Chapter 15:
En route to Artru, 26 August 3005, The Shelter
Samantha "The Colonel" Wylde
I had been relaxing on the ship these last few days. The rapid pace that I had been keeping had left me tired, and with the time we spent in Coromodir, I had managed to get all the paperwork that was waiting for me from my people. So that had taken the first week of travel, and now I was relaxing and deciding what I was going to do.
I could head to the factory and get a bunch more droids made to maybe help us out in the coming Outpost Castle raid, or design new ones for the future, but I was honestly tapped out for the moment, and I wanted to save that for when I got back to New Kyoto. I could go and train a bunch. I had not let any of my training slip, but I was doing the bare minimum to maintain myself right now instead of improving.
There was also the choice of tearing the four tickets that I had received. They had arrived after we had made the first successful jump with the Argo in tow and were currently in the back pocket that they always appeared in. I had two silver and two bronze tickets. One of the silvers was for an Item, the other for a skill, and the bronze tickets were both items as well. I was getting a lot of item tickets, and not many for the other categories, probably due to my not actually being part of the action all that much, or it being so far below my capabilities.
Pulling the pad of four tickets out, I decided, 'To hell with it, why not' and tore the bunch all together. The item rolls happened first, depositing themselves in that in-between space that functioned as the deployment space for all the items I had access to. The items were a mix of busted and could be broken, but may require work.
The first item that appeared from the silver ticket was not one of the highest rolls, though it really should be, my Computer setup from home, as in base Earth. Still connected to that Earth's internet. Which matched with my Internet Access ability meant I was connected to that internet so long as it was on the same planet as me.
[Your Laptop]
|Rare Item|
Your laptop from back on earth, or whatever computer you had, still connected to the internet you had back on earth.
Next was Canto, a super advanced AI on a cyberdeck that I could have installed by ROB fiat. This one I was iffy with as I really would prefer not to have an AI in my head but at the same time, it would make all of my Hacking so much more broken.
[Canto]
|Rare Item|
Cyberpunk - The Canto is a legendary Cyberdeck considered a myth by many. This implant functions as a very powerful computer connected to your brain, allowing you to interface with and easily hack even the toughest networks, thanks to the sentient Super AI loaded inside, helping you with your endeavours. Manifests as a ticket that installs itself in your body when you rip it.
The last item was both underwhelming and absolutely broken. A standard non-descript tank, with infinite fuel and ammunition. This will either be an absolute laugh or a museum piece that never sees the light of day.
[Tank]
|Common Item|
A large indistinct military tank with infinite fuel and tank shells inside of it. Fuel and shells cannot be taken out of the vehicle.
Finally, the total slop of a skill draw, makeup skills. Nothing supernatural, nothing for disguises, just very good at making someone look good with makeup.
[Makeup]
|Common Skill|
You are very skilled at applying makeup and enhancing natural beauty with products.
I was not sure whether to laugh or cry at that last one. I still, at 25, looked like a 14-year-old. The only reason anyone took me seriously was the curses I was under and the fact that I was almost never out of uniform. So my rank tabs were the first thing anyone saw, due to my diminutive stature.
I should probably look into changing up the uniform and getting it standardised with better materials and a unifying style now that I think about it. Figuring that I may as well get started, I used the voucher for my Computer setup, and my last rig from my old life appeared boxed up and ready to set up on the floor.
Digging through the box carefully, I found the laptop and its charger, as well as my wireless drawing tablet and its charger. With both secured in a holding net, I ensured that the box was secured again before heading to get an adaptor made so that I could charge them both. Who knew that almost a thousand years in the future, they had different plugs and standards? Wild, I know.
That little trip did not take me long, and I was soon back in my rooms aboard the ship and had both devices plugged in and booting up. Once I had everything set and checked that it was all working as I left them with all the same settings, it was time to do a deep dive into some sites on my old internet for inspiration. That led to a rabbit hole, which led even further into reading arguments about the best types of uniforms on Reddit forums and then onto material weaves and ideas for future super materials.
I was eventually interrupted by one of the crewmen from the Mess using the chime on my door with a tray of food for breakfast, as I had apparently missed lunch and dinner, and we were now on the next day. I completely forgot how much dealing with the different people on the net of 2025 was a quicksand pit. I thanked him for the food and tore into it happily before bussing all the utensils and crockery back to the mess and then going through morning ablutions, because after an entire day of rapid-fire discussions on a half dozen forums and also the general distraction that is the shorts doomscroll, I needed a shower to feel clean again.
My deep dive and conversations, and just general time-wasting had resulted in a board of images that I could spend the rest of the day refining into an idea that would work. The base would be a matte black shipsuit. I had the materials, and they would work well as undersuits for all of our gear if I designed them right.
With attachable gloves, with a sealed cuff to at least maintain the suit's ability to seal itself, and integrated socks/booties, it should function like a wetsuit. The built-in thermoregulation would ensure comfortable temperatures, and maintain them for a short time, 10-15minutes, in extreme situations. Longer if you used a separate attachable battery pack.
This would be covered by jumpsuits for crews based on their jobs on the everyday. Also, in a matte black, these would have coloured trims coded to their work. Places for patches, rank insignia, and any extra qualification identifiers would be in all the appropriate places, shoulders and chest. These would be more form-fitted than baggy and be made from flame and chemical-resistant materials.
The active wear for combat operations would be different depending on the branch, but the basis was another version of the shipsuit with attachment points for combat gear, which has also been reinforced with bulletproof materials with an energy dispersion weave. This would give the undersuit an almost shiny finish, even with its base camo pattern being set to a digital camo of greys and blues.
On top of this are then worn reinforced combat cargoes, combat boots, combat gloves and a long-sleeve skintight shirt. The infantry then have armour that goes over this, while pilots for the metal of the company will have cooling suit integration armour that can go over it instead. All individuals have full face helmets with integrated interior HUDs linked to a number of exterior sensors, allowing uninterrupted views of the surroundings.
These outfits will all have a single-layer integration of camo changing, allowing them to switch between camo patterns without having to change outfits. All of this will be powered by Fallout-style micro fusion cells, to allow for long-term deployments to areas of extreme temperature. Integrated into the helmet and suit is also a rebreather capable of allowing for twelve hours of deployment in toxic environments or environments with low to no oxygen levels.
The final item to be added to these kits, which will have to wait for a factory to be made, is a limited shielding system mimicking that of the SPARTAN Mjilnor armour of the Halo games. This would be powered by a small Badassium reactor in an attachable backpack harness. This would allow them to take two medium laser shots directly before needing five minutes to recharge. That should allow my people to survive longer and also ensure that they get a chance to get away from anyone trying to stomp them. I hope at least.
For the Special Ops people, I also had the Jumppack from Titanfall that I wanted to see about getting working for them, but the needed physical abilities would require me to have them all undergo a bunch of Bioware/Cyberware enhancements, and I cannot have that be a mandatory thing for my people just for a piece of kit. Instead, I put that aside as a project to revisit.
The dress uniform was the thing giving me the worst trouble, honestly. I wanted something stylish, but also fully functional. I eventually settled on something similar to the Vatican Swiss Guards of the 21st century. Making body armour part of the Dress Uniform. Granted, I made it far more low-profile and blended it into the outer jacket that I selected, but my people would be able to take a rifle round or two before anything vital was hit.
Along with this was a ceremonial knife, fully functional vibro blades or laser blades, as I could make those now, along with their sidearms, which in this case would be an ETE pistol firing 5.7 armour piercing rounds. The look the uniform goes for is More of a sci-fi navy sort of uniform, with the only nod to being merc being the Long Duster Half-Coat that goes over the top of everything. Think Mass Effect Alliance Blues, the same as Admiral Hacket wears, with the Duster of the Elite riot gear from Fallout New Vegas, all done in matte black, with a gold trim and highlight panels depending on your service branch.
When I was done with all the designs and had all the schematics and requirements written up, I realised that I would have to patent the materials for the undersuits and uniform, as well as the weaves and tech for integrating the cooling and thermal regulating aspects into the uniforms. I sigh as I pull up the paperwork that I have saved on my noteputer and start going through it and working through the different forms and legal requirements. Sometimes I hate my own genius. It leads to paperwork.
