WCGW Chpt 115

<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
==Chapter 115 - What Could Go Wrong==
----
22 January 3043
Inner End (Federated Commonwealth)
----
A quick stop to unload the freed slaves that did not want to remain with the unit and to restock the food stores was conducted. The biggest surprise was when one of the shuttles dropped off Professor Hiram Igram. He also brought over 5 tons of luggage, books, manuals and other assorted items. One of the cargo crew led him to see Colonel Mitchell, who they found on the grav deck, where he spent as much time as he could. It took him a few seconds to place the man before him, but he could not remember the name. "Professor, I am sorry, but your name has slipped my memory."
"Professor Hiram Igram, NAIS. I remember you though. The Captain with the Star League data drives. You seem to have found something that has gotten the attention of highly placed people." Professor Hiram Igram replied
"Professor Igram, right. Colonel David Mitchell, welcome to Search and Recovery Inc. I guess your one of the specials I was promised. What did they tell you exactly?" Colonel Mitchell said
"I do not know about special. I was told to assist you in recovering or putting to use anything you find, all assistance without question." Professor Igram replied
"That's all?" Colonel Mitchell asked
"I am also to write extensive reports on what all you find. Those are to be hand delivered via courier for First Prince Davion himself, never transmitted over HPG." Professor Igram replied
"I will second that, no HPG, we have already attracted unwanted attention that way and lost good people. Get comfortable Professor and I will give you the ten-minute low down. We have been hitting locations from those recovered drives, the very drives I tried to give you on Breed. We have already recovered one SLDF cache. Plus, a very rich system to the Outworlds Alliance. Very soon, we will be linking up with more forces to hit another location. Exactly what is your specialty at NAIS?" Colonel Mitchell said
"Recovered technology from the Star League era. I helped decode the recovered data core so that we could use the information it contained. My secondary is Battlemechs. I studied the captured Battlemster from Breed to see if it could be put back into production, which it could, but there are some stumbling blocks to be worked out first. I was sadly pulled for this assignment." Professor Igram replied
"Don't sound so down about it, Professor, if this mission goes the way we think it will, you will probably have your hands on more than you think. We have to clear out some pirates first, then we can get busy doing what we really want to do, which is recovering long lost treasures. What do you know about possibly upgrading current Battlemechs with recovered equipment?" Colonel Mitchell said
"I helped write some of the field manuals to do just that. Why do you ask?" Professor Igram replied
"I have a senior tech that is just going to love you being here. She has been hounding me about some upgrades she wants to make, but my knowledge is too limited and the equipment is too valuable to risk damage for me to tell her to go ahead. But now your here, and you can listen to her ideas an tell me if they can be done safely and quickly. We will not reach our target for at least 6 months, maybe 7 months. If what she wants to do can be done, you will have 6 months to get it done. You up for it?" Colonel Mitchell said
"That is what I was told to do. At least I will not be bored and have something to work on." Professor Igram replied
"Excellent. Let's go find Chief Warrant Officer Penelope Rodgers and she can get off my back. In addition, I will have her show you three of the Battlemechs we took away from some pirates, a Thunderbolt variant no one has ever heard of and two Thugs, also variants we never heard of. See what you think of them." Colonel Mitchell said
Three hours later, Professor Hiram Igram was a very happy man as he gawked at the TDR-5Sb Thunderbolt. He took careful mental notes on everything as he identified the changes the Star League had made on this variant. Fourteen double heat sinks, ERPPC instead of the Large Laser, an Endo-Steel chassis, Artemis IV fire control system linked to the LRM-15, Streak SRM-2 instead of the regular SRM-2, ammunition protected by CASE, the machine guns removed, and a pair of Small Pulse Lasers installed. A vast improvement over the normal TDR-5S that was the current standard.
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
115