ALJ Chpt 71

frameless|right|300px|link=A Long Journey
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==Chapter 71 - A Long Journey==
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28 April 2787
Mackolla (Federated Suns)
The money for the upgrade of FSS Chesterton had been deposited in Lockheed Galactic's account making it the first company owned by Mackolla Enterprises to show a profit. Buhallin Military Products had arrived 28th of January and it had taken until the first week of March to level the ground, get water, powerlines laid, and the concrete foundations poured so that they could begin the task of assembling an exact duplicate of their New Stevens factory complex using their prefabricated designs. Amos Anderson, CEO Buhallin Military Products had planned ahead while packing up his factory on New Stevens and had brought a month's supply of raw material with him, but he had sourced new supply chains from various systems much closer to Mackolla and had calculated the time for them to get the supply chain established. But today, the first batch of prefabricated building forms were being poured. The directions had come from Gerald Mitchell himself and it was not for any owned by him.
This first pour was for Smythe Mining and Metals, which was already assaying various areas for their resource potential, but they still needed to get their foundry setup and functional to receive the raw material and get it into a usable state for all the various industries. The second planned pour would be for Trimble Precision Machinery, the third pour would be for Excellent Electronics. Which put the first pour for a Mackolla Enterprise company around July, Mackolla Enterprises was paying half the construction cost for the three non-owned companies factories and putting them at the head of the line for reconstruction. So much had to be done that General Samuel Mitchell had ordered his deployed Engineer Battalions to be brought back to Mackolla to assist getting all the work completed.
This decision had been met with some disbelief among the various Mackolla Enterprises companies who had all arrived at Buhallin Military Products to complain when notified of their estimated delivery dates on their own orders. It was only when Gerald Mitchell arrived and explained the situation that everyone cooled down.
"I had to put these three companies before our own outside of Buhallin. Smythe Mining and Metals is now the largest outfit on Mackolla by a wide margin, we need them operational to smelt the metals and raw ores into something that can be used, Trimble Precision Machinery is going to need that metal to manufacture the needed manufacturing equipment to put each and every one of your factories back together again. Those machines are going to need electronics and computers to operate, hence Excellent Electronics coming before any of our own companies. The first of our companies will be Newhart Industries, only because they have a fully equipped and functional factory that needs buildings to install the equipment into, then it will be Froy Industries, again, they have functional production lines we need to get back in operation. You are all going to be rebuilt and back into production as quick as I can make it happen, you are all experienced business people, surely you can understand now why Mister Anderson is doing it in the order that I have sent to him." Gerald Mitchell explained and waited for this to sink in before continuing. "Before you all rush to place orders with those companies, Trimble Precision Machinery already has an order placed from me for Endo Steel production machinery. It is a vital component for so many applications that it is essential. We can currently manufacture ten tons per month, and I want that up to forty tons per month as soon as possible. It is all going to happen, but it is going to take time. Not only is Newhart Industries going to be a big user, but Froy Industries needs it also. I will be working closely with each of you very soon as to a schedule for reconstruction. I am loathe to order off world for manufacturing equipment as that could attract unwanted attention to what we are doing out here." 
Since this seemed to calm everyone down, he did not go into greater detail on why Newhart Industries had been prioritized over the others. He wanted to also rebuild their Battlemech factory as soon as possible since it had been destroyed in 2776 during New Earth's liberation. They had arrived with 36 GLT-3N Guillotines, 72 HSR-200-Db Hussars, and 36 SDR-5V Spiders that had been stored inside the massive underground storage facility under their factory. In addition, they had listened to the reports during the Periphery Uprising and designed a SDR-5Vb Spider but it had never been put into production since the Amaris Coup happened right as the design was finalized. Using a Endo Steel chassis along with an XL fusion engine to fee up weight, swapping to ten double heat sinks, increasing armor to 6.5 tons of standard plate and then adding two small pulse lasers mounted in the arms. The lack of anti-infantry weapons had been a major complaint from assigned SLDF mechwarriors and they had listened. 
They also had a design for an upgraded Guillotine, the GLT-3Nb which had never been put into production, designed in secret during the Amaris Coup. They had swapped to fifteen double heat sinks freeing up ten tons, maxed the standard armor to fourteen tons, the maximum for the frame, completely reworked the weapon systems. An ER Large Laser occupied the left arm, four medium pulse lasers were fitted to the right arm. Two Streak SRM-2 launchers replaced the SRM-6 in the center torso fed by a single ton of ammo in the right torso protected by CASE. The torso mounted medium lasers were replaced with medium pulse lasers. This gave the Guillotine a long-ranged weapon to skirmish with until it closed the distance where it could switch to its fearsome close-range firepower.
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*SDR-5Vb Spider Light BattleMech (MegaMek File)
*SDR-5Vb Spider Light BattleMech Record Sheet PDF
*GLT-3Nb Guillotine Heavy BattleMech (MegaMek File)
*GLT-3Nb Guillotine Heavy BattleMech Record Sheet PDF
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