En route to Artru, 28 August 3005, The Shelter
Major Kira "Firebird" Nox
Kira was starting to get seriously worried. The Colonel, well, Lieutenant General but she would always be The Colonel, had basically locked herself into her quarters aboard the ship for the last three days, eating only once and not doing her usual rounds. The crew on guard had also reported strange sounds coming through the vents and walls.
Now, normal Kira would have just left things as they are; the Colonel is old enough to figure herself and whatever is on her mind out, but at this stage, it was getting close to being a medical emergency. The ship's Doctor had informed her that they would need to get her to at minimum eat and drink something, but preferably come down to the medaby and get checked out.
This had been kicked up the chain until it ended up with her. Vikki had taken one look at the complaints, shook her head and mumbled something about stopped geniuses and their fugues before going back to the workshops and looking over her domain. Nova Fenn and Jett Fin, the two male senior officers, had heard what was going on and promptly told her that it was her problem and if she couldn't handle it, get the captain.
So here she was outside the Colonel's door, psyching herself up to have to interrupt not only her boss, but the scariest person she knows, and someone who makes new tech as if it were a grade school project. Who knows what she has in her quarters for defence? No, she was just not going to think about it and instead just get the job done. She raised her hand to ring the buzzer on the Colonel's door just as it opened, and she floated out.
"Can I help you, Major?" The Colonel asked her, with that same deadpan face and calm neutral tone. She did not look to be suffering, and if the damp hair was any indication, she had just finished showering. No bags under her eyes, steady hands, and not looking any more pale than usual.
"Uh, Doctor Chakwas requested you in the Medbay, Colonel. I was elected to come and collect you." She replied without thinking. Her mind realising what she had said to late to change it and kicking her for it, 'Right, I was sent to collect you! Like she is a misbehaving child! Fuck I am so screwed when sim time comes around.'
"Understood, Major, thank you for passing along the message. I am heading for the Mess right now, but I will head to medical once I am done. Have you eaten yet?" the colonel replies, as she floats past. She is dressed in her pilotsuit and has her neurohelmet in its carry bag on her back.
"Not yet, Colonel, I was asked to come do this on my way there." She replies, falling in behind the Colonel and following her. How is it that this woman looks like a child and scares her more than meeting any of those high-ranking nobles and officers of the LCAF? Like, even before she knew what the woman could do, she still scared the crap out of her. The unease originally had her hand inching for her sidearm; now it just had her looking for the nearest exit or for someone else to throw under the bus in the sims.
"Well, then, tell me what's on the menu today while we head to the mess, and then once I am done at medical, I will see you and the rest of the senior staff in the briefing room. I have some more information about some other things that were hidden in the Argos navigational data that we need to discuss." She orders as they float towards the spine of the Jumpship and head for the officers' mess.
Kira follows along behind the Colonel, informing her of the menu for the morning while trying to figure out what else the Colonel must have found. The Robot factory on the ship was already a massive surprise; the fact that it has fighters like the old Caspar system, drone swarms of fighters, she shivers at the thought. She would not like to fight an enemy that doesn't suffer from g-lock or have to worry about doing things that would kill their flechy meat suit.
Then there was notice of an Outpost Castle, the last destination that the Argo, and what a massive bloody ship that is, was heading to before going down. That is a smaller Castle Brian, and as far as our intelligence folks could tell, completely untouched. Now the Colonel says she has more for us? Did she dig into systems that were hidden? Did she find some secrets that no one else uncovered? How she did it is a question Kira figures best left between the Colonel and the Gods; no point suffering trying to work that out.
Breakfast was quick, and that was followed by Kira heading around and getting all the Senior staff gathered for the Colonel's meeting. First stop, the easiest, the gym on the grav deck. There, she finds both Nova Fenn, Captain of the Infantry and Marines with us, and Jett Fin, the Captain of the Mechwarrior contingent. As usual, the PBI and the Mech mafia were in some stupid contest. Thankfully, her flyers were keeping their cool heads and just carrying on without getting dragged in. Or at least that was what she thought until she got near enough to see that her second was currently in the sparring ring with Master Sargent Gibbs.
Facepalming and letting loose a sigh, Kira walks up to the two senior officers and taps them on the shoulder, they both turn to see her and are about to go into some kind of excuse or spiel about competition but she bulldozes right over, "Colonels calling an all hands Senior officer meeting, breifing room, now. You have until she is done in medical to get there before her." and promptly turns on the spot and moves for the workshop.
In the workshop, surrounded by the noise of Astechs working on mechs, welders, grinders, sprayguns, and moving heavy equipment, Kira finds Vikki waist-deep in one of the Exterminators. Apparently, she decided that these super-rare pieces were her domain. Waiting until she pulled herself out of the mech's internals, Kira cleared her throat to get Vikki's attention. The lead tech still startled, apparently not expecting anyone to bother her.
"Kira, unless someone has buggered the Jumpdrives and set a fire, I am busy," she exclaimed, looking back at the armourless mech. Wiping grease stains and other internal mechanical liquids on a cleaning rag hung from her jumpsuit pockets.
"Briefing room, summons direct from the Colonel, all senior staff, leads on more goodies. Right after she gets out of medical in, in 5 to 10 minutes from now." Kira replies before booking it out of the mechbay and dodging around several mechtechs as Vikki chased her down, screaming at her about coming to her last.
They both still made it to the briefing room before the other senior officers and also before the Colonel. Or so they thought until she cleared her throat from the other end of the table to where they expected her to be sitting. "I take it the others will be with us shortly?" The Colonel asks, a single eyebrow raised, and the weight of her attention has both Kira and Vikki straightening up before Vikki answers, "They should be, ma'am. I was the last to be informed." Happily throwing the other two under the Atlas.
En route to Artru, 28 August 3005, The Shelter
Head Tech Victoria "Vikki" Ferrous.
Vikki didn't know why she was here. Honestly, she did not know why she and the other techs had not been sent back with the new Starlord and Princess. They now had that ridiculous droid factory that could put out robots to do her job, ROBOTS! And yet the Colonel had kept them all here, all together, and still had her in charge.
She honestly did not understand what went on in the mind of a genius. The Colonel was that, and probably a Savant and Autistic, but that did not take away from just how impossible everything she did was.
Vikki had helped the Colonel do the overhaul of her personal mech. The technology that went into it, the sheer disregard for everything that is the established norm, the established principles of making a mech. The result was something that looked like a mech, but was most definitely not. Not even close.
Now she was in the briefing room, waiting for the Colonel to let her know about some more things that were apparently in the computer systems of the Argo that her team and she had apparently missed. She knows that there was nothing else; those computers were so well scrubbed that she suspects someone had purposefully only left the Artru Nautilus data.
Sitting back in the chair she had taken, her thoughts were interrupted by the two muscle heads walking through the door, still in some debate, argument or disagreement about standing. It took them sitting down and looking away from one another to notice that the Colonel was her, as well as the rest of us, and thus to realise that they were late. They shut up very quickly as that thought sank in.
"Now that you are all here, we can get started." The Colonel says before hitting a button on the table controls. The room flashes a single red light and the interior speakers crackle the tone for activation of the SCIF as the room door dogs itself shut and then deadbolts drop into place. That gets the attention of everyone in the room.
"To start, the information I am about to share is classified at levels so high that I am not even giving it to our employers or anyone outside this room. Is that clear?" The Colonel asks, her usually bland, calm tone of voice carrying a weight like a mountain. You start to learn to tell these things when you work closely with her for a long time.
After everyone gave their assent, the Colonel continued, "Before any of the tech teams came aboard the Argo, I took a little look-see myself." She started, and suddenly Vikki realised why the computers were scrubbed as clean as they were. The Colonel had found something. "The navigation logs contained a map to a half dozen different SLDF outposts here in the periphery, most of which were merely listening stations, three of which, however, were of importance." She says as she uses the holotable to bring up a starmap.
"The first is Outpost Castle Nautilus, our current destination." A star highlights itself down on the edge of the Taurian Concordat, "The next is a black research site for droids located below the galactic plane and around 600 light-years away down a narrow corridor of safely charted stars."
At this, another point of space lights up well below anything humanity had inhabited. It was amazing to see just how far the SLDF had gone to hide some of their research sites. How many more were lost among the stars?
