- The Lucky Regiment -[]
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- Chapter 16 -
The Price of Glory[]
In a small hut near a suspiciously shaped granite slab
Helm, Free Worlds League
April 5th, 3027 - 15:00 hours local time
"How can the terminal still be powered?" Edmund was looking at the little terminal that allowed the input of a password, a retinal scan or the input of a storage device. The little building had once been a guard hut, there was a rack for rifles, rotten fragments of a wooden desk and a long decayed phone. The roof still had traces of a sophisticated camouflage paint on it, so in the old days this place had been largely invisible from above.
"Look I don't know, maybe an underground cable or something to a really big battery." His NAIS graduate was looking flustered, terrified by being suddenly dragged into the field and put in front of an ancient access terminal. Edmund would have thought he'd be grateful for something more exciting than hanging around Durandel, clearly not.
"Alright, can you access the system?"
"It's on, it says, input password or passcard now." Edmund could also read the big letters on the screen, years of expensive boarding school education were paying off.
"I can see that, but obviously we don't have Major Keeler's codes or one his eyeballs."
"It's a pretty crude system, I might be able to use some tools from the Argo, it'll take a while but I think I can build a firmware workaround." I bet you could thought Edmund, doing that with a secure system in the NAIS was what brought you to the attention of the MIIO.
Edmund pulled out the memory stick, he'd been using it to study the terrain. "Try this."
"Why would that work?" It was a look that said 'What do you know about technology? Leave things to the experts you maniac'. Edmund however had memories of Artru, where he had seen the SLDF did have an emergency back up system that didn't involve cutting tools.
"It's literally the only thing we have that is linked to who might have built this, and you said you couldn't work out what that program file did."
"No offense, boss, but that's grasping at straws." The graduate looked at Edmund, and seeing no sign that Edmund was going to use common sense relented. "Alright we'll see what happens, it should just give an error message at worst."
Edmund smiled, and wondered what else he would need to have brought down from the Argo to force an entry when it failed.
"Oh, that's odd." The graduate sounded nervous as the terminal made some beeps.
Then the words 'Access Granted' appeared in big letters. There was a deep rumbling outside and a large part of the granite slab near where the river went underground suddenly shifting inwards. Ten meters wide and Twenty meters high, a door had appeared.
Four hours later
"Edmund this place is amazing." Victoria was more excited than he had ever seen her since their relationship had been rekindled. Edmund however was filled with a growing sense of fear and dread. They were in the room labelled library and Charlie the graduate was rapidly copying onto an empty memory core what appeared to be a complete library of everything, literally everything the Star League knew. "I can't believe the generator still works."
"I know, it's impressive." The geothermal back up power system was probably a shadow of its former self, but it was still generating enough to power the facility's systems.
"There's enough equipment here for a division." Whilst the lance of 'mechs stood watch outside Victoria had organized a partial survey. "Well that's based on the map and extrapolated from the chambers we've seen."
"That's great."
"Edmund, what's wrong?"
"I have to send this to Tharkad and once I do so we will have no way home until someone picks us up."
"Why Tharkad?"
"We're too far from the Federated Suns for them to send help quickly enough, and once word of this gets out we'll be in a war zone. We need support." The alternative was to call the Captain General and hope to be made a Duke or something, or more likely get a medal and be allowed to keep a couple of mechs. The person who would really pay up was the Archon and they both knew it, she had everything to lose if the Free World League suddenly had technological and military superiority. She was also allied with the Federated Suns, which meant whilst reporting to her would have political implications, they were hopefully positive ones.
"Two jumps to cross the border, we could probably get several shiploads out?" He had initially thought the same, or contract a shipping company to come and hope for the best.
"Unfortunately this library takes priority, priority over everything. We must get it to New Avalon and that means Tharkad first."
"What's on it?"
"Everything, literally everything the Star League knew about anything technological and all they had of humanities cultural history. Well the written bits of culture at least." Maybe they would find the legendary missing Episode VII of Immortal Warrior somewhere on a shelf, but he didn't want to get his hopes up.
"Are you sure?" She was looking pretty startled, it was kind of a big deal.
"As sure as I can be after two hours of browsing, and the system also describes itself as a full Star League Field Library facility." Around them were numerous terminals and manuals. "I think these probably existed on all the Hegemony worlds once, of course the fighting was worst on those." Still it was sort of odd that no other libraries like this had been found.
