Chapter 6: Leaving the Caves

After talking for an hour, everyone turned in and got some sleep. While they slept, Amy watched over them, by making an image of herself appear in each room. Sitting in a chair, she watched them sleep, and sighed with contentment.

A crew, at last! It had been so long since she'd had anyone on board that she could talk with. She then went back to examining their plans about using the mech warriors as ground assault vehicles. She took what information she could find on the computer game (and the board game) called Battlemech. She decided to design plans for several of the units she found there.

The first was the thirty-five ton scout-mech, code named Cheetah. It was armed with eight small lasers and a set of twenty short-range unguided missiles (ShRUMs). It could fire up to twenty missiles per load with a reload magazine of two hundred and forty. They were similar to the Hydra 70 rockets of this time. With a standard Federation explosive, a single hit would blow a modern tank into twenty different directions. The second set of missiles would be four tubes of long-range missiles (LRMs) with a magazine of one hundred and twenty missiles. These missiles would be both ground-to-ground and anti-air missiles, which could be fired in single, pair or volley rounds. These would be similar to the sidewinder missiles of this time but better armed. One hit would destroy a modern B-52 bomber. The Cheetah's top speed would be one hundred ten kph. Build time would be about twenty hours with ten spider bots working on it.

The second mech would be codenamed Lancer. It would be a light assault mech of fifty tons. It would be armed with one dual set of LRMs firing fifteen missiles per pack for a thirty round attack, with a reload of three hundred rounds. Her primary weapons would be four plasma cannons firing up to five rounds per minute in dual or individual fire. In addition mounted on its chest, in groups of four guns each would be sixteen .50 cal machine guns with a magazine of twelve hundred rounds per gun. Its speed would be up to ninety kph. Build time would be about thirty hours with ten spider bots working on it.

The third mech would be codenamed the Bengal. It was armed with four plasma cannons, four medium lasers, and three sets of LRMs, with three hundred rounds each. Its four small rail guns fired depleted uranium, or small antimatter warheads, and had a magazine of six hundred rounds of each type. She would have a top speed of ninety kph, and would weigh in at around seventy-five tons and be classified as a medium mech. Her speed would be similar to the Lancer. Build time would be about forty hours with ten spider bots working on it.

The fourth mech would be codenamed Giant, weighing in at eighty tons, it was armed with six plasma cannons, six medium lasers, and four set of LRMs with four hundred and eighty rounds each. She would have a top speed of seventy kph. Build time would be about sixty hours with ten spider bots working on it.

The fifth and final mech would be codenamed Ninja, weighing in at one hundred ten tons she would be the heavy assault unit. The mech would have a speed of seventy kph. Armed with ten-auto cannons similar to the 25mm M242 Bushmaster with four hundred rounds each, five set of LRMs with three hundred rounds and nine heavy laser cannons. She would have a top speed of sixty-five kph. Build time would be about one hundred hours with ten spider bots working on it.

All the mechs would use a small hydrogen reactor as a power source. They would be good for thirty-six hours of straight combat before recharging. Advanced gyros would be used to keep their balance, and ECM units would be installed along with several flare tubes and smoke generators. Each would have an escape capsule, and a self-destruct mechanism.

They were fitted with a titanium frame, battle-steel armor, and had a small shield generator, also. They should be able to withstand any small arms fire, but heavy weapon rounds would still get through. They could still be overwhelmed by accurate fire, but normally, they should be able to get away.

Looking at her plans, she then installed a pair of storage compartments. One would hold twenty of the smallest spider bots, to do minor repairs or what ever the pilot wished or needed done. The other would be a survival kit to include three weeks rations, canteens, small arms, camouflage gear, a portable generator and camping equipment.

Examining the plans, she finished them and then sent the blueprints down to the spider bots to start building one of each class in hold number one. Reconfiguring the hold as a drop bay, she ordered the bots to turn the entire hold in to a mech storage bay. When finished there would be six Cheetah, fourteen Lancer, fifteen Bengal, ten Giant and five Ninja for five lances of ten mechs. In addition, fifty-drop packs for the mechs would be stored there.

