GblaRCS Chpt 5

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 5-==
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"Who are we if not our morals, principles and beliefs rendered corporeal by our own endeavors? We might live under the dim light of a Red Dwarf but we have it within ourselves to ensure our values will shine out from Niops like a Blue Hypergiant. A beacon to the galaxy, a shining city on a hill, the champion of liberty and scientific progress not oppression and ignorance. All we have to do is make a choice, are we content to hide ourselves away, cowering in fear while civilisation collapses elsewhere, or do we step up to the task and embrace a destiny that providence has enabled for us? I say let us be the best versions of ourselves and together we can turn the Niops Association into the best version of itself too, not merely a beacon showing the way forward but more than that, a hero among the Star-Nations!"Re-election Campaign Speech by High Associator Giles Olson - 2830 CE
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===Part 5 - Flashback - Journey to the Inner Sphere===
Columbus Base – Epsilon Pegasus System – 2825
'The Terran Hegemony planted a flag here nearly three hundred years ago and maintained a presence here until just after the Amaris Civil War, it's not exactly surprising they seeded the planet with an assortment of edible plants in the quarter-millennium the Cameron Star flew over the place now is it, Query Affirmative?" saKhan Trish Ebon asked sardonically after the chief scout reported they had discovered a number of orchards only a few kilometers from the old SLDF facility.
"Aff" the scout replied, feeling suitably silly for having expressed surprise at his discovery. "Native plants have overgrown what we think used to be grainfields, wheat and oats most likely given the climate, and it looks like the local fauna did a number on the root crops once the fences came down, but there are plenty of apples and pears, and a few cherry trees" he continued his report. "Blackberry bushes too, the thorns probably kept off the wildlife."
"That is good, we will organise some manpower to pick fruit, give everyone a chance to eat something other than ration packs." Trish responded, looking around. The scout had met her at the main entrance to the facility across from the dropship landing pad and from there you could see all the way to the still intact base perimeter fence, built stronger than those around the farms presumably, and to the trees beyond.
Columbus Base had been built into a very large crater, something very large and heavy must have come crashing down a hundred thousand years prior to produce such a dent, and the crater walls visible in the distance made for an interesting view as well. The micro-climate within the crater made it more hospitable than it would have been otherwise, though warm it certainly was not.
"We also found a warehouse full of ration packs, saKhan Ebon." the scout told her, almost apologetically. "I suppose that's not surprising either, it's not like they're something they would have bothered to bring back with them to the Inner Sphere when the system was abandoned" he reasoned.
Trish nodded. "Did you find any munitions?"
"A few hundred tons worth, mostly small-arms, nothing compared to what you found at the shipyard up there" the scout replied, pointing up to where Amor, the planet's relatively tiny moon, could have been seen if it wasn't broad daylight. Roughly a century before the Star League fell the SLDF had constructed an orbital facility within the moon where JumpShip could be serviced, presumably planning ahead for a new wave of colonial expansion corewards of the Inner Sphere. It had proven a treasure trove of spare parts and supplies, with Trish herself having taken charge of making an inventory of the orbital while others reconnoitred the surface.
Trish looked around, her own dropship had landed less than an hour ago, a day later than the scout party who had set down first to investigate the spaceport and its adjoined facility and it seemed that the scouts had carried out their mission quickly and efficiently.
Although much of the complex was underground, the landing pads for dropships and the runways for aerospace fighters were hardly difficult to spot from above.
"The dropship repair yard at the edge of the landing pad might need some coaxing to get it operational again, though most of the machinery seems intact" the scout informed her. "If nothing else it has a large storeroom full of spares, though quite a lot of them are for dropships we do not use any more Dictators, Manatees, and Black Eagles."
"When the rest of the dropships arrive, we'll priorities what spares there are for the ships that need them most" Trish replied. "You signaled that the Base Computer down here is still functioning, query affirmative?"
"Aff. It has been very helpful with providing inventory lists and maps of the facility." the scout told her. "It also seems to hold some very detailed charts of all the stars within two or three jumps of Epsilon Pegasus, as well as the standard route used between here and the Terran Hegemony."
