Chapter 17

I left feeling better. I took one of the shuttles and went home. After four days there I started to get bored. Dad's work was great for him but I was not ready for all the headaches of running a farm, overseeing a sawmill or two mining operations. I still enjoyed the headaches I got from running a Battalion. I did look into the trading a bit more. I had feelers out through them looking for something. So far it hadn't shown up but it would. I also viewed the latest letters from Sean. Like Dad had said, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

I took the shuttle back to New Hope and went to the Mech bay to see Tate Campbell. His son Sean was one of the wounded who wouldn't be returning to a Mech. He'd lost his right leg at the knee. You need the nerves in your feet to feel the amount of pressure you're using on the pedals of a Mech. So far replacement limbs just didn't have the fine touch that was needed. He was pleased to see me and immediately inquired as to my health. As we talked Sean's condition came out. He was recovering well and responding to treatment. With his knowledge of Mechs both from the cockpit and the bay he'd be coming to work here when he was released.

He showed me where the Wild Haggis was being kept. She'd been completely repaired in the time since the battle and was even repainted. She looked bright and shiny. She has something new since I had seen her last. There had been three more Mech kills painted onto her shield. I had been credited with three kills in all the fighting. As long as she wasn't in the way I'd just leave her there. I wasn't ready to get back in the cockpit.

From there I went to the hospital to visit my men. They weren't the only ones there. Ghost had several shot up also. Ray Cantille wasn't as lucky as Chris Flynn or I had been. The head hit his Wolverine received had blinded him. He was still in good spirits though. "You know Colonel, I got two in that fight. With the two I got on the fourth day I nearly made Ace."

"Ray, in my book all you guys and gals are Aces. It was because of the team work you showed that we came through that mess. Now get well so we can put you back to work. You been gold bricking in here long enough." They were laughing as I left.

From the hospital I went over to Greg Karuska's Research and Development Lab. Karuska is one of the reason's Shadow has done so well. He's a genius. Both mechanical and on a computer. He's been working on a process to make our heat sinks do more work than they normally do. Already he has in production a process where two do the work of three. With a new alloy he's developed he thinks he can have one that does double duty. He has a bunch of computer and mechanical types working with he that don't speak any recognizable language. They're the ones who helped him develop the Dragonfly LAM that he uses so well.

When I arrived he was going over the printout of a mineralogical report we had on Providence. Looking up and spotting me he said, "You know Mick, there's something strange about this report. This large island here..." He tapped a large island several hundred kilometers east of New Hope. "This shows caves and metals yet there's no definition of the metals. That usually means there's too many to point to a single type. Also these caves are too regular in composition. They almost look man made. I sure would like to take a run out there and look at them."

"Why don't we then?" I asked. "In the LAMs it wouldn't take all that long and we could land and check them out. I'm up for it if you are."

"Yeah? You really mean it? OK, let me finish off some stuff I'm working on and tomorrow morning I'll meet you and we'll go. No telling what's out there so come armed for bear."

I agreed and left. I went back over to the Mech bay and picked up the Haggis. They looked at me funny as I'd just told them that I wouldn't need her for a while. I took her up and checked out the repairs. I came in low over the range and strafed the targets so I knew the guns worked correctly still. I then took her back to the BOQ and loaded her with food, water, my laser rifle and some other things that I thought might come in handy.

The next morning Karuska met me as promised and we left word as to our destination before taking off. At his speed it was a two hour trip to the island. When we arrived we cruised low and slow over the beaches. There was room enough to land one of the Leopards if necessary. We found what looked like the mouth of the caves and were able to alight close by. After shutting down the Haggis I started to remove the equipment I had brought along. We both had brought along climbing gear and lights but he had some extra stuff. He had an air sniffer to check the quality of the air, a small MAG unit that he strapped on his wrist and a geiger counter.

