TADJ33

==Chapter 33 - The Adjudicator==
----
New Sytris Star system
Federated Suns
 February, 3160
----
=================================================================================================================================================
...of having a largely unengaged formation of technically capable, jump-capable crews working a relatively small volume is that you can pick up a hell of a lot of clues in a hurry.
The 1st Squadron of the Federated Patrol Force uncovered a lot of stuff. Your majesties, beginning with a string of off-the-grid HPG relays with the same 'home' address, coordinates out in deep space off Sol.
Which doesn't link to anything where people are known to be living, but does line up with the course used by SLS Dreadnought when she left Sol during the coup.
There are a couple of really cool legends attached to that one, including rumors that the Dreadnought survived.
The relay point's more interesting though.  It's not Versailles.  The relays are pointing a few too many degrees off the ecliptic for Versailles.  it's close though, I think our suspects' bolt-hole is visible from that planet with unaided eyes.  If so, Kowloon has a cousin because our likely target system is a binary with coequal orbiting dwarf suns, a dense cloud, and hellish entry sequence.
Which is where I would put a colony that didn't want to be bothered by adventurous neighbors.
We are en-route with AFFS's 2nd Fleet group to rendezvous with what can still turn out to be a dry hole, but based on the gravitational distortion, our target system has at least one supergiant sun and a small selection of rocky planets. If so, the goldilocks zone is about 800 days or so across, and 3-4 standard Astral Units (the distance from Terra to Sol at apogee) across.
Working calculations for a quiet entry is going to be tough. We're gonna have to calculate based on 30 year old astronomical data (because it's about 30 lights from a known point we can make observations at, hence, the light and other readings are going to be thirty years old by the time it reaches our scopes).
I will reiterate that I would rather be doing this in a nice, quiet library.  Libraries don't cause gut-busting nausea and anxiety attacks along with bloody noses and splitting headaches.
-Lt Clarissa Ngo
===================================================================================================================================================
----
[Overview - Taussen]
Binary stars, this system was surveyed late in the 'peacetime' of the Star League (2691) and immediately removed from astronautical charts by everyone but Terran Hegemony Intelligence.
There are four smaller, too-hot rocky bodies orbiting the binary primary, with two superjovian brown-dwarf gas giants, the smaller has nine moons, and the fourth moon is fully habitable and Terra-like.
Initially intended as a fallback point should the new Star League fall apart or some other catastrophe befall Terra, this world was settled by carefully screened candidates in early 2703.  Notably, Taussen's 'night" is still warm enough to support life without forcing an ice-age, thanks in part to radiated heat from the gas giant taking up some of the slack for breaking line of sight with the binary primary stars-making for a rather dark world, but still very remarkably earth-like.
Everything needed to 'start over' was placed here, from the building blocks of agriculture and animal husbandry, to what amounts to a complete industrial base.  Taussen was, unfortunately was not ready by the time Stefan Amaris made the Cameron Family cease to exist. Though a cousin from a cadet line WAS among the settlers. Information from SLIC's remaining personnel warned against revealing the site's existence, and this was in turn proven out when General Kerensky chose to abandon the Terran Hegemony to the predations and perfidy of the House Lords after the Civil War.
During the decades, stretching into centuries, of isolation, Taussen's only external contacts were through carefully chosen members of ComStar, and the occasional unlucky traveler whose ship entered the system.
Most of said travelers never left, either being killed outright while trying to figure out how to leave the binary system or captured and forcibly 'incorporated' into Taussen's gene pool.
Among The Folk, this region of the Crucis March has a black reputation as a place where ships enter-and don't come out again.
Built in equal parts by the influence of paranoid intelligence agents, and more paranoid, compartmentalized military figures, and influenced both directly and indirectly by Comstar, and later The Word of Blake, Taussennigan technology did not suffer the technological decline that so crippled the Inner Sphere, but unlike the Clans, their culture is averse to being found out-their Intel missions were one-way for centuries, sending out agents with carefully modified memories to gather information on the state of "The Star League" and help insure that this final hope would go undiscovered.
Gradually, captured information made its way here, and a new idea formed...
Militia
The Taussen system is protected by a late model, constantly maintained and upgraded Caspar SDS.  notably, the Drones are kept non-sentient by careful modification. With an ingrained indoctrination software based on the E-type hobbling done to the Terran system in 2758.  This keeps them from using their KF drives, a necessary precaution in the eyes of Taussen's military brass.  Automated fighters descended from Blackwasps Drone Fighters (but three centuries further advanced), and heavily armed and equipped DropShips make up the remainder of Taussen's naval force.
But their real power is on the ground, with Drone BattleMechs and Battle Armor sized unmanned, with autonomous combat vehicles integrated into their forces along side human pilots, under the control of human officers.
Taussen's detection grid is state of the art and this is the source of the Stealth Warship technology used in the Republic's Stealth Fleet.
They're reading everyone else's mail.
They know what is coming, and they're ready for it.
----
Previous Chapter- Return to Story Index - Next Chapter
Category:Works by CannonShop
Category:The Adjudicator Chapters