Trish laughed. "That being the one we definitely will not be using in case the clans figure out where we went." she replied.
"That was my thinking as well, saKhan." the scout agreed. "Much of the Draconis Drift between here and the Inner Sphere seems to be uncharted, although there are a number of habitable, or barely habitable worlds off the beaten track which were recorded as being suitable for colonization that we could use as way-points."
"Barely habitable?" Trish queried.
"Red Dwarfs mostly." the scout explained.
"Urgh." Trish responded with a grimace, there was a reason why humanity had colonized G Type stars like Terra itself first while expanding out into the galaxy, even though K Type Red Dwarfs were far more common.
You only had to look around on Columbus to see why. Epsilon Pegasus was a G2V star, just like Sol in the Terran system, and thanks to billions of years of evolution under a yellow sun it just looked inexplicably right somehow.
Columbus was the fourth planet out from the star and cooler than Terra as a result, the base itself was situated on the equator or growing crops would not have been feasible even in the sheltered crater, but the gravity was only slightly less than Terra and after nearly a year stuck aboard ship it would likely seem like paradise for the people shortly to start landing in their droves.
In some ways, the Epsilon Pegasus system mocked the notion of the 'Goldilocks Zone' in that although it had two life-bearing planets, Epsilon Pegasus III and IV, Columbus itself was just a bit too cold for comfort, even at the equator, whereas Kew, the third planet, was just a bit too hot. With an average surface temperature at the equator nearing 45 degrees Celsius Kew was a world where you could only comfortable live near the poles, and even there it was far from temperate.
The terraforming technology available to the Hegemony could have readily fixed both worlds of course, warming Mars and then making a hell-hole like Venus habitable taught them a lot. Massive amounts of carbon-dioxide dumped into the atmosphere to heat up Columbus, and aerosols in the upper atmosphere to cool Kew would have been easy enough projects to undertake, but the Star League Corps of Engineers had only been instructed to build military and research facilities, plus any required support infrastructure, not to prepare the system for mass colonisation so they hadn't.
Trish Ebon and a squadron of ships equipped with lithium-fusion batteries had been sent ahead of the bulk of the Wolverine fleet by Khan Hallis, not only to make sure the Epsilon Pegasus System was safe but to determine the state of the repair facilities there. She had very good news to report to him on that score as the JumpShip yard in orbit was still operational, so vessels in dire need of a service could get a proper one, and the SLDF had also left behind a massive quantity of supplies.
To be honest in some ways it was probably a good thing that Columbus was a little cooler than humans generally preferred because it should help motivate everyone to pack up and leave again when the time came to do so. It could be a while before Nicky K caught up with them but it would be foolish to assume he would stop looking anytime soon.
"You mentioned the wildlife? Seen much of it?" Trish asked.
"Something that looked a lot like a bear tried to turn Corporal Jansen into lunch earlier." the scout replied, grinning. "Its teeth and claws weren't a match for his Mauser though, we are planning to carve a few steaks off of it and cook them for dinner tonight" he told her. "Base computer says the local mammalian life is safe for human consumption."
"What about native fruits and vegetables?" Trish asked.
"Some are pretty hazardous, most will just give you a severe stomach upset. Best stick to the imported species of plants" the scout advised. "There is one native fruit that is safe to eat, looks like a melon but tastes more like a peach apparently according to the computer records relating to indigenous life. We found some but I have not tried one yet."
"What did the garrison call it?" Trish asked out of interest.
The scout grinned. "Melonpeach" he replied.
"I do not know why I bothered to ask." Trish said, rolling her eyes. "I suppose it is too much to hope that the hydroponic farms underground are still running, query negative?" she asked. Certain crops that simply couldn't be grown outside in a climate this cold, but were welcome additions to the diet of the personnel assigned here nonetheless, would have been grown there. On the cooler worlds of the clans you could often find chilli peppers and the like being farmed the same way.