"The final one, and the most sensitive of the lot, is this location here," The Colonel continues, and a spot on the deep periphery side of the Tuarian Concordat lights up, "This is the SLDF Deep Periphery base Zulu, the basing for a full division, with native Naval support. It is also listed as a research location for experimental SDS and other droid and drone-operated naval equipment," she explains, looking around the room as we all suck in a breath. A division with native naval support means Warships, it means a heck of a lot of metal, and more than that, they were experimenting with SDS systems, droids and drones, unmanned automated machines of war.
"Colonel, I take it that you do not plan on heading for these systems just yet, hence why you classified the information so highly?" Major Fenn asks, looking around at the rest, trying to gauge how they were feeling about the information.
Vikki was just thinking about all the cool stuff that they could learn if they got the chance to go to these places. What cool innovations had they come up with? What potential new things could she learn and use to make her Mechs and the rest of the vehicles she looked after better? But mostly mechs. Vikki was lost in her thoughts until the Colonel spoke up again.
"You would be correct, we are not going to be going anywhere near either location for a while. This is for several reasons, not least of which being that they may all be defended by full Warship Caspar systems at this time. We do not have the metal to fight them just yet, and honestly, I would prefer to get in and nose about quietly, which requires some of the things I have been working on, but that is another discussion entirely. For now, just keep in mind that there were other things on the computers and they all had to do with Artificial Intelligence, which means that the Outpost Castle we are heading for may very well have similar units, defences and research in it." the Colonel says, her voice still flat and calm but Vikki could her an edge of hunger and caution both to it.
"We will be approaching the planet with the understanding that it will have automated defences and as such, everything will be done at artillery range. Vikki, I want you to change out the small laser on the Mongooses and Exterminators for TAG. I ordered a few of those loaded before we left New Kyoto, so get it done for me, please. Fenn, Finn, and Kira, your lot are going to be taking the brunt of whatever the base has defending it, so get your people ready for defences that hit hard and don't react fast." The Colonel orders getting affirmations from everyone.
The rest of the meeting falls into orders, plans and duties for the rest of the trip, this, for once, includes Vikki and her techs; they would be brushing up in sims against digital opponents trying to crash the computer systems of their dropships and vehicles. Something that they had never encountered before, but the Colonel seemed to think they might have to deal with. Vikki thought it made a little sense, considering the bases on the navigation data were all working with automated tech, that one of them would be developing a counter for the systems.
Artru Orbit, 18 September 3005, Bared Claws
Samantha "The Colonel" Wylde
We were finally in orbit around the moon of Artru. I had stopped in with the orbital habitat that was here and done some trading and information gathering. Nothing much to be had, but I made a tidy profit on some foodstuffs that they wanted, and managed to top off the Dropship fuel tanks at the same time.
Now we were waiting for a hurricane-force blizzard to finish passing over our landing site and the valley that the base was in. The weather on the planet was not going to be comfortable or fun for ground troops. Thankfully, I planned for us to have the defences offline and then land our droppers right next to the base. Minimal exposure and greater ease of loading our gains.
I was looking forward to getting down there and getting my hands on the goodies hidden away in that bunker, as well as getting access to the KX droids. By now, I had fifty of them in my inventory space, their numbers having grown every time I tore a ticket. They would make stripping the base down to nothing very easy by doing all the heavy lifting. It would also hopefully sell the idea that the SLDF was starting to develop the droids for use.
For now, I settled in to wait, all good things to those who do and all that.
Chapter 16:
Artru Orbit, 21 September 3005, Bared Claws
Samantha "The Colonel" Wylde
We had been up in orbit waiting for our window to hit the planet and the base that was here for the last three days. All our scans showed that it would be clearing up in a little while, so I had everyone get ready for descent. We were going to be landing ten clicks from the base, giving us enough space to get in position to wipe the defences with artillery as needed. Ground forces would not be deploying with us, as the temperatures in this northern mountain region were in the near-50 °C region.
We would be heading in with my headhunter lances and spotting for the Chapparals so that they could put missiles on target for us. That should allow us to wipe the defences before they become an issue. Though I was going to plan for it to all go to hell in a handbasket.
I had just settled into the acceleration couch in the Mechwarriors ready room when the Captain came on the Shipwide, "Attention all hands, we now have clear skies and a flight path to our LZ, you have two minutes to get secure and in your acceleration couches before we ignite thrusters and initiate re-entry." her voice was crisp, calm and no nonsense just as it should be when doing something as regular as this. It was still heartening that my crews responded as quickly as they did.
As the countdown hit zero, I felt the kick in my chest as the Colossus's main engines kicked in and sent us hurtling towards the planet below. Now, the acceleration of dropships is normally under 4gs of safe thrust. When you start hurtling into the atmosphere and everything gets heavy from the ride, it certainly feels much higher.
Once the thrusters kicked into high gear to slow our descent, I started counting down the time until the Dropship would hit dirt, or in this case, rock and snow. As I hit zero in my count, I felt the landing struts touch down and the engines rumble off. I was out of my seat and moving with speed in front of my unit for this mission, heading along the Mech bays to our assigned rides.
In front of my mech was Vikki; she never let anyone else handle my vehicles, though whether to prevent accidents on their part or to ensure no one learned about my tech is still a toss-up for me. "Is she good to go, Vikki?" I ask as I stride towards the foot of my mech. I don't use a lift or cable and start to scale up the mech at a rapid pace.
Vikki calling towards my rapidly ascending back, "All good, Colonel, she matches all the readouts you gave me. One day you will have to explain it all to me, though, cause I still don't fully understand how you did what you did." She finishes as I swing up onto the shoulder and make my way to the cockpit hatch.
"Sure, Vikki, remind me over drinks sometime, though that would require you coming out of the Mech bay!" I call back as I slap my hand against the locking scanner. Smiling as I hear an inarticulate warble come from my chief tech. She is very much like her Seras written counterparts, like that, no social wants, just fun tech and cool inventions and big stompy robots.
As my cockpit hisses open and I slide in, I catch a glimpse of Vikki giving me the finger with both hands and laugh just a little while waving at her. It does not take me long to get settled and start the boot-up sequence.
"Security systems enabled, please provide passphrase Mike Alpha Juliet Charlie," comes the voice of Betty. Yup, I kept that. Betty has a much more soothing voice than JARVIS for me, and honestly, I did not want to put a JARVIS into my mech just yet.
"Cry Havos, and let loose the Dogs of War", I reply, and if any of my people could see me, they would be shocked, as a smile graces my lips for a moment between the mech processing my passphrase and looking through the security database for a secondary callback.
"War does not determine who is right," Betty intones, with a quote that most succinctly describes the IS and the last 300 years.
"Only who is left," I reply, slightly more sombre at the tone Betty had taken today. Damn, if that does not hit close to home. Well, hopefully it will always be me and my people. I shake off the mauldin thoughts and finish running through the startup sequence.
"Reactor online, Weapons system online, Sensors online, Movement online, All systems online and nominal, you have control, Titania." Betty intones, with some extras because I am allowed to mod things as I please with my own mech. I also really like my callsign for when I pilot anything, so I make sure that is what I am called inside my machines.
Keying up the audio, I walked from my gantry and followed directions out of the Mechbay and down to the icy windswept ground of the valley we had set down in. Behind me, the rest of my unit fell in, three lances total, two of Mongoose-66GX, one of which was my custom, and one of Exterminator-4Cs. "Alright, people, we have one job, and for the love of god, I expect you to be ready for it to go tits up. We have a nice balmy -52C outside, so we can run full stealth from here to the suspected defence perimeter. We get in close and mark everything that looks like a turret or sallyport with TAG." I start my orders are just reiterating what was covered in the briefing, but I have some more to add now that my memories have been jostled a bit at seeing the valley.
"We will move in three parts. Shadow lance will take the northside of the valley, Ghost lance has the south, and Wraith, you four are straight down the centre. I want everyone prepared for this to go sideways. No telling what AI researchers were looking into out her, but stories from the orbital residents point towards some kind of malicious signal or code. Maintain laser comms only from this point on." I finish as I kick my mech into gear and move towards the southern wall of the valley. My lance falls in behind me as the others all move towards their designated paths.
