<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Chapter 56 - A Long Journey[]
1 September 2786
Mackolla (Federated Suns)
Warrant Officer Bart Cooks was like a proud father as he watched the christening of SLS Cutlass, Corvette Gunship, slowly emerge from the Olympus Recharge Stations main repair bay. Now clad in 86 tons of Ferro Carbide armor she was maxed out on the amount of armor her internal structure would allow; she was a formidable opponent for just about any corvette. While they had the armor stripped from the hull, they had run dedicated hardened fuel lines to the ship's fighter and small craft bays. Now they were fed from the ships 5,000-ton armored fuel tank. He had enough information from this rebuild that he was fairly sure he could build one from scratch. There were no readily detectable flaws in his upgrade, he actually had sent a crew to take the transit drive out of Tracker Three and it was currently inside one of the bays being meticulously taken apart and scanned into the computer system so that they could manufacture replacement parts for it, and the only problem that he knew about were the crew to man the ships fully. It was so bad that SLS Broadsword, the first, did not even carry any Aerospace fighters. SLS Cutlass would not have any Aerospace fighters either and she would be minimally crewed, even worse than SLS Broadsword.
The lack of trained crew to even man the ships had forced him to call off the modifications to the other four Trackers for now. So once SLS Cutlass was out of the repair bay, the Snowden would be brought inside and they would get to work installing the core grinder so that it could be hauled out to Site 222.
On the surface, Gerald Mitchell had heard nothing from Colin Blaine and was getting worried. The Taurians were not the nicest folks when it came to anyone from the Federated Suns. But he forced himself to focus on the tasks at hand. Things were getting worse in the Terran Hegemony and he had informed the Newhart Industries factory on Thorin to start breaking everything down for immediate movement to Mackolla. It no longer made sense to delay the inevitable until it might be too late. The continued revenue stream from Trident sales would not offset a potential destruction of the factory itself. Of all the companies they had bought, this was the only one with a fully functional and undamaged factory. It was just too valuable to risk. When the sale had gone thru, he had asked for a time estimate to pack the factory up and off Thorin and had been told six months to do it the right way, two months if they did not worry about the easier to replace stuff. Gerald had selected the quicker method and had asked for a list of stuff they would need on arrival so that he could start locating and purchasing it.
The best news was from Helen Froy, CEO of Froy Industries, who had informed him that Smythe Mining and Metals and Excellent Electronics had readily joined the move to Mackolla but that she had finally convinced Trimble Precision Machinery to move also. All three companies had refused to be bought out by Mackolla Enterprises but expected to be reimbursed for their moving costs. It would take several months before they even began the move to Mackolla. She voiced her concerns for their safety during the movement and reported that she was hiring quite a large security force to help safeguard them during the move. This had peaked his interest and he had responded with a message of his own.
To: Helen Froy, Froy Industries, New Earth From: Gerald Mitchell, Mackolla Enterprises
Received previous message. Reimbursement will be waiting. Excellent work. I too am concerned about security during the move. But nothing I can do from here. I will reimburse all hiring and payroll expenses. Need to increase corporate security across the board, hire as many as you can. Need space crews for ships urgently, putting together a Transport Company, prefer to hire former SLDF naval crews, bound to be many in your area. To protect the transport assets, also need Aerospace pilots. Follow previous hiring directive. As a SLDF veteran myself, long retired, I fully understand the hurt they are going thru with no Star League pension being paid as promised to them. As a hiring bonus, Mackolla Enterprises will give each a 10,000 bonus on arrival at Mackolla.
When the message was sent, he smiled broadly. The AFFS said Sammy could not recruit, but every corporation has some sort of corporate security, mine will just be bigger than most and as well armed as I can make them, he thought with a smile.