We'd no trouble getting to the mouth of the caves. It was almost like a ramp leading up to them. As we entered he checked his wrist several times and the other equipment. We'd only gone in a short way before a cave in ahead stopped us. We were able to clear enough of it out of the way to wiggle through. As we did Greg stopped me. "Look here Mick. This was cut, it's not a natural cave. From all the signs it was cut several hundred years ago."

Looking at what he was showing me I had to agree. This was not natural. The hair stood up on the nape of my neck. The dearest treasure that can be found is a Star League storage area. Our civilization has lost much over the passed few hundred years. We can no longer do many of the things our forefathers were capable of doing. Much of the old technology had been lost through wars, raids and all the natural disasters that man suffers.

With our lights on we slowly advanced into the cave. Greg took hold of my arm and let me lead him while he keep watch on his wrist. At one point he stopped me and pointed to several points on the walls. "Sensors," he said. We couldn't tell if they were still working so we soon left them and continued forward. After approximately 100 meters from where we had found the sensors we came to a 'T' intersection. On the wall we had entered from Greg used spray paint and painted a large green arrow. "Green points the way out." On the wall of the intersection he painted a large red arrow. "Red is the way we went."

He had painted an arrow pointing right so that's the direction we went. "You notice something? These hallways, passages or what ever you want to call them are large enough for a Mech to travel." I hadn't really paid it any attention but now that he had pointed it out I had to agree. They were that big.

"Air's still good. So far we've come over three hundred meters." He also had a Pedometer set to measure our distance. We continued to move ahead. We moved slowly trying to make sure we didn't stumble over any traps or such. At three hundred and fifty meters from the intersection we came to a set of double doors. Taking off his back pack Karuska removed two things. One was a small whisk broom and I couldn't tell what the second was. He handed me the broom and asked me to sweep down the doors. They had letters or something etched into them but they were hard to read from all the dust through the years. I started to sweep the doors. Words appeared. He then pointed to several places along the walls back from the doors and asked me to sweep them down also. Soon a small card slot with a dust cover was revealed. Into this he placed the second thing which was a card with wires running from it to a control he held in his hand. He was punching buttons and muttering to himself. Soon he started counting between punching buttons. When he got to six there was a snapping noise from the door and it slowly swung open.

We both stepped back. "I don't believe it. That door had a six number combination. The usual for a door like that is only four. We should wait a bit before going inside. The air is probably kind of stale."

By my watch we waited ten minutes and then entered. It looked like some kind of lab. A large one, it was at least 30 meters wide and we couldn't see the end of it. It was surprisingly dust free. There were computer terminals set up on many of the lab benches with curly glass tubes and burners and all kinds of things. Karuska looked around the walls by the door until he found what he wanted. As he passed his hand over a panel lights began to come on in the large room. The more of the panel he covered the more lights came on. It looked like that room went on forever.

"Mick, we've stumbled onto something and this time it's ours. The Concordat isn't getting it. I need help. Use my Dragonfly and call the base. Get in touch with the R & D boys. Tell them to go to Golf Kilo Sierra 4. If you will look by the frequency controls you will see that as an option. You switch to that also. Tell them to get a security team, the Colonel and as many of the Krunchers as are free right now and get out here. I want them here Yesterday! And tell them to bring lights, food and gear to spend the night."

I didn't question him. I just did it. The R & D boys asked all kinds of questions but I told them to get the Colonel and get their asses out here now. They could come in one of the Leopards. There was enough room on the beach to land and they could see us from there. I then switched back to our normal channel and waited.

I had a bite to eat and sipped some water. I nearly went to sleep waiting in the warm sun before the communicator began to make noise. I put on the head set and answered. "This better not be another one of your stupid jokes, Mick. I'll have your ass. Just what's so important you got to have me here?"

"I can't tell you now, Colonel. You got to see it. You wouldn't believe it if I told you."

