RidOv Chpt-36

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==Ridiculously Overboard!! (A Captain Roberts Tale!!)Chapter 36 - Preparing for Next Jump==
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===Revelation of former owners===
Joan's Post System - Outworlds Wastes, Periphery
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"This base had an HPG...
...that suggests this wasn't an Outworlds base at all." Seron argued.
"Evanescent has one too." Amanda argued.
"Evanescent has a converted one taken from a military portable ground-mount, and slaved through the core!" He snapped, "This base had a proper B-Class HPG station. That means SLDF because that technology was highly controlled."
"SO you're saying Joan's Post was the SLDF base, and not Tresspass?" Larry suggested.
"Different services." Amanda's voice was toneless again. "Terran Intelligence also had HPG sites."
"Why would they be out here?" Larry argued.
"Political prisoners, in the political prison." She looked distant as her mouth worked out the words, the concepts weren't that shocking, really, but Desmond seemed to insist on getting it through her to them. "People who couldn't be held closer to Terra, and couldn't be seen by regulars in the military. too valuable to just kill, but not so valuable the can't be disappeared."
"but...why? the Star League was the pinnacle-" Seron began.
"Nice people don't sit on feuds." Larry spoke up, "nice people don't keep it all in order, not when you have psychopaths with private armies...and who watches the watchers and keeps them in line?"
"but it didn't work." Amanda was back to being...well, Amanda. "Did it? Whatever civil war they were trying to avert, it kicked off right on time."
"Maybe they were involved in provoking it?" Larry suggested, "That IS the wreck of a Pinto out there, and even the records from secondary storage show it was SLDF's fleet units in the area that did them in."
"Histories say Amaris set up the periphery uprising, and he sure managed to get control of a LOT of the Terran Hegemony pretty fast...inside job?" Amanda suggested.
"It wouldn't be unprecedented. Justin Allard managed to turn the Capellan Heirs against their father before and during the fourth succession war from inside the Cappie intelligence agency. enough moles? maybe enough to set something up..."
"Applying power." Amanda backed away from the console as Seron activated the data center.
servers that had been without power for centuries began to light up, and a holographic map of the region illuminated.
Outpost locations, bases, SLDF, Outworlds Alliance, Federated Suns...Rim Worlds Republic.
"Paydirt. show me your booty." Amanda said.
"I do not think that means what you think it means." Seron observed, "the term, 'booty'...it is a reference to-"
"Yeah, I know." she looked over at the Intelligence officer, "I'm a girl, it's considered to be perfectly acceptable to want to look at a man's butt!!"
her joke fell flat for the second time since they were in the system.
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===Repairs of a Lost Ship===
Decades ago...
...Mitchell Avellar suspected it. The feed from the Joan's Post space station confirmed a thing he'd mused on as a very young man of twenty.
The fall from the Star League Era was a lot further than anyone, including the Snow Ravens, were willing to admit. "Where are things now?" He asked.
"Task Force Desmond plus the additional forces should be ready to initiate in a few hours." Khan Crow commented calmly. "Savashri, founder, is this right?" she was glancing at the open displays showing the data found at the Joan's Post site.
"I think so." Mitchell said, "You understand the significance, don't you? That everyone, including the Clans has been in a dark age? that we've lost something, that we've had something precious taken away from us, and it has been so long we don't remember we ever had it?"
"Aff."
"Good." he nodded. "Task Force Desmond is scheduled to initiate at zero-zero hour local time, about four hours from now. How did your tech-teams react to the Northsun site?"
"I have six or seven proposals for how to rebuild the crippled corvette, these range from the extremely direct and simple, to the outlandishly lavish and complex." the Khan noted, "Your proposed 'patrol force' probably has less need of the more...elaborate designs, and our training requirements for maintaining a core of competency must include a full spectra of missions, but converting that old compact core to allow docking of Dropships on collars costs more than installing an LF battery-which my Merchant factors and Technical leaders tell me would be horrendously expensive."
"Then, don't do it." Mitchell suggested. "Small ships, right? Battlemechs are front line forces, You showed off some small, intermediate-sized 'mechs..."
"Protomechs, they are called 'Protomechs'."
"Will they fit in a smaller, say, shuttle sided vessel for deployment? Something like a K-1 or Mark VII?"
"Aff...but by themselves-"
He held up a finger, "but you're going to instruct me that they're not highly effective primary forces...okay then. Neither would this Patrol force we discussed. a mix of Protomechs, light or medium vehicles, and infantry for ground operations, would something like that fit?"
"For what purpose?"
"Low level threat response, exploration, that sort of mission. Hold the main Battlemech and Omnimech forces for larger-scale, more serious and immediate threats that require that level of intervention, much like holding back the main fleet only for functions less...prominent and overpowered forces can't deal with. would that even work?"
"Why do you keep repeating my proposals back to me before I have made them? It is frustrating to influence you when you are already predicting what I want!"
"I could try to be dumber, if that would help...but I don't think it will. We're in agreement then?"
"Aff."
"Okay, pick a design." Mitchell said, "Something we can build with the resources we have and get with technical and our engineers and look at how you can expand it to fill both your needs, and the needs of the nation, because your idea is, so far, pretty good from MY end...but as you do so, imagine spreading the knowledge, skills, and capacities out so we are not vulnerable to losing it in a single lucky blow."
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