Preparations

First arrivals
Slayed  and the Far Scout arrived at Wildeman first. Gobbo retrieved his ship and they stocked up before headed to the hidden base to start preparations to get it operational.

Entering the base via the hatch that Gobbo had found previously, they worked their way through to the main outer doors. After opening them they moved their ships inside and closed the doors behind them.

The work in the base would take a lot of time and manpower, and performing the repairs in vacc suits, while possible, would slow things down. That meant the first priority was getting the hull airtight in preparation for pressurisation. The engineers got to work while a survey of the base was made to identify what materials would be needed.

Second group
A few days later Goff's ship and the Patrol Corvette arrived at the base and were taken in to the docking hangar. The engineers that arrived got to work and the power supply was quickly brought up to a usable condition, albeit using fuel from portable drums. The basic systems and fuel tanks were next to be repaired, which finally meant people could inhabit the base without sealed vacc suits.

Mining activities had commenced with Gobbo starting to get some of the drones operational. While there were no facilities to turn the ores into anything useful, there was plenty of space for storing what they mined.

The last group
Finally the rest of the ships arrived and everyone was reunited. By now a number of primary systems were operating but not completely repaired. Each partially working system needed to be watched which took engineers away from other repairs. With a much larger contingent of engineers and mechanics it decided that the smelter, refinery and manufacturing plants should be repaired to provide at least some of the materials needed to repair the base.The downside was that some people would be needed to run them.

With the mercenaries due to arrive within a week, Slayed took the opportunity to return to the highport with Gobbo to get more supplies. They stayed at the highport until the mercenaries arrived, meeting with the commanding officer in a secluded bar to discuss moving the newly arrived forces to the base.

Mercenaries arrive
By the time the mercenaries arrived at the base the hull, power, basic systems, fuel tanks, residential areas a fuel refinery were all completely repaired, requiring no engineer oversight. The smelter, refinery and manufacturing plant were nearly complete and work was being started on the biosphere, computers, bridge, sensors and common areas.

With Gobbo's ship ferrying supplies to the base they had to be careful that nobody was following to find out what was happening with all that material. They seemed to still be undiscovered.

Reconnaissance
Shortly after the mercenaries arrived and their ships too taken into the base (leaving still an enormous amount of space for more) the party, with a mercenary tactical specialist, went once more to the Wildeman highport. Only one more trip after this would be possible, so they needed to put in motion some plan to make the security forces on the highport look the other way when things started to get exciting.

Lady Nitrane uncovered the organisational structure of the highport. There were departments for security, starship traffic control, maintenance, hospitality, trade, administration, construction and more. The ones that the travellers decided to work on were security and starship operations.

Unter and the mercenary quickly determined that there would be tactical advantage if the Imperial ships could be somehow made to dock at certain docking ports. These would provide cover for the mercenaries and suitable lines of approach.

Lady Nitrane thought that it might be possible to meet some of the higher ranking officials if she went to the better class of restaurants and cafes, and armed with their biographies and pictures she started hunting,

Slayed decided to ask Gobbo if he knew anyone well enough to approach them. He thought for a moment and came up with two names. One in the security department and the other in administration. Choosing the security officer Slayed called and asked if it would be possible to meet with the head of department, and was successful.

When Slayed arrived at the place instructed he was met by the second in command and told that the department head was away for a week or more down on the planet and would not be available. If he, the second in command could help he'd be happy to.

An offer too good to refuse?
Slayed decided that honesty (to a point) mixed with bluntness. He said that he had a difficult problem he needed solving, which was that he needed to have the security people to turn a blind eye, and point all their guns another way, so that Slayed could obtain the cargo from a ship that would be arriving some time in the future.

The assistant blinked but immediately looked thoughtful. Slayed considered what he'd asked for and from a large number of credit chips selected one that denoted 10,000 Cr and casually, and very obviously, pushed it across the table and said "I saw you drop this". The assistant picked it up, looked at it, and without saying a thing put it in his pocket.

Seeming to come to a decision the assistant asked if Slayed was staying at the highport and then said that they should meet in an hour. He stood up and opened the door, saying in a slightly louder the name of a hotel and that he hoped he would enjoy his stay.

Meeting concluded Slayed made his way to the hotel and booked a room.

To be continued.