A Leopard is not nearly as fast as a LAM. It is not designed for speed in the atmosphere. It took them nearly three hours to get here which I thought was excellent time. When the Colonel finally arrived at the LAMs I asked him to be patient a little while longer and led him and the party to the cave. Here I stopped and passed on some orders to the security team. "No one is allowed into or out of this cave without the express permission of either myself or the Colonel. No one, got it?"

They acknowledged the order and the rest of us passed on into the cave. Using my light and Karuska's we climbed over the cave in and we soon came to the intersection and turned right. Up ahead you could see the light coming from the lab. The closer we got the brighter it got and the more puzzled everyone got. I stopped them at the door and yelled for Greg.

When he showed up he started explaining. "There was something funny about the readout on the survey that was made on this island. This morning Mick and I came out to check it over. This's what we found. The door had a six digit security code. Some of these terminals are working and some aren't. I still don't know what we have, if we have anything but this time it's ours! I needed my team here Colonel and I thought you'd want to know about this as soon as possible so I ask Mick to call you guys. That's it."

"Oh, is that all. At first I didn't know what to think. I thought it might be something important or something. Damn Greg this could be the treasure chest of a lifetime!"

"Yes sir. And I don't want to have to give it to the Concordat like we had to do with the Battlecruiser. We discovered this after they passed it over. We'll find out what's here and we'll develop it and we'll keep it! Colonel not only that. We haven't even checked the other hallway. We don't know what else is here if there is anything else."

"Well you have your team now. Give them their orders and come on. Let's check out the rest of this place."

Greg gave orders to two of the men. They were lead workers and soon had the rest of the crew organized into tasks. He then turned and joined us.

The three of us returned to the intersection and painted an arrow to the left. Zeke took the light and some of the other equipment leaving Greg free to keep tabs on the wrist MAG, the air sniffer and the geiger counter. We came to several places where halls branched off but continued along what appeared to be the main hallway. After nearly 500 meters we came to another set of security door. Again I brushed them with the little whisk broom but letters didn't jump out at us as they had before. We looked around and again I swept off a card reader and again Karuska used his device to tell the door it was ok to open. When our wait was completed we entered a large open bay. It was more than 100 meter to the walls from where we stood. Greg had again turned on the lights so that we could see. The ceiling was probably 20 meters above us and there was machinery of some sort around. It didn't look quite like Mechs but was something.

Karuska laughed. "Colonel, what do you think of the Whitworth Mech? It's the light end of the Mediums armed with two LRM-10 and a couple of mediums, I think. What do you think of it?"

"It's ok. Not great but for its size carries quite a punch, why?"

"Well Colonel, it looks like we have the production line for a Whitworth Mech!"

With some idea of what I was looking for I checked closer. It was the production line for something. Whether it was a Whitworth I didn't know but I was willing to go along with Greg. We walked in closer and started to check. The molds, the jigs, the various feed lines for parts were there. There were even some parts in several of the feed lines but I still couldn't tell what it was until Greg pointed to something. It took a while to get it into perspective and then I agreed with him. We were looking at the upside down head of a Whitworth. Until he told me I didn't understand what I was looking at.

"The other corridors probably lead to rooms where the parts are made, shaped, cast or formed. They're then brought to this room and placed on lines at different points so that they'll be fed in as needed. I'll bet if we check we'll find that's the case."

"Karuska, this is your area. For now you're in charge of all of this. Let me know what you want and how much and I'll see that you get it. Now I have to get back," said Zeke.

"I can tell you right now that we need housing and mess facilities for a hundred people. We need more security officers, cooks, more of my people and a shuttle service. We also need handed Mechs or Industrial Exoskeletons to clear away that cave in. As far as what equipment we need I'll have to let you know. But that'll do for a start."

"Mick, are you staying?" asked Zeke. When I nodded in reply he continued with what he had started. "You'll act as the Liaison and keep me informed on what you need, what you find and how things are going. Keep looking and draw up a map of this place so we'll know what we have here. I agree with Greg, this is ours and I intend for us to keep it. Now I have to get back."

