Chapter Twenty Two: Break Through this Wall

Chapter Twenty Two: Break Through this Wall

"Alright Colonel Hull," The Magistracy representative said. "Looks like your request was approved."

I sat up a little bit straighter and raised an eyebrow. "It was?" I asked a little more animatedly than usual.

"Yes," She replied. "The details are being sent to your people now." She stood up. "Let me know if you're ever back in the area." She winked and then sauntered off with the Aura of Superiority™. "We might be able to have some fun." She threw over her shoulder and then did that weird thing women do with their hips.

I blinked for a moment there stunned and then shook my head in order to clear it. That was weird. I stood up and looked around the restaurant that I had met her in. Had I just been on a date? Nah, I shook my head; It couldn't be that. She was just being friendly. I got my stuff together and walked out the restaurant still mulling over what had just happened all of the way back to the building we were using.

"You are an idiot." Sheppard said in the mess hall we had set up. "A real fuckin' idiot." He kept going. "You had the chance to sleep with a Hot Canopian girl and you completely blew it."

"How did you not know she was hitting on you?" One of the female members of the command staff asked.

"I dunno." I shrugged, "I didn't always look this good." I gestured to the muscles I had developed over the last four years of dedicated training and work ethic. "Used to be girls never looked my way twice."

"Well Colonel," Captain Jewel said. "I'm afraid those days are long over." She smirked. "Get used to crazy women and men trying to sleep with you for both fun and for information." She then frowned and got serious. "We need to find some more intelligence people."

"I'm working on it." Lieutenant Dunham replied. "It's hard work training people up for this even with the SLIC manuals and documents that Hull gave us." He nodded at me when he said that.

"Frankly, I'm just glad we've got a decent core of veterans here." Sheppard chimed in. "The new guys did really well when we hit the Marians after all."

"By the way sir, what made you so happy when you got in yesterday?" Lieutenant Packer chimed in, having been relatively silent so far. "I mean, you were practically bouncing off of the walls with how excited you were and I'm pretty sure you didn't get laid." He laid into me at the end there.

The entire table broke out into laughter for a moment before I managed to get them to quiet down again. "Well, I managed to get a license to both purchase and manufacture Canopian advanced medical equipment and technology." I held up my hands to stop them from getting too loud. "I took a look at some of the schematics with the teams on the Argo yesterday, and we can produce some of them on our own but we'll be buying the rest and filling out the rest of our medical roster with some people we poached from the Magistracy Medical Corps by the time we leave, we'll have some of the best medical care in the Inner Sphere."

"How the hell did you manage that?!" Captain Peterson asked.

"Well, it turns out returning three dropships with hold full of goods stolen from their own people will net you some goodwill."" I shrugged. "And, I guess people just never asked. I mean, when I put the request in when we took the contract both the MRB broker and the Magistracy Rep looked stunned."

"I don't think we got all of their best stuff though." I said. "But I made sure that we got as much of the scanning tech as we could. I was serious when I promised you guys good medical care in your contracts."

"I'll make sure we load up all of the gear I bought in the morning." I stood up from the table. "We're heading back to get that other Leviathan after we're done loading up."

The goal was to get the second Leviathan up and running within a couple of weeks of dropping back into the system that the deserted planet was in. We would be jumping in and split our forces. The Messenger and Vagabond were going to head in and get to work on the other Leviathan Jumpship; with a large portion of the ship based engineers and astechs. The rest of the group would head to the planet to see if there was any salvage we might have missed the first time. Admittedly, the first time we had landed on planet, we had been more concerned with a possible contagion or being attacked and salvage was the last thing on our minds at the time. Besides that, IE had only been here for a month because they had gotten a lead on a possible Exodus route they wanted to explore closer to Davion space.

"Alright people, we've been here before but that doesn't mean we get to relax." Peterson briefed his company of Mechanized infantry. "Our mission however, has changed. Our job is to go through this place piece by piece until we have ensured that there is no salvage left to recover here." He stopped for a second. "Dibs rules are not I repeat not in effect. If you see something shiny, you call over one of the engineers or astechs before and they will clear you on whether you can keep it or not. Am I understood?" He asked.

"Yes sir!" his company roared in response.

"Alright Marksman!" Lieutenant Packer called. "Mount up." The entire company climbed into their designated Maxim hovercraft or escort vehicle and started up whatever engine they needed to.

"Alright Marksman!" The DroST pilot called. "Dropping in ten seconds." There was a countdown and on the last three seconds lights flashed before DroST's ramp lowered to allow the troops to disembark. The Company plus the VTOL's exited just as they had continuously practiced and began to make their way to the city while the Dropships went to park in empty fields nearby.

Two weeks later…

"Alright guys it's time to pack it up." First Sergeant Mendoza told the fireteam he was working with, they had just done a sweep through most of the industrial district and hadn't found anything of real value.

"Hold up Sarge." Corporal Jenkins called out. He had been getting training in both engineering and general maintenance aboard the Argo while Mendoza went through senior NCO school.

"We didn't check that building out, and something looks strange about it." He said, studying the smallest building in the district. "Every single other building here has it's own dedicated office space attached to it." He expanded on his theory. "And yet here, we have what's only an office building? Sarge, something doesn't add up."

"Alright Jenkins." Sergeant Mendoza sighed. "We'll check out your "strange" building, but if you're wrong about this, I'm putting you on babysitting duty for three rotations."

"Alright Sarge." Jenkins rolled his eyes at his best friend. "If I'm right though, you owe me some of that good liqueur you stashed away when you thought I wasn't looking." Jenkins held out his hand and Mendoza shook it, the deal had been made.

At first it appeared that Mendoza was right and there was nothing to be found in the building, the fireteam had set up portable generators and lights and had cleared the entire building. All of it was office space. Jenkins was actually about to give Mendoza the win when one of the privates called for them.

"Sarge! Corporal!" Private Frost yelled. "We found a basement door and you won't believe what's down there."

It had been all hands on deck as the entirety of the Battalion pitched in to load up what they had found. The Jackwagonhad spread the contents of its cargo holds throughout the rest of the dropship fleet, with the Bittersweet and Honey Badger being converted into temporary cargo ships. It took an extra three weeks to pack everything up and we had even dumped spare AC and LRM ammo. When it was time to leave the system, every cargo hold was full including the Vagabond and Messenger's cargo bays.

Next stop, the Taurian Concordat.

Authors note: Once again, Proofreader didn't have time to look at this. Not his fault, I just put out quite a bit of content and he was busy today. Let me know if you see any glaring errors, and let me know what you think we found. Also, just reached 30k words. First novel length anything I've ever written and I'm super pumped.