"Neg. They were shut down when the garrison left." the scout told her apologetically. "There are still stocks of seeds in cold storage, and fertilizer we can transport up to the Invaders to bolster their own stocks so it is not a total loss" he continued. "If we need any replacement water pumps we could strip those too."
"Make a detailed inventory for me, I will study it then give a copy to Khan Hallis when he arrives so he can determine what his salvage priorities are." Trish ordered.
"One more thing, we found a couple of transport VTOLs in a hanger that the Technician Caste can likely get running if we want to hunt the local herds of game animals and bring back the meat" the scout suggested. "They seem to be pretty numerous, there is one common species in particular that resembles a woolly rhino that supposedly makes for tasty burgers and a pretty good chilli."
Trish Ebon blinked. "I will advise the Khan to make that a priority." she replied, practically salivating at the thought. "We are the North American Division once again, after all" she joked.
"We will need cheese for the cheeseburgers but if you want someone to try milking a three-ton mammal with a meter-long horn at the front it will likely result in a Trial of Refusal from anyone given the job, saKhan Ebon" the scout replied, chuckling.
"I will just ask the marines if any of them want to volunteer." Trish suggested, tongue-in-cheek.
The scout considered her plan. "That could work." he agreed.
It had taken them well over a dozen jumps, near five-hundred light-years off their originally intended route, to get them from the Exodus Road to Epsilon Pegasus. Even on half-rations it had been touch-and-go if they were going to make it, and without the improvised J-U Water Purifier the former science and technician castes had rigged up in the hold of a Mule they certainly wouldn't have. That Mule, along with the Aqueduct liquid-cargo-carrier it had been topping up whenever they located a planet or moon with an ocean or a polar ice cap, would be among the first dropships to land once Hallis arrived with the rest of the fleet.
If Trish Ebon never had to eat a survival ration washed down with distilled water again it would be too soon. Frankly the thought of eating some of that native 'bear' later was making her salivate as she set the scout back to his task and headed into the facility to see for herself.
Franklin Hallis had worried at one point he might face a 'Prinz Eugen Mutiny' of his own as not only the civilians began to complain vociferously about being hungry and couped-up so long but even some of the warrior caste started to question the plan. The only saving grace to the Khan's benefit was it was hard to argue against the proposition that they had to keep going because if they turned back and the Clans caught them the ilKhan would have them all killed.
It wasn't so much that the Wolverines were well aware that it was not them who had triggered a nuclear device in Great Hope, under the circumstances even the conspiracy theorists found it hard to argue convincingly that McEvedy had nuked herself, it was the destruction of Dehra Dun which meant Kerensky had to kill them all.
Thanks to the Black Box recordings on Bismark, and other sensor logs in their position, the Wolverines could prove it was not their nuclear device which had incinerated much of the capital city of the Snow Ravens, destroying their priceless genetic repository into the bargain. As to whether any clan would be willing to hear the Wolverines out, or actually study the physical evidence, was uncertain of course but could the ilKhan really take such a risk?
Only the Snow Ravens knew for certain that the Wolverines were framed for Dehra Dun, and presumably putting two-and-two together had a reasonable assumption that they might have been framed for the destruction of Great Hope too. However, if it became more widely known that Nicholas had covered up the actual events, and pinned the blame on an innocent party, then surely other clans would be reasonably concerned that the next time he wanted to make an example of someone it could be them that got set up.
Khan McEvedy was not the only leader that had expressed extreme disquiet at some of the ilKhan's actions during the crushing of any dissent in the Pentagon Worlds after Klondike. She had even surreptitiously recorded a few conversations she had with the Khans of other Clans on the subject, recordings that Franklin Hallis had since listened to. The one she had with Khan Mitchell Loris of Clan Mongoose in particular could easily be interpreted as him strongly supporting her viewpoint as regards Nicholas Kerensky's moral character, not to mention his sanity. The ilKhan was not nearly as venerated as he might wish, and he was likely not stupid enough to think he was either, meaning he had to stop the truth being told.
