IUSD9

==Chapter 9 - I used to Dream==
Boojum Shipyard
Kowloon System
Lyran Commonwealth
December, 3085
[perspective shift...]
Stealth gear can be really good.  electronic warfare systems are advanced to the point that you can cloak a Battlemech from electronic detection, or conceal a squad of battle armor so completely that it's literally invisible to sensors.
But there are limits.
No system in the universe can stop you from leaving footprints or tracks in soft ground, and even systems as advanced as the Chameleon Light Polarization shield can prevent you from casting a shadow.
Their orders were to enter the structure and placed a five kiloton laser-triggered hydrogen fusion bomb derived from the Alamo class anti-ship missile.
Their target, was a complex of underground tunnels and caves packed with archived records on Spider Moon, the third satellite orbiting the gas giant 'Boojum' in the Kowloon system.
The equipment, as opposed to the payload, was vacuum modified Purifier adaptive battle armor with the advanced Mimetic camouflage systems and supplementary ECM.
The Kowloon archive was a primary target, and this team was well trained, with thousands of hours of drills in vacuum combat with their suits, the best intelligence on where the access points to the target were, hundreds of hours of surveillance by long range telescope...
If they hadn't given themselves enough time to evacuate the target, they might have even succeeded.
Commodore Nicole Minh felt a chill, as the bomb disposal team carried the warhead out of the lower galleries.
"It had three redundant firing mechanisms and used common mil-spec components, which is good for us."  Warrant officer Thomas Cao Kyi explained, "They also used pretty standard evacuation drills as part of their infiltration."
"How did we catch it?" Nicole asked.
"One of the workers on the new section left a few tools behind when the shift change happened and went back in. They spotted something that didn't belong, and called security."
Nicole sighed.  Just dumb luck on our end...
She turned to the post commander, "Nghien, I want a full system alert sounded.  this is the second attack this year, They're targeting information and archives, they may be hitting intellectual targets next."
"Intellectual targets?"
"People." she said.  "They're going after information stores, it's a sure bet they'll be going after scientists, writers, and intellectuals.  Someone's trying to resurrect Holy Shroud and pointing it at us...I'm going to have to contact the Duchess about this."
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