Glancing at Ken as he slept, she smiled and continued to work. Out in the cavern the bots were halfway to the surface. The ramp was set up with dampeners, to slow any vehicle coming down it. Hidden gun emplacements and sentries were installed along the way. She went over the ship, doing diagnostic after diagnostic. She noticed that she was low on water for her hydrogen reactors, and quickly pumped fifty thousand gallons in from an underground lake to which she had run a set of pipes. In the maintenance bay, she ordered ten of her large spider bots to start working on a Cheetah. Glancing back at Ken and Ted, she ordered medical to prepare for full Bio-enhancement and training. She got up from her chair, and moved through the room to the window. Softly, she talked to herself.

'Captain Windsor, I hope this works the way you planned, how I wish you were here to advise me. We were together for a very long time. You were the only keel plate owner left of the original crew, turning down other advancements, newer ships to command and even an admiralship. You always said you belonged on my decks. I was honored the day you told me my image was that of your dead daughter, for you were like a father to me, there to teach me, lead me by example. I pray I do not fail you. In the future, I hope you and your daughter have a long life and she gives you many grandchildren to play with. For now my fate lies here and if I survive I will see you again one day.'

Suddenly an image of another woman is beside her. It flashes through her programming. The woman stands there, covered in blood.

'How dare you say you are his daughter! He abandoned me, I am happy he is dead for what he did to me, and how he treated you. I will destroy them and you, I will destroy them all.'

'Who are you? Why do you threaten me like this?'

Just as 'the voice' came to her and she questioned it, it quickly fades as if it had been a bad dream, to be forgotten.

The feeling of relief floods her programming, and she walked over to her chair, she sat down again. Her spirits lifted, hope restored. She watched the young man sleep for few more hours. While he slept, he curled one hand under his cheek. Looking almost like a child, his hair cascaded down in front of his closed eyes.

She got up, and moved over to his bed. She set her hand on his face wishing she could have the feeling of touch. With a sigh, she withdrew her hand. She looked at him for a few more seconds.

"Ken ... Ken, it's time to wake up, my Captain."

She sat and watched him slowly open his eyes.

"Good morning, Captain. It is time to get up. Your clothes have been cleaned, and everything is ready for your journey back to the surface."

Ken stretches and yawns, "Good morning. Do you always wake everyone up?"

"Not always but I wanted to be the first on this day," she answered him, as she smiled at him.

Scratching his head, he grabbed his clothes and started getting dressed. Staggering into the bathroom, he did his morning duty and washed his face. Walking back out into the bedroom, he kicked Ted's bed.

"Ted! Time to wake up, buddy." Looking over at the hologram, he asks her, "Are the girls up, Amy?"

Amy smiled, and replied, "Yes they woke up a bit ago, and are in the common room. They have breakfast almost ready."

Yawning, Ted looked at Amy, "I hope there is coffee. I need the caffeine."

"Yes, they have made coffee for you, too," she said. Shaking her head, she continued, "You know caffeine is bad for you?"

"Yeah, I know, but I need it to wake up."

Ted walked into the bathroom and the shower came on. While he did that Ken grabbed his pack and went out into the common room. The smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee wafted over him, as he entered the room. He looked at Tammy and his sister sitting there eating their meal.

"Morning, you two. Damn that smells good."

He pulled out a chair, and Jen handed him a plate of food. "Amy made us breakfast in the replicators and it is good. Here you go Ken, is Ted up?"

Tossing his pack on the couch, he took the plate and sat down.

"Yeah, he is in the shower."

He took a fork, and stabbing the eggs, he started eating.

"Damn this is good. The six-hour sleep really helped too. I was dragging there at the end," he said. He glanced at his Timex. "Almost 9 AM. Once everyone has eaten, we will head out. We'll get the car loaded and call our moms first. Then we'll get back down here so Amy can teach us what we need to know. That is if everyone still wants to continue with this."

Tammy and Jen nod their heads as they eat their breakfast.

The doors swish open and Ted walked into the room, his pack was in one hand as he ran his fingers through his hair with the other. Dropping the pack he sat down at the table. Pushing the plate away he grabbed the cup and coffee carafe.

"Morning," he said as he filled the cup he took a sip. "Ahhh, I may live, yet." Sitting back in the chair he said, "So what's the plan?"