"Aye aye, sir. I'll keep you posted."

The Colonel left while we continued to look around. We found several supply rooms off the main room. It looked like most of the things were things needed on the assembly line. We kept looking.

We found a foundry for casting some of the parts right there. We found a place to make the molds for the castings. We found the kitchen and barracks. (This would save us from needing to construct our own.) We found the armory. (Very little was still there and what there was did not look functional. It looked like they (?) had taken all the operational equipment with them when they pulled out.) We found the power generation plant. We found the Administration Offices for the facility. From there we knew where the other things were located. We also checked the Security headquarters. All of the halls and corridors weren't only under observation but ARMED observation. There was even an intruder circuit that took care of the place when no one was manning the station. It hadn't been engaged. Otherwise Karuska and I would have been blown away when we had come walking down the hall!

From the Admin Offices we got the necessary cards to open the doors that we wanted and didn't need Greg's little passkey any more. He went back to check on his people while I stayed behind to go over the information chips to see what I could find out about this place. It was a gold mine, now to find out how to cash in on it.

Before the day was out we had reinforcements. The first group was additional security personnel and techs in exoskeletons to move the rubble. The cooks and supplies and more of Karuska's Krunchers came with the second load. I showed the cooks to the kitchen and let them set about doing their thing while the security people were setting up the perimeter. After seeing the security set up that was in place they moved a desk to the mouth of the cave and stationed two men there. They were then backed up from the security station.

Before nightfall I moved both LAMs into the cave. Now from the air or from orbit you couldn't tell there was anything different about the island.

Two days later I took the Haggis and reported to Zeke. Billy looked at me strangely when I walked into the HQ building. "Aren't you on Medical Leave? Doesn't look like you are taking it easy."

"I got a new toy Billy, I get to play with it before all the other kiddies. Is he in? And can I talk to him?"

"Yes and yes. When do I get to see your new toy?"

"That's up to the man. Anytime you can get away come on out. I want to take Tate Campbell back with me so check and see if you can tag along."

I reported to the Colonel, closing the door as I did. "I have more information for you. You are not going to believe it but you'll be fascinated."

"That place was a research station as well as a production plant. Karuska's new alloy isn't new and won't work. At least not for what he wanted to do with it. THEY had already tried it. It breaks down too fast to be useful in a Mech. They did come up with a compound that would work. Double strength heat sinks should be ready to install in our Mechs within months. How about armor that's even stronger. Four tons of armor that shield like five tons? There's a few trace compounds that can be added to the armor while it's being cast, like salt on food. We have the trace elements in abundance on Providence. It makes the stuff tougher.

"Boss, we can fine tune our targeting computers to reach farther. And get this. They were working on lighter weight engines! How about a Marauder with the speed of a Locust, weapons that reach out farther, with heavier fire power due to proper cooling and 20 percent more armor. Think that might be worth while? That's what we can have. Better yet, the Krunchers have just scratched the surface. They don't know what they have out there themselves, yet. They're only skim reading things and trying to catalog everything right now."

"Colonel, we need more men. I mean MORE men. We need to send one of Greg's people to Galatea to hire more Krunchers. We need to sent him 'cause none of us would be able to talk to the people we need out there. We couldn't understand the language. I want to take Tate Campbell back with me. You might lose him to Mech repairs but you would gain him as the supervisor to the Production line when we go into operation. We'll need workers. More than we have now or are likely to have for some time to come. And we need researchers. To go farther I recommend that we move Karuska out of his Mech, promote him, and put him in charge out there. He's in essence in charge now, he just goes through me. I don't even know what he's saying half the time.

"We have the facilities for over a thousand men out there. That place is enormous. We need to decide if we really want to develop it or not."