"All the knowledge our ancestors blasted to rubble." She looked in awe at the head sized data storage device connected to the system. "I wonder what the Reach would do with this?"" Not a lot he figured, it would take the NAIS to really make use of it.
"The only way we'll find out is to get this offworld and get parts they can use to them."
"What will Hanse Davion or the Archon do with it?" A pertinent point in his view, and one that worried him.
"Exploit it and try and gain a military advantage."
"And what will you do?" In theory standing orders would suggest getting it to New Avalon ASAP, in practice he had to work with his responsibilities to his unit as well.
"I intend to play god and distribute the agricultural and medical sections to everyone, and get the military and industrial sections to the First Prince and the Archon." He figured he also would dish out the cultural stuff to everyone, and who would have expected the Argo library to briefly become the most cultured place in the Inner Sphere.
"You still want to see a shift in the balance of power?"
"Yes, not all governments are equally bad." Victoria looked thoughtful, probably wondering whether he had lost the plot. She didn't talk about politics much anymore, she tended to voice opinions about the people rather than the structures. He knew in his heart that for all its flaws the Federated Suns was a pretty decent place to live and frankly certain other realms almost certainly weren't.
She looked thoughtful for a moment and then spoke without hesitation. "I'd like to give something back to the Reach, maybe one day they'll remember the name Espinosa for something other than an unquenchable thirst for power." Well he thought, this was probably the moment to make a difference, and since events had turned him into a local hero there he ought to act like one.
"I understand." Edmund wasn't surprised. Victoria had often acted carefree, but since the day he had first met her he'd always sensed there was a sense of duty in there somewhere.
"Not fully, but see if you can find anything else useful for them, they deserve it." It was the most serious she had been since they had reunited. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye.
"I will, whatever happens, something good will come of this for the Reach, god knows how we'll get there though."
"Together." He looked back at her, there wasn't a lot that needed be said to that.
"Together." Till what could be an imminent end he thought sadly.
By the Helm Cache
Helm, Free Worlds League
April 6th, 3027 - 06:00 hours local time
Jessica Chernovskya, or just 'Glitch' to her colleagues wished the rising sun heralded a happier outcome. She was standing by the Leopard transport DropShip with four of the jump troopers and her boss, Edmund. She knew the troopers had worked for the MIIO in the past, this had supposedly been a soft retirement gig, maybe it still was for them.
"Edmund, I'd prefer to stay with you, you're going to need all the help you can get, and you guys are my only real friends." Outside of her parents and a few relatives she was about to walk away from everyone who had ever stood by her.
"That's why it has to be you, we're counting on you and so is the Federated Suns, so no pressure." She smiled at his tired attempt at humor.
"Edmund, you have a ton of 'True Blues' amongst the new hires, most of whom have a better 'pedigree' than me."
"But you'll do whatever it takes, I don't know if the others will." Edmund looked like hell, he'd been planning and getting the memory cores ready all night.
"Alright, Edmund, I promise I'll do whatever it takes." If that meant announcing on Solaris that there was a salvage free for all on Helm, she would, and that was her unauthorized fall back plan if House Steiner didn't say the right thing.
"I know, I'm sorry to put the pressure on you, I'm low on options." That was sort of true, though she had never imagined she would end up in midst of the something on this scale. Edmund had chosen the path of duty where others might have gone for safety, and that was going to be a hard path.
"I understand, we'll get the cargo there."
"Take this, it may help." Edmund handed over a small notebook. "It's a long list of authorization codes and a few official contacts." The trade off of making Edmund the boss and becoming financially viable had been the knowledge that they had picked a side.
"Won't you need it?"
"I doubt it, but I copied some of it just in case." She supposed if a relief force arrived then he wasn't going to need to the more obscure bits to demonstrate who he was, odds were it was going to be obvious from orbit.
"Look after Medusa would you, I won't get the chance to say goodbye."
"I'm sorry about that." Medusa was still taking part in the presumably soon to mysteriously wound down exercise.
"He's a survivor, I'll see him when I return." The price of this business was often losing those you cared about, the small consolation for her was that Medusa would at least be happy knowing she was out of harms way.