My lance comms channel crackles to life as we move away, the laser com-link up showing that my orders were being followed, "So what are we looking at, Titania? We have any hard intel on the defences here?" comes the voice of my lance XO, Sergeant Singh, call sign Bodhi. The woman of indian descent and Combine birth, she had escaped the Combine when her family was being rounded up after a failure from one of her grandparents cost the Coordinator some face for blame that should have fallen further up the chain.
Her folks had run instead of staying put and waiting for death, with the four-year-old Sergeant and her two-year-old brother. They had made it into FedSun territory before leaving the kids in an orphanage and disappearing. She had ended up with me after washing out of the academy on that planet for slapping an overly enthusiastic and handsy noble who was an instructor. Their loss is my gain, though, as she had taken to my company like a fish to water.
"No hard intel outside of turrets and potentially experimental drone weapon systems. Nothing else is listed, and that is why we are moving at such a spread. I have no way of telling what else the Outpost Castle had installed for defence." I reply, moving my mech around some burreid boulders that made a very well camouflaged tripping hazard with the snow levels around here.
The skies were thankfully clear, everything having been swept away in the wake of the Blizzard-Hurricane hybrid. The wind outside was still gusting at the high 50kph levels, and constantly fighting her in balance of her mech, but everyone seemed to be managing just fine for now.
"Drones Titania? As in unmanned mechs or something?" came the rougher voice of a fifty-pack-a-day smoker, who was one of her other lance mates. Grunt, and yes, that was his callsign on account of talking very little until he got to know you, was an older man from the FWL. Part of a planetary militia and then a merc for almost thirty years, he had signed on after his last command got absolutely devastated in a fight against the Cappellans. They had made it off planet with three of fifteen mechs and only one of their two dropships. Then the debtors had come calling to collect, and the owner had had to fold everything. He was dispossessed on Solaris when he joined up, and had struggled to make it through our fitness requirements originally, but he wanted in and he saw something about our company cause he sucked it up and pulled through.
He was from the Southern Trinity in the FWL, and if he had not joined up with me in a mech would probably have gone back home to settle down on the family ranch or something. I was glad to have him after he showed some truly outstanding scores in the training and sims, which is one of the things to landed him in this particular company of mechs, the other being his steadfast loyalty and refusal to say anything about anyone or anything else unless relevant and not classified.
"From what we got on the Argo's systems, they had yet to get mechs working right. That said, they had mentioned that they had some working land-bound drone security, so expect heavy vehicles to supplement the turrets." I say back, scanning through the horizon looking for anything out of place. We had just crossed the five-click mark, and the base outer perimeter should be coming up, or at least their early warning would be if I had any control.
The scanners, and sensors on my Mongoos were better then any of the other mechs we had, even in passive mode they were going to have better range and resolution, so when I did not notice the Sally port right next to me until one of the other mechs stepped on the hatch I had to wonder just what the heck was going on and also call an immediate retreat from our position. "Hold!" my order whipped across the command channel, and our lance froze the laser relay, making sure that the others did the same. "Rogue, back off slowly and as carefully and light as you can, fifty meters, the same for the rest of you, back up in your old prints," I say as I do the same thing, slowly backing away and watching as the hatch that was on my sensors slowly fades out as I hit the ten meter mark and then disappear entirely as Rogue steps off it.
"We have a Sally port or hidden entrance here. No detection until Rogue stepped directly on it next to me. Assume that your back is no longer clear and go to active scanning one, but keep it only in a limited range; we do not need to activate the systems if they are triggered by the sensors blaring out to the end of the valley." I ordered the company, watching my tactical readout as all the mechs switched from passive to low-range active, and suddenly we had two dozen hidden ports across the valley highlighted.
"Wheeeew, well damnTitania, that is one hell of a potential welcome party right there. Any thoughts on why they haven't activated, considering we walked over at least a half dozen of those hatches?" The Company Second, Hunter, asks me. As I try to figure that out myself.
Looking over the hatches and the surrounding terrain, I slowly start to piece it together, and it honestly has me relieved. "The Hatches are covered in a layer of ice thick enough to walk an Atlas over; there is no way for them to open. I assume while the base was operational, they would cycle them throughout the day and run internal heating to ensure that this did not happen." I reply as I step forward and run my scans across the hatch again at close range.
Behind this hatch was a turret, equipped with what seemed to be ER PPCs, ER large Lasers, and LRMs. Damn, these would be nasty to run across, and with the distribution pattern, if they are all the same, it would have been like walking into a full Heavy Assualt regiment's worth of mechs. This is very different to what happened in the games, and honestly, I am very glad that we did not have to deal with them.
It also seems like there are some issues somewhere between these and the base or power supply, as they are not active and are still powered down. That is good, as it means we have not yet triggered the alert for the other base defences.
"Titania, what do you want us to do? Are we continuing with the rest of the mission?" Hunter asks, his lance of exterminators surrounded by a dozen of these hatches alone. I can understand the slight tremor of nerves in his voice with that much firepower arrayed around him and his lance.
"Reads from scans say we can ignore these. I think we may actually be able to come back and salvage them later, so let's not destroy some premium lostech weapons. The company continue, sensors stay a low-powered active. We just have to stay aware that there are probably more defences like these. Let's try to map them as we move and see if there is a pattern to help us figure out where they start and end." I respond, moving my mech past the hatch and starting to survey more of our path forward.
A hundred meters past the first set of hatches, we hit the next line, this one with twice as many turrets, and also four hangars built into the valley walls. The insides of which return signals for powered-down vehicles, but we cannot determine what kind.
"Titania, are we marking these for missile strikes, bombing runs or salvage?" Bodhi asks me as we pass by the two on our side of the valley. I try to figure out what the vehicles might be, but for the life of me do not recognise them. My Target Identification Computer also fails to find any matches.
"For the moment, they must be offline, and the ice also seems to be too thick for them to make it out, marked for potential salvage with a grid coordinate for the ASFs to bomb into the stone age if they somehow manage to get out before we shut the systems down permanently from the bases' command centre," I reply, noting down the grid coordinates and uploading them to be fed to the tac-net on the CIC on the Bared Claws when we broken comms silence.
We continue for another twenty minutes, moving very slowly and carefully, no one talking unless they find something or to warn of the next line being found. By the time we make it 1km from the base, we have found eight different lines of defences, with at least 4 sets of valley hangars, all containing between 4 and 12 vehicles. The turrets in the valley itself are all high-damage long-range energy weapons, with a mix of short and long-range missiles in the mix as supplementary.
If this is the defence of an Outpost Castle, I am glad that I do not have to storm an actual Castle Brian. It would eat my entire force and ask for more afterwards without a sweat. I have now had the weight of my command impressed upon me and the folly that is assuming everything about these little escapades will be easy or even marginally safe.
Everything on my ships would have died trying to take this valley if the defences were still working. Heck, for all I know, they have something similar to a Rattler in one of the hangars of the base itself, and my Dropships would have been at risk. That has me taking a deep breath as I try to shake the moment of dread.
I manage to bring my focus back to the here and now as we make it near enough to see some of the remaining structures around the Base's main entrance. Thankfully, the turrets and other defences are still offline, and we are not getting shot at, but I would really rather it stay that way, and these defences are already deployed and waiting to go active.
"Alright, folks, move into position. Twelve turrets and twelve of us means we each have to mark one. Don't screw up and make sure that you are ready to go loud if things go sideways." I send, making the company move to line up shots on the visible defences.
"Roger that, you heard Titania find your targets and start relaying grids while getting ready to mark with TAG people." Hunter seconds my order for his Lance and the rest of the Company.
The company fanned out, and once everyone was in place, our comms went from laser to active, uploading all data and targeting solutions. It was less than ten seconds from the databurst going out to the ships and artillery before the Bases' defences went active, turrets warming up as power flowed into them and sensor pings started to push out and try to find us.
The company held position, waiting on verification of locks from the Chapparal battery and the ASFs that were even now diving from on high to lay the hurt on the defences. The sensors swept past us, not able to punch through our Stealth fields quite yet, but there was something none of us had taken into account.