"Why wouldn't we want to develop it, Mick? My god what you've said. The possibilities of what you've said. With half sized engines we could increase the size of the guns. Increase the power of the engines. Have Medium Mechs with the firepower of a Heavy."

"Yes, Zeke the possibilities are nearly endless. What about an internal frame that's half again as strong with only half the weight of present framing? As to why we might not want to? Two things. Expense and Attention."

"When we start coming out with this stuff, when we start using it in combat then our opponents are going to know something isn't right. Zeke, you know yourself when you spot a Mech, you know what it's capable of doing. You know its weight, its firepower, its range and so on. All that will change. The first time a Phoenix Hawk walks out on the field wearing 10 tons of armor, moves like it normally does and fires off twin PPCs while staying cool enough to constantly fire them? They are going to KNOW that we've stumbled into something and are holding it back. Dray's Dragoons raided us for our improved heat sinks. How long do you think it'll be before we're raided again for something like this? And for something like this don't you think that the Houses will be the ones doing the raiding?"

"House Davion is so bloody proud of NAIS yet they don't have anything like this. How long before we get a visit from Nathan Armstrong and his Eridani Light Horse? Zeke, they have three Regiments. We just proved how good we were but even you have to admit that we were fighting some of the most unreliable forces we have ever come up against. The Light Horse won't be like that. They have the forces, the knowledge and expertise to come in here and take whatever they've been sent for and we both know it! They'll know they've been in a fight but in the end they'll take what they came for. And the New Avalon Institute of Science will dedicate several new building just to the projects that I've named off and that is only the surface litter. We still don't know what's at the bottom of this pile of new knowledge."

"Expense wise we are looking at One to Two hundred megacredits before we see a single thing. That's a lot of money. We are a private company. Our main product is death and you can get a lot of death for two hundred megacredits. Where are we going to come up with that kind of money?"

"I told you that you weren't going to like it. The fascinating part is that we can do it. I've been giving it some thought. I'll buy two Mules and one Invader from you for 200 megacredits. You don't need the Mules. We rarely have need for that number of Mechs that'll need to be off loaded not dropped. Also sell off a third of the Mechs we captured. That'll give us the working capital that we need. I'm going to pay you in parts. Instead of trying to purchase all the parts that you'll need to get the line started I'll provide them to you. We'll BOTH keep books on where we stand and how much I still owe. That'll be safeguards for both of us. I'm already buying parts, I just increase the number of parts that I buy. If you started up doing that on the scale that you'll need you'd attract a lot of attention where I've simply found a few more customers. Not only that, I'll give you first call on the Jumpship if and when it's needed by the Brigade."

"Another thing, get it off this planet! You still haven't decided what to do with HellHole other than keep it. Use it to produce all this new tech. We can fortify that place and use it. Providence can be as open as usual and we'll go about our business as usual and there's nothing to show from spit that we're doing anything. We will be but it won't be coming from this planet. We don't want something like this on our home world. It'd turn the place into a battleground. That's not the type of home that I want."

"You really know how to ruin a person's day, don't you? Take Tate, Rachel and any others that you might want out there. Rachel's been after me to go and see the place. Make sure they're back here tonight. I'll try to have a decision for you by then. Now get out of here."

I stepped out of the office and spoke with Billy. For the rest of the day unless he said otherwise the Colonel would be 'tied up in a conference'. I told Billy I didn't think today was a good day for him to join me, the Colonel needed him more. I latched onto Tate and Rachel and looked around Greg's old offices. There weren't many left there and the ones that were couldn't be spared. Before I left Zeke told me I could have Tate if I wanted him. I didn't let him know that.

At the island we landed the transport on the beach. We had to be careful of that. When the tides came in our runway disappeared. The good part was that we didn't need to keep sweeping the beach to hide the landing marks, the tide swept it away for us.

I showed Tate, Rachel and the few other techs around the assembly plant. They checked out the supply lines, foundries, parts depots and so on. They were impressed with both the layout and the thought that had gone into the design of the plant. We ended up in the administrative offices that were set up there also. The three of us sat down to talk.