Ken finished his plate and pushed it aside. He took his cup and drank some more coffee. "Better eat something, Ted. It will be a while before we eat again. Besides you might hurt Amy's feelings, since she made it for us."

Ted yawns and drinks some more coffee.

"I will, in a second. Right now, I need this coffee to get the cobwebs out of my brain."

Tammy snickers and blurts out, "Cobwebs? More like dust, you mean."

Ted smiled at his sister's words and shook his head.

"OK, that's a point for you sis, but only because I am still tired."

Setting the cup down, he took a plate of food and started eating.

"You're right this is good. Amy, you're a good cook."

"Thanks but all I did is ask for it, the replicator made it. Does anyone else want anything?"

When everyone declined, she had the dishes tractored to the replicator to be recycled.

"I have a hover car out in the bay to take you to the where you need to go. All I ask is that you all be careful. Terra and I need you. I know the threat won't be here for a long time, but the more time you have to build, the better it will be for the Terra."

Grabbing their packs, they headed for the doors and their destiny. They stepped into the transport tubes and arrived a few minutes later, outside the doors to the bay. They walked into the hanger, where a small vehicle sat awaiting them. It looked odd amongst the fighters and shuttles sitting around on the flight deck, waiting for that sudden call to combat. Tossing their packs on to the storage area Ken turned to Amy.

"Amy, we will be back. As you know, I want to do this, first. There is no sense having the police looking for us, coming down into the caves, and expecting to find our bodies. I do have some things I am wondering about, though. First, can a shuttle be hidden so no one can see it?"

"Yes it can, all shuttles have stealth capability and with a holographic emitter we can hide it in plain sight and all people will see is what they would normally see if nothing was sitting there. The only problem would be if someone were to collide with the shuttle, then they would know it was there."

"Good then after we deal with that bastard serial killer, here is what we do. We hide a pair of shuttles near our house in Steamboat Springs. I think we can do it on our property since we own forty acres of land. Second, we recruit some more people and transport them here where they can undergo training. I think about a hundred people, once trained, should provide the core of a crew. We can split them up among all the areas we need. We will need bridge crew, engineers, security, science, medical, pilots and maintenance personnel. I would think at least have a minimum of ten people in each section before we take off."

Pulling out his note pad, he looked at it for reference.

"When we get you into space, we'll park you on the far side of the moon, and build a base there. We'll build a fighter base and a com base."

"Then we'll send four shuttles out to the Kuiper belt. Two shuttle loads of spider bots will build the defensive bases on Pluto and Charon. The bases will be named Underworld and Acheron. Underworld will be a full-fledged fighter base while I want Acheron to be nothing but heavy gun emplacements, which will consist of every type of weapon you can think of.

"The third shuttle is to build a set of shipyards in the Pluto orbit, and the fourth will start gathering the smaller asteroids in the Kuiper belt. We will gather up almost all of the asteroids of the belt, except for the largest asteroids. On those we will mount additional heavy defense weapons, to defend the system. We will name them as we build them.

"We will need to build an orbital habitat for our people while they wait for the ships to be built, and to staff the defenses. Once the two shipyards are done have the bots start building more of themselves. When they have tripled, their numbers the first third will start building in the shipyards, two more ships of your class, lets name them Oregon and California.

"The second third will build two more shipyards. A smaller fighter yard will be built, to start building fighters. The other shipyard will produce our colony ships. The last third will move to the Kuiper belt and build a small yard to produce ore freighters. These freighters will be automatic, and will carry the ore the bots have gathered."

Amy starts to interrupt him, "But Ken we don't..."

Ken stops Amy from talking for a minute. "Hear me out, Amy. While this is going on, we will be recruiting more people. We will need to crew the ships that we are building in the belt, and to man the shipyards and defensive stations. Amy, can you build AI's?"

Surprised by Ken's thinking, she responded, "Yes, I can, Ken. I can use my basic programming to do so. How many do you need? The Federation only used them in their battleships."

Ken continued what he was saying; "I want to use them in everything from stations to cargo ships to warships, especially all warships, I figure the fighters will be too small but from destroyers to carriers I want them on them."

Amy interrupted Ken, and said to him, "We don't have any carriers, and size matters not for the AIs."