The SLDF were the people who used and employed Arrow IVs the most and had the best understanding of them, so when the first salvo splashed and wiped eight of the twelve turrets, the base responded. Concealed hatches higher up the mountain and out of our sensor range blew open, and two dozen Arrow IVs went flying right back along the track our own artillery had come in on.
"Hammer Company move you have incoming!" I barked rapidly as I noticed it happening, knowing that they would have to be fast to make it clear of the splash zone of the missiles. Deciding that enough was enough, I switched back to company comms, "Alright, folks, waste what's left and secure the area. I want nothing left to fight us when the techs get here to crack this can." My anxiety was hidden under the cold realisation that we would have to push forward, regardless of the results of the artillery company being hit.
My company complied with a vigour that only comes from knowing that your friends might have been hurt or killed by the forces before you. Stealth dropping as we laid into the remaining four turrets. Each turret received the attention of one exterminator and two Mongoose mechs, with the shots my custom fired carving into the launch tubes in the mountain. There was no chance in hell I let them get another salvo off.
AS my lance mates and the rest of the company melted the remaining turrets to scrap, my long line of fire across the slope above the launch tubes caused a small avalanche to bury them just as the next set were firing. The weight of the snow and its momentum caused the missiles to impact the walls of their launch tubes, detonating in place and taking those weapons offline.
As the smoke cleared and my company started to close in towards the main base doors, two sally ports in the walls opened and out flooded eight more contacts. These were showing on scopes as Assualt weight, and the TIC managed to identify them with a 75% confidence as Royal Burkes, but they were 10tons too heavy. AS they rolled out, they started spitting Lightning death, and the company had to rapidly scatter to avoid being hit.
The first strikes against them showed that that extra weight had been used to increase the armour load, as well as probably mount more heatsinks, as they were firing far more rapidly than should have been possible, or healthy for them.
"Command, Hammer company reporting, no loss thanks to your callout, but it was close. Hammer two has two units out of action for now due to thrown tracks, but the rest of us are free for fire missions, tell us where you need the rain, Titania," came the voice of my Chapparal commander.
"Good to hear, Hammer, fire mission uploaded, callout is danger close. Your people better have it on target, Captain; we don't have all that much room to manoeuvre here." I respond as I have my mech go to full throttle and blitz past one of the drones, my left arm popping its laser blade to run along the join between turret and hull.
AS my blade makes contact, I can feel the weight of the armour forcing down the turret as the blade forcefully parts the two pieces of the tank from one another. The drag causes me to hook around behind the tank and right into the guns of two more. Only quick reflexes and the fact that my mech can do some seriously out-of-character movements let me avoid the six PPCs that were aimed at taking my head out.
I dropped my mech's leading leg and took a knee, sliding on the ice and snow and coming up within reach to cut the barrels from the projectors, just as six SRMS slammed into my mech in retaliation. The blasts throw me back slightly, letting me bring my lasers to bear and punching into both launchers. The hits cause a cook-off inside the tanks, and they both go up, as something in the first tank I hit also goes critical, and it is enveloped in arcing lightning that slowly melts parts of it until it shuts down.
My company seems to be doing okay, mopping up the other five, the exterminators are playing big lumbering distraction, while jumping all over the place and otherwise moving as much as possible close in, while the Mongoose play at alpha striking as much as possible. Eventually, something has to give, as I notice the armour of the company getting lower and lower. Before I can join back in and contribute, the warning tone for incoming causes all of my company, myself included, to back off, and I can see that they had corralled the drones into a single circle of five, all facing out and keeping as much armour facing my company as possible.
The splash of 24 Arrow IVs causes the whole valley to rumble and shake, and I am sure that had I not set off that little avalanche to start it would now have happened. As it is, several locations do have small falls and a few of the frozen-over sally ports to the drone hangars are buried in several tens of tons of snow and ice, but that is no real loss.
Once everything calms down and we confirm that there is no more fighting to be done, I have the Dropships move to the pads that are located near the base. That lets them put down less than a kilometre from the base, and as they do so, I notice the fusion wash being channelled with thermal into vents that light up throughout the defensive line. It is not enough to free the defences, but it does let me know how to do so and allows my people to get at them.
With everything done with our mechs for now, I have my company limp their way to the Dropships and into their mech bays, where they are all immediately bombarded with vitriol from the Mechtechs. Techs and their machines. I hide a smile as I climb out of my cockpit and onto the lift that is already waiting, an Irrate Vikki looking over the Noteputer with the damage readouts on it.
"Colonel, should you please try not to destroy the actuators on the Mech every time you go out and pilot it?!" She demands, looking up and glaring at me. Truly, when it comes to the fancy advanced machines that I own, she is a protective mama bear that thinks everyone is trying to get them destroyed.
Shaking my head in fondness I reply, "Sure Vikki, next time I will let the six pack of PPCs core it out instead of putting some strain on the legs. I am sure you will appreciate that more." my tone is actually ribbing as I say that and she realises what she said before blushing slightly and rushing me off with mumbles about letting her get to work fixing things.
I can only shake my head before heading down with the lift and letting her get to work. Now I have to get into the challenging part of navigating the base doors without triggering internal security. Or rather, I need to deactivate it and then open the doors. I have a sneaking suspicion that the base has internal defence turrets just as nasty as the exterior ones.
I had to head to my personal armoury, located in my workshop, to retrieve my environmental suit. Thankfully, it was near the Mech bays, so ten minutes later, I was suited up and had an isolated set of hacking tools and terminals packed up and ready to go. I was met at the personnel exit by a platoon of troopers and an APC to take me over to the exterior security control booth for the base.
Inside the room was an iced-over mess near the doors, but the area near the controls and terminal was thankfully only lightly frosted over. Getting my gear set up and plugged into the system, which still had power, thankfully, I got started by bypassing the security. Here is where all of my advantages came into play.
Being a Biodroid gave me the ability to more easily interface with systems as well as made it easier for me to bypass them, stacked with my hacker trait, and the work I had done on similar systems by designing a game to mimic them for technical training, the techs needed to know this stuff and games make shit easier for some people, I was now at the point where the SLDF did not have protection from me.
That said, this particular base had a very annoying guest that I would have to deal with, as they seemed to inhabit all the systems. Locura, an AI virus similar to the Daemons used by Cyberpunk netrunners or the beings beyond that universe's Black Wall. Unfortunately for me, assuming that they were isolated from the defence systems was a bad idea as they bricked the first noteputer I connected before I could even get started trying to contain them.
An hour later, I was working with my fifth noteputer, heading through the second-to-last set of firewalls when it too was bricked. Now I was frustrated; this virus was adapting to me too quickly, and I was unable to keep up as I was having to work through an analogue terminal and type out commands and fight the virus's counters at the same time. No, I was done playing. I was going to have to do something I was not happy with, but should have done before I got here.
Reaching into a pocket, I pulled out the ticket for the Canto gacha reward. I really would rather not put a computer into my brain. I was machine enough already, but I needed the backup, and honestly, I was running out of patience, and it was cold as fuck, so it was time to cheat hard. Tearing the ticket, I was caught off guard as, between the end of the motion and an eye blink, I had been whisked away, had major brain surgery and deposited right back where I had been in the same position, and now I could feel my connection to my new deck and the passenger within.
Not wasting time, I brought up my connection as I started reaching for the modular interface cable that unwound from a hidden port just below my wrist. "Canto, sorry to be a pain when you just woke up but we have a rabid AI killing virus holding control of the base we are trying to access, I am going to need your help to pin them down for removal, destruction, or recovery" I message her as I plug the cable into the sixth noteputer before daisychaining that into the terminal and getting started.
My previous progress had regressed by about 32% but that still meant Canto and I only needed to bust through four levels of firewalls and encryptions instead of the 12 I had started with. "We need to talk about names after this, but sure, I will assist, what type of architecture are we... working ... What is this utter alien ancient ass garbage? Where are the IGT algorithms? Where is the terahertz throughput? What type of backwards ass systems are these?" Canto replies as I start running through old attempts and trying to find new paths. Her confusion makes sense if you understand just how stupidly advanced the Cyberpunk universe's computer tech actually was, even back in the 2020s, let alone a state-of-the-art 2077 black book military project-grade chip.