"I have bad news for the two of you. Rachel you have lost your right hand man. Tate, you're fired. You no longer work for Rachel and you are no longer a Mech tech." Before either one of them could get a word in I continued, "Now that you are unemployed how would you like to take this on? You'd be in charge of the assembly plant. Call it Plant Manager if you want a title. We want to get this thing into operation."

"The other bad news is that if we do there's a very good possibility that it'll not be here, not be on Providence but on HellHole. That information does not leave this office. Rachel, Zeke is making that decision now. If we move the plant it'd be better if it just disappeared. It was never here so how could we have moved it? Study this place. Are there any things that you'd change? Anything you'd do different? Karuska has a chip with the display of HellHole. It was full of subterranean caverns and so on. Where would you place the plant? What are you going to need in the way of additional equipment? What kind of staffing, labor, and so on. I realize that much of this can be done with machines but much of it can't plus someone needs to check the machines. Grab a terminal and start making lists, Tate. Get with Karuska and see the list he's made already. You'll be taking this over from him. He can then concentrate on his baby at the other end of the hallway. You thought you had headaches just fixing Mechs, welcome to the world of Big Headaches. You're going to be building them!"

When I took everyone, except Tate, back to the mainland, Zeke didn't say a word so I returned. Two days later he sent word that I needed to take Tate Campbell and Greg Karuska and make a trip to HellHole. Campbell needed to see the layout and see what kind of changes would be necessary. We should return to the mainland. I was to bring both Campbell and Karuska and plan on a Staff Meeting at 1600 hrs.

We got back in plenty of time for the meeting. Rumors were flying and the whole place was a buzz. The Battalion COs, XOs and the Company COs were present. They all looked at us funny when we walked into the meeting. Not me so much as Greg and Tate. We all took seats and waited a few minutes more for the Colonel. He came in with Billy who was pushing a cart loaded with refreshments, coffee, cups, fixings and some finger foods. When he shut the door the Colonel engaged the shields. We were enclosed in white noise that no listening device could penetrate. Everyone knew that some very serious matters were going to be discussed.

"We've a problem that many governments would love to have and that is one of the problems. We're not a government. We're a private company that's controlling a world as an extension of the company. Mick Leofa on Medical Leave and Greg Karuska out of curiosity have stumbled across a Star League Depot. Before you get all excited there's very little in the way of usable equipment there. Most of it was taken with them. What's left behind will cause enough headaches. They left a Whitworth Mech Assembly plant. Why they would have one here I don't know but we can now go into the Mech production business. While this is great, that's only the leavings. At the other end of the hallway, Karuska found the real treasure. It was a research lab that'd make NAIS green with envy. The things they'd been researching and had ready to develop are things that'll make your mouth water. They're the problems we have."

"We want to develop some of these and we want to delve deeper into the material that was found. As Mick pointed out to me earlier we were raided for the new improvements we made on heat sinks. For what we'll have our world'd be taken over. The entire Taurian Concordat would be taken over. The Houses would all go to war to ensure the other ones doesn't have the advantage of the new tech. So what we're going to do in hide it. We are going to move the entire Research and Development lab to HellHole. We're going to keep the manufacturing plant here and move the lab to HellHole."

"Tate Campbell is going to be the Plant Manager producing the Whitworth BattleMechs which'll have the equivalent in rank to a Major. Greg Karuska'll be in charge of the Research and Development Lab with the same rank. Mick Leofa is taking an extended Leave of Absence from his Battalion and will be working full time with the two of them to ensure they have what they need to proceed."

"Shadow Brigade is selling to Providence Shipping two Mules and one of the Invader Jumpships. We are also selling off many of the Mechs that we just captured and Providence Shipping is purchasing one Battalion of what is left. They are paying us the magnanimous sum of ONE credit. Right Mick?"