ALJ Chpt 80

frameless|right|300px|link=A Long Journey
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==Chapter 80 - A Long Journey==
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19 July 2787
Mackolla (Federated Suns)
Amos Anderson, CEO Newhart Industries, watched as the first wall went up on the first building that would house his formerly Thorin based Trident Aerospace factory. With a fully functional factory it had been assigned top priority in getting it back into operation by Mackolla Enterprises CEO Gerald Mitchell. His Battlemech factory would have to be completely built from scratch and was at least two years from even being discussed from what he had seen. Since arrival, he had only met his boss once and that was when getting assigned housing for all his people. He turned when he sensed someone near him.
"It is a beautiful site isn't it?" Gerald Mitchell said
"Yes it is, sir. I didn't know you would be out this way." Amos Anderson replied
"Wouldn't miss it. Sorry I have not been around too much, there are so many things moving that I am just now catching my breath some." Gerald Mitchell said
"I completely understand, sir. What can I do for you?" Amos Anderson asked
"We have not had a chance to really sit down and talk, so I figured I would come out and watch with you. Maybe even get a feel for what your Thorin plant brings to the table so to speak." Gerald Mitchell said
"Well, sir, once we are back up and running, you will not be disappointed in the least. Our Trident factory is fully automated and can manufacture twenty four Trident per month. Top of the line manufacturing equipment that can be run with minimal personnel. We might have had the plans for the Royal Trident purged from our databases, but they didn't get into our design database. It fixed one of the biggest problems with the Trident, low armor." Amos Anderson replied proudly
"Wait, if the factory is fully automated, why so many employees? I met with the New Earth folks and there are only about 1,200 from the Battlemech factory there that was destroyed." Gerald Mitchell said
"Most are from our Satellite program. Those are hand built. It was never a big money maker supplying power sats and standard communication satellites. It was actually not until Amaris got in control that we caught our big break on that front. He was the one that made the forced technology transfer happen. Seems the Department of Communications was being difficult with Amaris, so he tapped us to develope a new communication sattelite for him. He even sent us a few examples that they had been working on. It only took us two years to redesign what they had been working on and make it actually something that could be used. Right before the SLDF swept the Thorin system of SDS, we had just conducted our first test of it. The special equipment to build the communication array had barely beat the SLDF into the system. We unloaded and hid the stuff instead of installing the machinery. Good thing too, for once the SLDF actually got around to liberating Thorin, they swept in and took every example we had of the project and went over our computer systems with a fine tooth comb before leaving." Amos Anderson replied
"Why would the SLDF be so interested by a communication satellite?" Gerald Mitchell asked
"Project QR 227 is not just some communication satellite, sir. It was ordered by Amaris himself. He wanted a secure way to communciate without the SLDF being able to listen in. It took us three years to remove the embedded code that allowed SLDF and Star League overrides into the system. It was a line by line search of millions of lines of code and then two more years to make the damned code work like it was supposed to once we loaded up the new encryption routines. The SLDF took everything they found connected to the project, but they did not find the special equipment we hid. We only worked with equipment shipped in fully functional from Terra itself and have not even tried to build our own with it. But I have it all, every piece of it." Amos Anderson replied
For the next two hours, Amos Anderson explained to Gerald Mitchell everything he knew about Project QR 227.
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