The comparison is like comparing a canoe to a warship, honestly, especially with how Battletech as a universe moved away from multipurpose processors and went for single-purpose ones. For a digital being such as my new passenger, it would be like going from having all your senses and the ability to move to just having eyes, or ears, or a tongue or nose, and absolutely nothing else.
"I will explain as much as I can later for now, scan through the first connected device it has a history log from all my previous attempts as well as code and syntax dictionaries on it, Then when you can I need you to corral this, its a Virus but from its rate of adaptation I think it may be partially AI, maybe a dumb AI or VI but definitely advanced programing, if you need more help follow what I am doing now that I am jacked in," I reply as I continue rapidly breaking through the repaired firewalls and cracking the new encryptions. Now that I am interfacing directly and using the speed of thought, things have become much more rapid.
It does not take long before Canto starts lending her considerable weight of expertise as a digital entity to cracking the security and corralling the Locura. It honestly becomes more of a game of keep away as my absolute power house of an AI starts to basically play sheepdog on the Virus, "I heard that you know," and we soon have complete access to the base's security, including the self-destruct that was activated and counting down, with only five minutes on the clock.
I sit back and sigh as we finish getting all of that under control. Then, standing up, I activate the opening sequence and power down all security systems, opening all internal doors, and locking down the servers by triggering hard disconnects between any system that is not essential for the base's continued functioning.
Now it is time to survey this place top to bottom before looting it to the ground. We do, however, need to crack a bunch of fuel for the base's reactor if we don't want everyone to have to work in envirosuits. "Good work, and thanks for the help; you made things a hell of a lot easier." I message my passenger as I head out of the Booth located not far from one of the smaller personnel sally ports.
"I do not know whether to say I am glad to help, that was a most tedious and annoying system to work with," Canto, I need a new name for them, they said they wanted to talk about that, replied. "We will get to the new name shortly; however, you said you had an explanation for things?" They finish prompting me to start talking. Well, not like I can get rid of them or that they can leave. None of the systems they could access from me would support them; maybe my rig from Original timeline Earth might, but that is a real stretch and also runs on a different language and code.
"Well, the easiest thing to do would be to find out if you have access to my wireless capabilities, connecting to local nets?" I ask as I open the door and then close it behind me, triggering the interior airlock to cycle. I can feel my guest trying to find access to the wireless network I was talking about before. With a thought from me, something clicks into place, and suddenly, they have a piece of themselves stretching off and away into the distance towards the Bared Claws.
"You did something, and I was given access to a priority connection. There is only one device connected, but that same device seems to connect to another wider network that seems to be located elsewhere." They respond after some time. I nod as the airlock finishes cycling and step into what is a very well-lit killbox of an entryway.
With no one around, I decide to speak out loud for a bit, "Good, now using that connection, run the program Chrome, and using the search bar, look up Isekai, R.O.B., acronym for Random Omnipotent Being and then Battletech and Cyberpunk 2077. Once you are done with that, you should understand our position. Heck, on that machine, you should find a directory labelled CYOA results. Inside should be a folder labelled BT, I think document Lyrian should be the one that explains the start of things back in the year 3000 for me," I say as I walk deeper into the base. The place seems to have been mothballed, but I don't see any reason that it would be locked down so hard if that were the case; they should have taken everything with them.
It takes me around five minutes to make it through the underground base and into the control room for the whole installation. There, I can use the clearances I made in my security bypass attempts to get the base fully started up, and bring up readouts for system statuses as well as a layout map and some other useful things.
I spent another 45 minutes in the base before someone figured they should comm me and check in, which was a massive failure on their part, as I had opened the main entrance Outer Airlock door before coming in myself. "Colonel, do you need me to send Vikki and some of her techs to help you get the inner airlock door open?" came Kira's voice over the comms.
"Not at all, Nox, the base is open, all you need to do is park a mech or vehicle inside the doors and they will cycle. The base is set up so that it does not constantly let the warm air inside out. I have most everything back up and running, but we do need fuel for the base reactors, and I need a team to start going over the place properly." I respond as I step into the deep storage that was located deeper into the mountain and had large vehicle access. Before me is a massive dark room that contains the silhouettes of numerous mechs and tanks, and not a few other things I was not expecting.
"Ah, well, we will have teams with you shortly to take stock of things. Vikki will probably be among the first if she is finished with your mech. I will be along with the other senior officers as well. Where should we meet you?" She asks as the realisation that I had already been exploring the base and everything inside, while getting things turned on, because no one had called to check things out, sank in.
"The main control room is signposted, inside on the main monitors is the map of the facility. I am down in deep storage, so you and the rest of the senior staff who join in can come join me down here." My reply is neutral in tone, more from my curses but also due to the fact that I have managed to find the light switches and mains fusebox, so I can get this area under power again.
"Understood, Colonel, we should be with you soonest." She responds crisply, rightly assuming that I am annoyed with them all for taking this long, but I won't say anything about it, as I wandered off without saying anything.
As the line goes dead, I start getting this area some power. It takes me a couple of minutes to get everything going before the lights in the cavernous room start flickering on. One by one, rows and rows of metal are lit up for display. As if at parade rest, just waiting on inspection. Looking through the documentation on the terminal in the control room, this was a complete Royal RCT of the 19th Army of the SLDF. Looking through the list, they were not joking; there was everything here, from Mechs to tanks to ASF and artillery. I was sure there would be far less; this place should have had at most a single regiment of mechs, but here before me was a list that included parts and spares, armour, fuel, ammo, even changes of uniform.
The thing that got my heart racing a little was the fact that they listed the supposed presence of Dropships. The listing had 12 Lees and 8 Colossus supposedly stashed in a separate underground hangar located deeper into the mountains, supposedly accessible via a tram line. I was not going to be holding my breath on any of the supposed materials actually matching the counts on the lists, purely based on the fact that there is no chance this much got left behind without someone coming back for it.
What I did know was that lined up in the massive cavernous space before me was at minimum 40 mechs. Which was easy to tell as there were ten neat lines of four. There was one lance of Atlas II's, two of Black Knights, two of Highlanders, one of Gryphons, one of Crabs and one of Sentinels. It was more on the heavy side for a battalion, but I was not going to hold the lack of lights against them; they may have supplemented with vehicles instead.
When I finally heard the sound of approaching footsteps, I turned back from the control terminal after flicking the lights in the hangar off. Then I hopped up on a desk and played the bored child, swinging my legs and just nodding to a tune only I could hear, "There are two of us in here now, and you suck at keeping your thoughts to yourself at the moment." Correction: Two of us could hear.
That was how my senior staff and a squad of troopers and a group of techs found me, staring into space and swinging my legs while looking towards the door. The first through the door was Vikki, surprisingly enough, I figured she would still be working on my mech. Behind her were Kira and then came Nova, and Finn.
Funnily enough, I could see Hunter and Bohdi peeking around the door frame as well. Which almost made me laugh internally. My mechwarriors were still haughty and thought the sun could shine from there behinds on occasion, but I had thoroughly beaten into them that they were part of the whole and could be thoroughly stomped by the rest if they were not smart. Seeing them here was also an indication of how much my people believed I was the goddess of LosTech.
This find would probably only reinforce that, but what can I say, I got lucky as shit, more times than I can count, actually. Well, when they all saw me sitting here like a lost child, it pulled them up short for a moment, and that alone was worth the effort. "Took you lot long enough, I was bored to death waiting," I say, managing to get a little bit of that pouty teen in my voice for once.
Apparently, I can do emotional and expectational whiplash well, as my people were bluescreening just a little. "Well, get in here, I have some stuff to show you all. Oh, Hunter, as you're in last hit the second switch on the right there, would you?" I say as I drop off the table and head to the windows onto the hangar. Everyone else is rushing to follow as Hunter flicks the switch on his way past.
As the lights for the Hangar flip back on, there is a group inhalation that is sharp enough to cut with, before Vikki and Kira both turn towards me with a joint cry of, "Fuck your bullshit luck!" I actually managed to beat the curse and laugh my ass off to that one, as everyone else just looked between me and the hangar full of near perfectly preserved mechs.
