Chapter Twelve: Red Skies at Night
"Permission to board?" Lieutenant Lamb asked me while holding a ready bag slung over her shoulder. Waiting just outside of the Dropships loading bay.
"Welcome aboard The Messenger Lieutenant, I'll get you stowed away after I finish loading up the rest of the uniforms in here." I replied while getting the equipment stowed away. After I had moved the uniforms crates and strapped them down, I moved over to Lieutenant Lamb and directed her to her quarters until we were planet side. "This will be the cabin you stay in for the next five days." I said as I opened the door to one of the crew bunk's I had cleared out. "Use the intercom to let me know when you're ready and I can show you the rest of the ship."
"Thanks, I worked a double so that I would have a larger paycheck come Christmas and I need some rest." Lieutenant Lamb responded while dropping her ready bag next to the bed she claimed as her own. "I'll definitely take you up on the tour later." She yawned mid sentence and waved me away.
"Alright then, sleep well Lieutenant." I responded by shutting the door and making my way up to the cockpit. The cool thing about using the Pueblo, is that there were security features in certain places. The SLIC had set it up so that you could monitor anyone who stayed in the "Passenger" areas and made sure that all of the SIGINT equipment could be hidden behind several false walls. And the doors and hallways were monitored and could give soft alarms as to when a door was opened.
There were multiple reasons that I had decided on taking the Messenger down to Pierce instead of one of the Buccaneers. The ability to control perception was a good thing. Another thing that influenced my decision on taking the Messenger was the ability to use SLIC back door channels into the HPG to monitor any Comstar ROM communiques.
Once we had disconnected from the Janus, I set a course for the planet and began the four to five day burn. After I had laid in the course, I got up and made a cup of coffee and set an alarm to let me know to go wake up Lieutenant Lamb in about four hours or so for lunch. I made my way down into the cargo bay where I had moved the SDS drone parts that I had salvaged to use as part of my cover story. I had a meeting lined up with the local Comstar officials when I reached planetside anyway. This would allow me to solidify my story even more if everything went as planned.
Precentor Reginald Winfrey, known to most as Precentor Pierce, was extremely excited. The staff at this Class B station had never seen the normally grounded individual so giddy. You see, Precentor Winfrey had risen to his rank via the Omega branch, with a specialization in advanced physics. Long had time travel been theorized and now there was proof before his very eyes. When he had learned of what happened to the King Henry V he was actually excited to interview the lone individual and try and prove some of his thesis and potentially push the limits of the understanding of physics. And today, he finally got to meet the individual in question.
"Precentor, the captain of the King Henry V is here to see you." Winfrey's secretary spoke over his phone. "Yes, yes, send him right on in." The balding scientist responded while standing up from his chair. "Yes my man, do come in, I'm Precentor Reginald Winfrey, the head of this Comstar station and you are?" Winfrey began to shake the mans hand scarcely allowing him to get a word in.
After introductions were finished, he began a barrage of questions that he had assembled about the Misjump which the Time Traveler! Answered in as much detail as he could give. "Yes, yes, I can see that it's less time travel and more of a timed stasis of some sort. Almost like a time capsule but in Hyperspace." Then Winfrey got lost in his own thoughts and turned to write on the whiteboard behind him he kept for calculations.
"Precentor," The title barely registered to me trying to communicate with him. After attempting several more times to speak with the man feverishly writing on the white board behind his desk, I slowly stepped towards the door and greeted his secretary. "Does he get like this all the time?" I asked while gesturing at the man lost to math.
"Every so often," The secretary shrugged. "He's very good at delegating and choosing the right people for their jobs so we just leave him be whenever he gets like this."
"Ahh," I nodded in response; "I see. I did work some things out with y'all beforehand. You said you wanted to purchase the SDS salvage from me for study?" I asked while trying to get a feel for the younger man in front of me.
"Ummm yeah, Precentor Winfrey actually had the Legal division write up a standard purchasing contract to look over when you got here but I guess he got lost in the numbers." The young man pulled out a small stack of papers for me to look over and sign if I found everything to be aboveboard. I had actually taken the time before I visited the HPG station to look at salvage contracts and everything. Comstar wanting all of the pieces of the drone systems I "Claimed" to have made sense in regard to their "Mission" as it were. And the fact that I made it seem like I was extremely eager to be rid of the thing that had contributed to my friends supposed deaths helped sell everything.
While I received a decent amount for the salvage, the real meat and potatoes were the contracts that I negotiated with local firms for my IndustrialMechs. I had three Aerodyne dropships filled with Jabberwocky's and all of the refit kits that had been sold as aftermarket kits. I arranged a lease deal with a local mining and salvage firm to lease most of them; and they helped put me in contact with their parent company on New Syrtis to lease or sell the rest of the "Mech's including the four extinct or nearly extinct Daedalus GTX2A industrialMechs that had been a part of the Dropships cargo. The local Militia, seeing as they needed some extra cargo capacity offered to lease or outright purchase one of the Buccaneer dropships from me. I worked out a three year contract with extensions and that each side could file for assuming the other party didn't need the dropship for anything.
I had intended to spend Christmas alone mourning the fact that none of my family was with me, but Lieutenant Lamb, who I had become fast friends with during the long wait on the Janus actually came to my hotel room and dragged me out to have fun and partake of some of the festivities. And by January first 3002, I had assembled most of a crew, filed the paperwork to begin a Mercenary company, and finalized registering the four 'Mechs I had brought with me.
Personal Journal December 15th, 3001
I have approached Ms. Lamb about being hired on with my company and she has accepted on the condition that she finish out her current contract. Seeing as she has been extremely helpful in pointing me towards several locations that would assist me in finding both crew and Mechwarriors for my up and coming mercenary company I agreed. And I struck gold last week insofar as hiring is concerned. There are two dispossesed Mechwarriors who were also medically discharged from the AFFS. I offered to pay for the medical treatments to get them back into fighting shape and to let them get back in the saddle with contracts that stated that they could keep the 'Mech's they piloted if they managed to bring in salvage equivalent to it in weight. The two of them were nearly in tears when they accepted and joined the rest of the people I had recruited. Many of them followed the same thread as these two with being down on their luck with debts, or just not being able to find jobs in the civilian market. Despite Davion and Federated Suns push towards the soldier being a profession of choice, the skills learned in the AFFS didn't always transfer over and still made it hard to find jobs. The drophsip crews were pretty easy to find, there were plenty of laid off hands and other assorted people who were scrambling for jobs. (I managed to completely lock down the SIGINT systems on the Messenger so that they couldn'tbe accessed before I allowed them onboard though) I even lucked out and picked up a handful of Retired NCO's and a couple of people who wanted in to the Mercenary game no matter where they were placed. After January first, we would burn for the King Henry V and jump towards New Syrtis to get the rest of these IndustrialMechs out of the cargo bays and to purchase a Leopard or some other military Aerodyne.
Authors note: I'm going to be taking a break for this weekend. My wife and I are going to be going on a date tomorrow and Easter is a big deal for my family. So, I may get another chapter up today, but no promises