The most effective means of ensuring that the facts never emerged was to destroy all the physical evidence, and any copies that might have made of that evidence, and ensure there were no eye-witnesses left either. In short, every warship and JumpShip belonging to Clan Wolverine had to be destroyed and their passengers and crew with them.
If any of Franklin Hallis's people had thought Nicholas Kerensky incapable of such an action they had largely vanished amidst the mushroom clouds rising above Circe.
You might be hungry, feeling tetchy and claustrophobic trapped aboard a ship for an excessive period of time but you had to be alive to be hungry and tetchy and that was better than the alternative.
Still, it was a very, very good thing that Columbus Base and the orbital facility on the planet's moon were intact and well-stocked because if they hadn't been general opinion might have veered to going back and making a suicidal fight of it.
Khan Hallis was adamant that when they eventually did go back it wasn't going to be a suicide mission. It would be to put a righteous and well-deserved serious whupping on the bastards, rebuild Great Hope and and then raise the banner of Clan Wolverine over it again.
Survival was not enough in itself. People needed a reason to keep going and graphically imagined thoughts of wreaking bloody vengeance could be a great motivator.
As Trish Ebon wandered the corridors of the old SLDF base, occasionally poking her head through a door to see what was in there and frequently finding something worth salvaging, she became increasingly annoyed that they only had a fraction of the free cargo space needed to cart off all this valuable loot. The automated production plant for turning out replacement electronic components was itself a technological marvel, one likely necessitated because it was a long way back to Terra from here, over a thousand light-years in fact. If you needed some components to fix a navigation console, or even just a personal noteputer, the machine could churn out whatever you needed, but it was truly massive and probably weighed as much as a mid-sized dropship.
That was the problem with raw-materials-in, complicated-final-product-out, Terran Hegemony manufacturing. There were a lot of intermediate stages involved in the process, even if the technological wizardry in the sealed unit did all the actual work, so simple and easily portable it was not.
The base computer was as helpful as the scout had made it sound when Trish reached the Control Room. It was already printing off hundreds of maps for the convenience of the people it had been advised were on the way, and although not a true AI it had been programmed in such a way that it was difficult to tell.
Trish decided that it would be advisable not to run a Turing Test on the thing just in case they decided to slag it instead of just wiping its memories of Clan Wolverine interlopers. It would be harder to destroy it if it turned out the thing had developed sentience in the decades it had been stuck here alone with little to do but monitor other less advanced systems. It wasn't likely by any means, but the Star League had dabbled in copying human neural pathways to help develop smarter, more intuitive computers, so you couldn't entirely dismiss the possibility.
Those damn Caspar drones had definitely been more tactically astute than most people had expected them to be during the Amaris Civil War. They didn't just charge straight at the enemy, all guns blazing, they tried to outflank and outfox opponents, setting traps including feigned retreats designed to pull you into range of heavily-armed SDS Battlestations.
The M-3 drones built into modified Pentagon assault dropships weren't nearly as smart, and the Voidseeker and particularly the older Blackwasp drone fighters were dumb as rocks, but Trish recalled her father telling stories about how when you were facing swarms of the damn things they weren't nearly stupid enough for comfort.
Riffling through desk drawers for useful information yielded little of that, although she did find an unopened bottle of Scotch imported all the way from Terra, along with a couple of whisky glasses. Something to share with Franklin she decided, stuffing it into a faux-leather hold-all she found nearby along with some pens that might still work and pencils that definitely would, you always steal the office stationary as a point of principle.
Before too long the entire complex would be stuffed to the gills with people, either looking for useful materials or just there out of curiosity. There were tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel likely desperate to stretch their legs planet-side, and it was nice to have the place mostly to herself before it was inundated with sightseers and salvagers.
Hauling most of the machinery away wasn't an option, Trish knew, but taking the control circuitry for much of it might be possible, along with the users manuals and any diagrams and tech drawings. How the hell they would be able to replicate the big, heavy machinery to plug the circuits back into once they reached their final destination was going to be someone else's problem.
