petty. He felt that he had to do something to the kid, if only to get back at him for trying to make his life difficult when he had first arrived.
He had made sure to use the Admiral's first name where the youngster had no choice but to overhear him use it. It would be the last time Robert could use that first name in public, now that he was recalled to the active military. It was very much against regulations to speak with a superior officer with such familiarity.
David played along with the game he knew is long time fiend and one-time boss was playing.
"Not a problem Robert. Good luck, and I will see you when I see you."
He had called out just loud enough for the newly recalled officer to hear, but not loud enough to be heard at the lieutenant's desk. Familiarity with a subordinate was good, to a point. A former superior should be respected. Junior officers had to earn their respect.