Edmund turned to look at her escort. "Alright guys make sure the cargo is loaded securely." There was a crisp salute from the leader and as pairs they carried aboard two large weapons crates. She knew inside each was packing material encasing a pair of memory cores per crate. She'd seen them packed and then sealed with a simple padlock to prevent accidental opening en route, and two in each case in case one was defective.
"Glitch it's been a pleasure." She felt his left arm pat her right shoulder and his right arm extended. She nearly laughed at the formality and then felt a couple of hard objects in his right hand. "Memory sticks" he whispered "If we don't make it I want those distributed everywhere, it'll be our legacy." She knew they would only be a part of the full library, almost certainly some of the 'civilian' section. Medusa would be proud though, he was no idealist, but equally he wouldn't want to die for nothing.
She suppressed an unexpected urge to cry. "We'll be back, I promise."
"I know." But you're not sure if you'll have been overrun by then are you, she thought sadly as she took a last look around at the handful of members of her regiment that were near the dropship. She figured in a Holo-vid she would have said something stirring about how it had been an honor to serve alongside him, well something like that. Instead she saluted, which admittedly was a rarity for her and turned to board the dropship.
Meanwhile on Sirius V
Lord Garth, otherwise known as the Duke of Irian walked amongst the rubble looking sadly at the carnage inflicted by the destruction of a large part of the dome. It had been a layer that kept the atmosphere of Tiantan City breathable. It was unfortunate that nearly 12 million Capellans were now dead or dying, but that was the price of glory. As his father had once taught him, you couldn't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and this was a necessary step on the ladder to becoming Captain General.
After unleashing several lances of mechs cunningly disguised as those belonging to Grayson Carlyle to finish off those survivors they could find, his force had landed and was saving as many people as they could, which wasn't going to be many in the greater scheme of things. When the dome was fixed the place could be slowly resettled with those of non-Capellan extraction, they would be more loyal and thus the mines more profitable.
He was wearing an environment suit, but he could still feel the cold. It was sad really as a he looked around, the damage from the secondary blasts might make much of the city uneconomical to repair. On the hand getting control of Helm would allow him to seize the Helm Cache that his ally in Comstar had identified, and with the equipment stored there he would seize Atreus.
"Your Grace there is a transmission for you."
He plodded over through the broken glass and debris to his command vehicle. He sat down heavily, his valiant efforts at dieting having failed a number of years earlier.
"Very well, who is it?"
"The Precentor, Sir." His loyal aide was the only other occupant of the vehicle, and one of the few aware of exactly how Grayson Carlyle had been betrayed by one of his own. In some ways a loose end, but a very competent one.
"Patch him through."
<<"This is Rachan, is the line secure?">> The Duke looked at the communications set and visually confirmed that it was indeed set to secure. That was one of the first lessons one learnt about how to plot successfully.
"Yes"
<<"Grayson Carlyle's ship has just left the system.">> The Precentor was aboard an orbiting dropship, one that had rather better sensors than those of his little fleet.
"Excellent, he will be in for a surprise on Atreus." Though he had to admit Grayson seemed remarkably unbothered about being told to go Atreus, but if he did go via Helm his little force would be no match for that of Colonel Langsdorf.
<<"Is the Comstar facility functional?">>
"We haven't reached that far in, but there is visual damage to the external arrays."
"Unfortunate." The Duke suspected the Precentor had already tried and failed to reach his co-religionists. Sadly the secondary explosions exacerbated by the oxygen rich air of the city and the hydrogen rich atmosphere had exceeded expectations.
"That will delay your raising the alarm."
"It may delay operations by several days, but that won't matter much." Well it would slightly he knew, Grayson Carlyle would be able to make several more jumps if he used jump stations to charge and discharge his drive before any word of the man's 'crimes' started to be reported. However all that would mean was a different location for him to be arrested at.
"Very well, I suggest you send one of your JumpShips to a civilized world make a transmission, delays do not work in our favor." As ever the Precentor was being pushier than his social status warranted.
"I will give the order at the appropriate time." He remained polite, but he clearly showed the upstart who gave the orders. It was ridiculous, the very idea of a Comstar representative ordering around a Duke was daft. And to make that point he would conspicuously delay the order by a few extra hours.