A thought occurred to Trish as she turned back towards the computer. You know it's not really that big, she realised, and can't weigh more than a couple of tons surely?
If the Columbus Base computer had been smarter it would have been somewhat disturbed by the avaricious expression on Trish Ebon's face, as seen via the security camera in the control room. Though not as much as it would have been a couple of weeks later when one of the crew of technicians sent to take it apart for transport asked it to sing 'Daisy Daisy' while they started pulling circuit boards.
By the time Clan Wolverine eventually left the Epsilon Pegasus system, they had stripped Columbus Base and the Amor orbital dockyard above it of anything useful that was small enough to carry away with them.
Not knowing if the Clans were hot on their heels, or perhaps lying in ambush on the edge of the Inner Sphere, Khan Hallis sent three squadrons of ships to scout the route on ahead through the Draconis Drift.
When the squadron led by the old battleship Thunderer jumped into the Buffalo Meadows system, half-way between Epsilon Pegasus and the periphery border of the Draconis Combine, they almost opened fire on the warships and JumpShip they found at the Zenith Point there. Fortunately, they realized before pushing any fire buttons that the ships were all powered-down and seemingly mothballed and had been for quite some time
When a lithium-fusion battery equipped ship from the Thunderer squadron reported back to Khan Hallis that they had tripped over the 295th Battlemech Division, and he should probably go introduce himself to a certain Lieutenant-General Jenna Romanov that very much wanted to meet him, Hallis remained unconvinced he was not the subject of a huge practical joke at his expense. This continued right up until he found himself shaking hands with the woman and even after that he kept waking up thinking he must have dreamt the whole thing.
Honestly, it just seemed so implausible that he began to seriously question his agnosticism because someone, or something out there, appeared to either really love the Wolverines or really hated someone else he wanted them to deal with.
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*;Notes from the Author : In canon the Terran Hegemony/SLDF facilities in the Epsilon Pegasus System that were abandoned in the early 2880s were not rediscovered until 3023 by which time they were rather worn down by age and lack of maintenance (although the base computer still worked and there was still plenty of other valuable lostech to salvage). Since in this timeline it has only been forty years since Columbus Base was shut down, rather than two-hundred and forty, everything is in rather better condition.Given that Epsilon Pegasus IV (the planet Columbus) was founded as a Deep Periphery base as early as 2549 I can only assume that the garrison and base personnel had established farms to provide fresh food over the centuries, although four decades without having been tended allowed the native plants to take over again. Some of the local fauna is mammalian and given the climate (it's pretty chilly even at the equator) I can only imagine there to be some very large and furry herbivores running around the place.The JumpShip repair yard built into Amor (the small moon of Columbus) is not likely to be built large enough to cope with massive warships because Columbus was built to facilitate exploration and it's situated in the back of beyond. Even an actual naval base near to potential threats like Camelot Command could only take ships up to the size of A Black Lion battlecruiser so I can't see the Amor yards being any larger than that.Epsilon Pegasus having some automated factory facilities to produce replacement parts and circuitry seems logical given that Terra is a thousand light-years away (eight months by JumpShip).The Draconian Drift where the 295th ended up lies between Epsilon Pegasus and the Inner Sphere. It does not seem to have been much travelled because nobody found Buffalo Meadows until the Comstar Explorer Corps did in 3021 (not long before they also found Epsilon Pegasus too they were clearly searching that part of the Deep Periphery).As for the Thunderer running across Buffalo Meadows, well it's certainly fortuitous but I've often pondered the fact that one of the least realistic part of fiction is that it can strive to avoid weird and unlucky events a little too much. Fiction has to 'make sense' or you risk losing the reader's suspension of disbelief, but inexplicably unlikely crap happens all the time in real life and can drastically alter how events end up turning out. A minor example I've always liked is that if you had a gunfight in a supposedly serious western movie where the sheriff's bullet went down the barrel of the bad guys gun, stopping the other bullet coming out and blowing the gun out of his hand, it would be treated as a joke that nobody in the audience would take seriously... but that really happened once in reality!
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