Chapter 17:
Artru Oort Cloud, 25 September 3005, Deep Space
Kira "Firebird" Nox
Kira was used to having to run patrols from a Dropship. They had been doing it back in New Kyoto for as long as she had been with the Black Cats. What she was not used to was having to run a search operation on an ever-widening grid. She was starting to think that someone had actually already found her targets and taken them, which would suck, as she still had to complete the search grid and flying in the black at only 1g for days or weeks on end was going to get boring fast.
As her latest sensor scans come back negative, she let out a sigh and reported in, "Firebird reporting, search grid Delta 1 5 Bravo is a negative, moving to next grid mark." she had made a similar report a half dozen times over the last day or so, and the same was true of all the other pilots of the little Task Force the Colonel had brought with her.
"Roger that, Firebird, results noted and flightpath and destination logged, happy hunting." Came the return from the CAG on the Shelter. The Jumpship had micro jumped them all the way out here, to coordinates found on several of the Dropships that had been found back on Artru, which were linked with the potential location of Jumpships.
Kira shivered when she remembered why so much had been left behind, and why they were out in the black searching for potential lift. No one deserved to suffer like that. And they definitely did not deserve to go out the way they did.
Artru, 22 September 3005, SLDF base
There had been an urgent call on Comms for the Colonel. One of the search teams had found something, and it apparently required a weighty decision from her. The voice of the Private reporting had been shaken and horrified.
The senior command staff had been in a meeting going over rough estimates of what had been found so far when the call had come in, and so they all got up to follow the Colonel when she acknowledged and started moving for the search team's location.
The walk there had taken ten minutes, moving ever deeper into the base, past the normal operating areas and then on down into the secure bunker section for dependants and support staff during emergencies.
As they had travelled, the well-preserved status of the base slowly faded and was replaced with the wear of fighting. Intense fighting by the looks of the internal security and the bodies that started appearing.
The strange thing was that the bodies were always facing the direction they had come, while the destroyed turrets and internal defences were facing the opposite direction, as if they had been firing back at the dead soldiers.
Eventually, they had made it to one of the sealed main access hatches for the bunker, finding the squad of searchers outside. The other thing that she noticed was the cold, seeping slowly from between the pried open doors. Unlike the rest of the base, these doors had to be forced open. That was not a good sign, and the wafting mist and fog from inside was even worse.
"Report," the Colonel Ordered as she came to a stop in front of the troopers. All of them snapped to attention as the squad's corporal stepped forward.
"We were sent to ensure that this section was cleared, when we noticed the bodies. We reported it and were informed to continue our search, as other teams would be tasked with coming behind us to clear up. When we got to the main door and found it inoperable, we were told to force it and ensure the security of the base. We managed to get it open, but immediately reported what was found by Private Jameson as we figured that this was now a senior command decision, Colonel." The corporal replies, brief, concise and without any embellishment. The way the Colonel expected verbal reports to be, unless clarifications were asked for.
"Understood, at ease, troopers and set security, no one else approaches until I have made my decision, then." She orders as she steps past the troopers and towards the door that is barely wide enough for armoured troopers to walk through.
Once she passes the threshold, she comes to an abrupt stop. Just frozen in place and unmoving, not letting any of us pass her, though, due to her height, she does not block the view. There, in groups of threes and fours, are huddled bodies. Frozen, and perfectly preserved. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, in the large emergency shelter.
Some of them are facing the door, weapons fallen at their sides as they drape over obstacles. Others are in heaps between groups, and yet more are arrayed around the door, melted laser weapons and tools, all arrayed around them, gas masks full of ice crystals.
Behind me, Vikki gasps, and Finn curses. And I have to agree with both as I fight the bile rising in my throat. There are small bodies in those piles. And lots of civilian clothes. This was an execution. This was the execution of people making their last stand. Gas and the blistering cold of the surface used as a weapon, from the look of things.
The Colonel's fists are clenched behind her back, the knuckles white, then red leaks from between her fingers as they pierce her palm. "Get a crew to check the vents. This section is now on lockdown. Everyone to medical for bloodwork, only access with fully sealed environment suits from now on." She orders, causing everyone to go rigid, shit, does she think that whatever was used might still be viable and present?
"While that is happening, I want crews working to get a mass grave dug, use the engineering gear and mechs if you have to. Then start getting the bodies transferred. We do not have to worry about this happening to us, but I want everyone on Ready Two from this point forward, and increase the patrol schedule for the next week." She continues, turning away from the dead in the room and looking back over us. Her eyes are cold, distant, and utterly belie the raging inferno that seems to hide behind the calm.
"We now know why so much of the list was left behind. Let's just hope that that goes for those deep space coordinates as well. We will give these people a proper send-off before we leave." She finishes, and I can watch in real time as a little more of her dies inside at the thought that we must rob the dead of even more than was already taken.
Artru Oort Cloud, 25 September 3005, Deep Space
Kira "Firebird" Nox
Kira is brought out of her memories of that grisly and disgusting find, as her sensors report anomalies in the region. Looking them over, she finds that one of the larger asteroids is scanning as metal-heavy on one facing but does not mass anywhere near what it should, unless it is hollow.
Deciding that she should report it, she sends back a potential find as well as coordinates for the others to form up on her. No chance she goes anywhere near one of these installations without backup if they have even slightly similar defences to the base back on Artru. "Firebird reporting, I have a possible contact for the target, requesting other fighters and a marine contingent to my position in case of hostile security."
"Firebird, copy that, vectoring all other assets in region your way, hold position for arrival of support." The CAG responds from The Shelter.
As she sits back in her cockpit, her tactical display updates, and she widens her eyes slightly as not only ASF and Shuttles vector her way, but both Leopard CVs and the Colossus. Apparently, when The Shelter's CAG says everything, he means including the kitchen sink.
Deciding to be proactive, Kira narrows her sensors and scanners onto the asteroid and tries to narrow down if there are any hidden surprises on it. The next ten minutes pass as she continues scanning, and soon she has the face of the asteroid with the high metal content scanned as well as she can at this distance.
All she can tell, however, is that the concentration of metal is large enough to fit a door you could pilot several Jumpships side by side through. Which, considering how large the asteroid is, might be exactly what has happened. This was looking more and more like a hidden Jumpship dock, set up out of system to prevent easy detection and to allow for the Ships to be secured if left for a long time without action.
It took another three hours for everyone to gather. At the same time, a message had been tightbeamed back to the satellite array now hanging around Artru, though it would still take considerable time to arrive.
This time, Kira and the other space-based branches would be responsible for finding the prize, and that had them all giddy. Normally, it was the Special Forces, or the Mechwarriors, that got to be the first boots on the ground; this time, she and the Marines would be the ones leading the charge.
Once everyone was gathered, Kira feathered the throttle a little to put her on a pass for the Asteroid base, while starting to transmit the SLDF security clearances that the Colonel had fabricated for them. She had assumed that they would be needed to bypass any security, as the gathered spacers held their breath in anticipation.
The signal carrying the clearances went out, and they all waited, five seconds, ten seconds, twenty, as they passed the thirty-second mark and Kira was about to call a flyby, her comms lit up with an automated response, giving her a flightpath and directions to enter, noting that deviating from the course would result in destruction by automated defences.
Sending a confirmation to the system and bringing herself onto the correct path, she laser-commed her wingman with orders to have the rest of the flotilla send through the credentials that the Colonel had made, after landing all fighters and shuttles. Then she opened her throttle to the maximum allowed by the flightpath and moved for the entrance that was now slowly opening.
It was a wondrous sight, watching half a kilometre wide doors slowly swing out into the void like the opening jaws of a great beast. Ice and debris falling free, catching and reflecting light as it spun away. Slowing to under a half Gee of acceleration, then cutting it entirely, she coasted along the flight path and between the doors that had opened, noting with a little alarm that the entire circumference of the opening was ringed in missile launchers and what looked to be PPC and Gauss turrets. She also noticed, when her TIC highlighted them, numerous anti-missile systems scattered among the defences.
This would be so deadly to fly through or assault with anything less than a warship that she was very glad that the Colonel had figured out the Security credentials. As she glided past the defences, holding her breath slightly, the interior lights of the dock started to flick on, in dramatic movie fashion, starting at her and moving further away.
Her inhaled breath came out as a sharp hiss as she saw what was in front of her. Jumpships, at least six, though half or more looked wrecked, were in berths lining the entire dock. And the number of berths and their size indicate that this little dock could hold far, far more, maybe twenty plus jumpships of Monolith size.
