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While they were on one of the two worldlets most connected with belt mining, Timo took the opportunity to do the shopping he'd planned on. A tip from Gnuurig led him and Feng to the emporium of Granville and Nephew. Granville was a grizzled older belter, wearing actual glasses - rare at TL15. A short conversation showed each of them that they were dealing with someone who knew what they were talking about.
After some discussion, Timo laid down some significant capital on a greatly upgraded set of prospecting equipment, including upgrades to two full racks of five drones and a software upgrade to the Long Walk's densitometer. "Anything yer get with this, you'll do gradely sellin' it at Kasey Lauber's," said Granville as he entered the sale into his computer. "My brother-in-law, right enough, but he'll do you a good deal." He blinked at the display,then up at Timo. "My mistake," he said apologetically, "got the price wrong." The price - already negotiated to a pretty good deal by Feng - indeed dropped by one percent - not insignificant when dealing with million-credit products. Timo walked away, considering that - Imperial-sceptic though he was - what they were coming to call "Duchess Discount" was pretty handy.
On the way back to Glisten City, he visited Harvey Glenn and advised him that Krobin was no longer operating and would not be around any more. He gave the same update to "Kandace" of the Canaedo, receiving a plain acknowledgement in return.
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While this was happening, Nevada had arranged an audience with Her Grace, Duchess Avaraja Astaarte Muktheswara. After the usual tea and small talk, he laid out for her the evidence they had procured. The finger of blame was levelled directly at the Trexalon embassy, and the Duchess was very much not pleased.
"Colonel Nevada, you did very well to bring this discreetly to me," she said approvingly. "Any direct action on your part would have put you well outside any protection we could offer - and embarrassed the Imperium badly. Ambassadors must be safe under our hospitality, however much we decry their actions. Likewise, the police have no jurisdiction over diplomatic personnel." She smiled a very small, very cold smile. "However, the submissions and requests of the embassy of Trexalon will be entirely unsuccessful for the forseeable future. I would expect this to reduce their ambassador to a state of extreme frustration, with only the architect of this plan to take it out on."
The players had very sensibly noted that, with people trying to kill them as usual, it would be very sensible to go in for surgery in two groups. From a game perspective, however, this would have been very boring for half the players for a significant time. Hence, we metagamed a bit, and time passed.
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The next day the Cats with Guns went under the knife at Tallyman to have their wide assortment of augments installed. The facilities were lavish, and the process was a comfortable as a massive rebuild of the human body can realistically be. A far longer period of recuperation and acclimation followed, as they became used to sometimes radical differences in everything from walking to cognition. The minutes of disorientation resulting from jacking in neural wafers were a particular strangeness.
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Midway through the recovery period, an encrypted video message was receieved by the crew from Selma McKay on Motmos. The young heiress to the Tyrex military vehicle corporation smiled a greeting and hoped they were well, then delivered her main message.
"We’ve had a request for a major quote for military walkers, to be adapted for a particular environment. The request is through layers of agency, but judging by the climatic adaptations requested, we believe that the customer is Trexalon – and the target is Collace."
“Being residents of Collace as well as our good friends,” she continued, “we thought you’d want to know. Use this message code to send a reply if you have one. Look after yourselves!”
After some debate, including suggestions to ask Tyrex to put shutdown backdoors into anything ordered, the Cats decided to send a request for Tyrex to state a very, very long lead time. This would allow them to retain professional integrity while likely denying Trexalon access to their walker technology in time for their war. Tyrex didn't know it yet, but if they got access to the Shortning battery technology, they would be more than repaid for missing out on this contract....
Making a vid call from his hospital room, Nevada spoke to Sir Lauren, explaining that the war did indeed look likely, and appealing for any help Glisten could offer. The knight was open about the fact that overt Imperial intervention in this local conflict - assuming the Imperial Rules of War were followed - was not open to them at this political juncture. Likewise, she was averse to major upgrades to the Long Walk, on the grounds that they would only get its' crew killed. "You are not a Naval asset," she commented. Mention of nuclear weapons was shut down instantly. The Imperium took a very dim view of anyone but their own Navy using such tools.
However, she was able to offer some more anonymous equipment for the imminently beleaguered Client State. When they left Glisten, their spare hold capacity would be occupied by some military vehicles, and sufficient advanced Nuclear Dampers to make it unworkable to use nukes on Collace.
In the week prior to their departure, Feng had placed her usual adverts for passage available on the Long Walk; but the advertised route was purely fictitious, a great loop Rimward away from their actual plan. Anyone applying for passage was told that unfortunately the last stateroom had just been sold. Hopefully, anyone trying to track them would be thrown off the scent.
Feng had suggested state-of-the-art communications gear for the Collace leadership, and a crate of TL15 encrypted commo gear was added at the last minute, squeezed into the hibernaculm as they weren't taking passengers.
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The day arrived when the battledress shipment was ready. Improving on their offer to Robinson, the party loaded Nevada's robot panther Gromit into a crate and had Renfield ship it under bond to the factory. The Robinson technicians were ecstatic at the chance to examine and interrogate such a remarkable piece of robotics, and Gromit bore patiently with the process as its system was connected to diagnostic computers and such data was was not confidential was secured.
With that data, the Robinson specialists were able to enhance the unit telemetry of the armours to integrate flawlessly with the Shadows, allowing them to operate as part of the unit. Each of the team had their personal armour configured to them - in most cases requiring re-measuring as their physiologies had all changed to some extent.
Very pleased, they packed everything back into its' crates and passed it back to Renfield's for shipment to the Long Walk. Everything was in place, but Timo wasn't going to pass up the chance to test his new equipment in the most important Belt in he subsector; so they spent a few days prospecting before setting out.
After an uneventful series of Jumps across their route, taken with minimal time in-system to refuel, service the drives and Jump again, they reached Judice. There, they had to stop, as they were still contracted to deliver the samples from Egypt there. Despite some trepidation that they'd get embroiled in something else fishy and dangerous, the visit went smoothly. The samples were gratefully received; more of the best coffee they had ever tasted was served, and they got to listen to the xenologists rhapsodise over the progress they were making in contact with the 'crabs'.
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As they jumped out of Judice, however, Wombat was finally caught by the consequences of Jumping continuously instead of taking a week to properly maintain the systems. One of the three CPUs that managed the Jump drive itself exploded with a quiet but expensive "pop" as they shifted into Jumpspace. With three redundant units, it wasn't a disaster, but it was a sobering lesson as to taking care of the systems.
On jumping into their home system, Nevada tried to file a flight plan for Botany Bay; but traffic control directed them firmly to a specific landing bay at Shadira Down starport. Arriving there, they found it locked down hard by army and police elements, and Goral Jamieson - Senior Undersecretary to President Brooks - waiting eagerly to take delivery of the equipment. He had brought sufficient grav trucks to take away the crated battledress; but his startled oath when the Long Walk's ramp dropped and he realized there was a hold full of grav tanks as well was a memory the Cats would always cherish.
When the last of the vehicles was unloaded, an unexpected crate was discovered tucked in behind them. Attached to the outside was a paper note (of all things!) on which was written "You may find these useful," it said, "don't bite off more than you can chew, though. Also, note that no overt Imperial assistance can be offered..." Upon cautiously opening the crate, they discovered two clips of TL 15 Smart Anti-Ship missiles for the Walk's racks.
In the following days, the Cats settled back into their base on Botany Bay, making plans for the next stages. A company was commissioned to carve a hangar into the scan-opaque mountain for their ships, and Feng began gleefully planting her new flora in the blossoming ecosystem. So far, no one had come to claim Vespasian, and he set off to explore Collace while he waited.