Flying towards the remaining jumpships, she started running scans, turning her sensors to full and scanning everything around her to figure out what else might be here. She had been right in her initial assumption of the status of the jumpships; only two were in any state to be used, the other four stripped of parts and covered in damage, which was under repair at one stage, apparently, but had been abandoned in a hurry.
Once she was done with her flybys, she brought her fighter in for a landing on one of the pads inside the dock and settled in to wait for the rest of the flotilla to make it inside. She was giddy with excitement, though. More Jumpships, this was just what they needed; they were desperate for a way to get everything they had found home, and while they had Dropships for it all, they needed Jumpships to ensure it all made it home.
Artru system, 28 September 3005, Artru SLDF Base
Samantha "The Colonel" Wylde
We had finally gotten everything here on the ground squared away. The base had been stripped of anything of value, turrets of their weapons or wholesale, drones of everything except the chassis, stored metal loaded into the lift we found, and all the spares we could fit on board our ships.
The final list of recovered materials was extensive, so much so that I am still trying to figure out how much was taken and how much was left behind, as the manifest I found was dated before the last personal log we had found by five years. So I had to assume that the base had gained and lost stuff in that time, especially as the last one was just after the end of the Amaris War and before the Exodus.
Shaking my head, I look again at the list with the final tallies and have to once again whistle at the haul. Some of it is now earmarked for Katrina, all the Royal Griffins, along with those back at base. I am also thinking about maybe giving her one of the drone ships with accompanying Blackwasps. Though that might not happen. I will have to see, as I was also planning to give her two Steiner Scout Lances as a joke as well. The rest, however, I would definitely be keeping.
Spoiler
It was a very large amount of stuff, and I will be happy to get it all home and spend the next year neck deep in more training. I guess that has become a speciality of my command, really, training and gathering very expensive loot. I mean, I could now basically overhaul and recreate my entire force almost a half dozen times. That was crazy when you consider that means I have enough Endo, feroo-fiberous and XL engines to do that. Not mentioning the Freezers and weapons.
Truly, I was now swimming in enough gear that I should probably give some to Katrina as well. I guess a thousand tons of stuff should be fine. "Correction, you should also include a few updates for targeting computer software and ECM and ECCM for them as well, these systems are far too archaic to possibly be viable for extended combat," Artemis, the name the AI on my Canto took, pipes up, and that is a fair point, might just help her and her forces out a little against the DCMS and FWLM.
The last thing I had to do was tear tickets related to the find and my participation in the battles. I had ended up with three silver items, one gold and one platinum, one gold trait ticket, as well as a single silver and one bronze skill ticket. Now I was really interested in what I was going to get this time, and figured I may as well get it all done now before we leave, so I tore them all at once.
The Skills that I received were not anything especially amazing, though they were very nice for quality of life, both for what I knew to be coming as well as personal enjoyment.
[Intermediate Performance] NEW
|Uncommon Skill|
You are a qualified performer. Being able to play all basic musical instruments enough to play most songs on them, and you can sing most songs well enough that people may just like them. If you get on the dance floor you won't be an eyesore to anyone. You can assemble your own semi-successful band.
[Grooming] NEW
|Common Skill|
NOT THAT KIND- You are very skilled at grooming, taking care of your hair, your hygiene, your cleanliness, etc., basically, you are skilled at making yourself and others look presentable.
The Item rolls though, those had me trying to decide what I was going to do with my haul, I had more things to hide away and "find" as well as a few things that I could just pull out as and when I guess.
[Banshee] NEW
|Uncommon Item|
StarCraft - A fully upgraded banshee, featuring all the upgrades available throughout the franchise of Starcraft, this is the ultimate in CAS gunships from the StarCraft Terrans.
[ND1 Nomad] NEW
|Uncommon Item|
ME: A - The Nomad pathfinder reconnaissance vehicle from the Andromeda Initiative, this one comes fully upgraded and ready to rumble. Also, in a mix of Hex and Midnight paint schemes.
[Ion Titan] NEW
|Rare|
Ion is a Titan class that is based on the Atlas chassis design. Laser-focused, Ion is all about power. With a central energy system that fuels all of its offensive and defensive abilities, the Ion is an effective, tactical force. This one comes with access to all loadouts and full upgrades in its own Mech Cradle.
[Any Vehicle Voucher] New
|Rare Item|
You can exchange this voucher any time for any Mundane Vehicle available in your world, ranging from a supercar to a cruise ship. The vehicle will teleport in front of you with all of the legal work taken care of.
The voucher was a massive question mark to me, any mundane vehicle, for me, that was anything up to a warship, or yardship or jumpship. There is so much that includes that I am honestly unable to make a decision right now. The other three items, though, are going to be interesting to figure out what to do with.
The Ion, I can just put together on the Argo, and say it is from the Droid factory, after adding the blueprint in a secret, secured part of the factory's computers, especially as it comes with an AI installed. So I can pass it off as a droid that is also a mech.
The Nomad and the Banshee, though I am probably going to have to find them in one of the vehicle bays we have not yet looked into. While we have stripped the base on planet ot nothing, the Asteroid base is so large that they basically gave up looking after figuring that they had only explored around 25% of it in the last three days. So I think that I can get away with looking through some of the base when we head there to dock our new dropships and find the vehicles in a bay or something.
Folks are going to ask questions, though, if I am the one to keep finding things, maybe drop them off and then have someone else find them, with all of the droids that I still need to bring out at the same time? Yeah, an experimental deep storage would work for that. Needs a path to the docks, though, so I will have to figure that out. Hmm, I will work it out somehow, I guess, and if people ask, I just play dumb; my poker face has to be good for something occasionally.
The last thing was a gold Trait ticket, and that one rolled me something very interesting as well as super useful, as it applies bonuses to stuff, on top of my already large bonuses.
[Tinker] New
|Rare Trait|
You are a natural at building technology. All tinker abilities are more potent; in addition, it's far easier to innovate new tech and build tech. You can also push your specialisations far more. (A/N: If you pulled this perk without having a tinker ability, reroll the ticket.)
Yup, I am now just a general tinker, meaning tech just comes to me easily, but more than that, it augments all of the disciplines I already have, on top of Boosted and Biodroid. This really does mean that I am the best person in Human space when it comes to technology and creating it.
Which is awesome and all, but not of much use until I get settled in a place of my own. That said, I figure that I can now make dumbed-down enough instructions for the Jumpship and dropship industry to pass to Katrina as well. I mean, if I am remembering things right, the Steiners own significant shares in all the big shipyards as well as most military producers, so throwing here the needed information to increase production and fix issues on the lines should make her happy.
If all of that plus the mechs doesn't get me a planet, then I will probably have to through information about a couple of finds her way. I mean, the ones in the Lyrian Commonwealth would technically go to her and the planetary ruler in a split, so I may as well. I am not Snord and the Dragoons stealing from the people who actually have a claim when working for an employer, so I guess I should give them up if she won't give me my planet of choice.
With the tickets spent and my free time running out before we leave, I make one last circuit around the base, using the scanners I had ripped from the Ironman Mk 3 to run over everything and having Artemis compile it into digestible data. We get finished and head back to the ships, with me being slightly despondent as I did not find any sneaky SLI spook holes with cool Nighthawks. Not that I need a stealth PA when I can build better, but it is a staple of SI in BT to find some of those, so I was bummed to be leaving find three without them.
Taking one last look at the base before boarding the dropship, I cannot help but feel like what is about to happen is unfortunate, but I honestly do not feel like leaving this place standing. Not with all the ghosts it holds. So with a final farewell to the departed, I head into the dropships and up to the bridge. There I watch as we lift to orbit, and as we make it into the stratosphere, I punch a command on the noteputer I have been carrying. Far below us, the combined magazines of the base, almost 15000tons of missiles, autocannon rounds, ammunition and explosives, set up by my demo teams and engineers, go off within the base.
The exterior cameras catch the moment from ASFs flying cover as the dust rises around the mountain range, as it sinks into itself for ten miles in either direction. Avalanches and earthquakes are going off as gigatons of earth resettle in all the voids that have just been breached beneath them.