SotU Chpt 10

=Chapter 10=
==State of the Union==
Caddo City, New Dallas
Free Worlds League Space
9 January 3063
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It took the better part of two weeks to dig out the original entrance to the bunker. Twelve days of work and one day off in the middle as everyone piled back into the Glowworm with not even Peter determined enough to make them keep working under the conditions.
He was as sick of the smell and the heat as any of them.
Clovis Holstein didn't seem to mind any of that but that was because he was holed up in his shuttle with the computer core and a datalink up to the Bifrost. He was probably the only one though and he did have the benefit of being in a sealed environment.
In the meantime though, they could finally start emptying out the cache using prime movers and a road that wasn't in the best of shape to say the least.
"Say, Morgan."
Peter pulled the radio handset off the cab of the truck he was riding shotgun of. "This is Morgan."
Mael Colium didn't sound amused. "You know anything about another shuttle coming down here?"
"No, I don't. Is it the Bifrost's other shuttle?" He didn't find that likely - not unless something was badly wrong because if something did go wrong that shuttle was the crew's only way to leave the jumpship.
"No, I asked Captain Holstein and he says his crew still have theirs."
Peter bounced his head off the back of his seat - deliberately rather than incidentally as had been the case all too often on this route. "Then I guess we're going to have visitor. How big a shuttle is it? And how long do we have?"
"Not more than a few minutes and it looks like an ST-46 or similar, so worst case is a platoon of battle armor or maybe a couple of light tanks."
"Right now we have... what to defend ourselves?"
"Small arms." Colium said flatly. "Which is a loser's game anyway you cut it. How long until you get here?"
The truck rounded a corner and passed what had used to be the dropport gate. "About the same as the shuttle." He leant forwards and craned his neck. "I see it. Looks like it's landing on the runway. I'll see if some sweet reason won't deal with that."
"Sweet reason?" Colium laughed bitterly. "Better than guns we don't have. Good luck, Mr Morgan."
Beside Peter, Frye jerked the wheel, sending the truck off the route they'd cleared back to the Glowworm and towards the shuttle. "I hope you're a silver-tongued devil, Mr. Morgan."
"That makes two of us. Have you ever been shot at before?" he asked. She didn't look or sound like a soldier.
"Twice and neither time better armed than now. First when I was twelve and the Smoke Jaguars rolled over my home town and then when Prince Victor's troops rolled over the Smoke Jaguars."
Peter shook his head. "Well I hope this goes better for us than those two."
"I'm alive, aren't I?" she retorted to him
"Let's keep it that way."
Frye pulled the truck up as the shuttle touched down and they watched as it rolled down the runway towards the wrecked dropship, halting not far short of it. "Is that ComStar colors?" she asked.
Peter grimaced. "Their uglier cousins, Frye. The Word of Blake have arrived. Let's hope they're just selling copies of their holy texts." He checked his mask, hoping it would hide his face and climbed down out of the cab.
Ahead of him the shuttle began to turn around and the hatch on the side opened. Fortunately the man who exited it wasn't waring battle armor or any kind of combat gear. Instead, save for a mask much like Peter's he wore the robes of an Adept, not so very different from those seen at an HPG station under ComStar.
"Good day." the Adept called.
Peter took a sniff of the canned air in his mask. "As good as it gets around here, Adept. Welcome to New Dallas."
The man walked closer. "I believe that that's my line, Mr..."
''
"Morgan." Peter offered his hand. "You're welcoming me? I thought you'd just arrived."
"Here in Caddo City, yes." The man accepted and shook it briefly. "But New Dallas itself is another matter."
Camp... robes... Peter thought back to Catherine telling him about New Dallas. Was this what she'd meant. "Ah, you have an outpost here?"
''
"Exactly, good sir. I can't say we watch the skies very closely, it's primarily a prayer retreat, but when we picked up some side-scatter from your datalink we thought that we should investigate. After all, it wouldn't be the first time someone found themselves stranded jumping through an uninhabited system like this one."
"And like the good Samaritans that you are..."
"We do like to help those in need." the adept agreed. "I take it that you're not in distress."
"Not more than usual." Frye assured him cheerfully, having also dismounted from the truck.
The Adept took her in, all one hundred sixty centimeters of her wearing no more than she had to in the heat and took a deep breath. "That is pleasing to hear, Miss...?"
"I'm just Frye." she said cheerfully. "And you're..."
"Adept Coltrane," the man said after a moment. "I take it then that is a salvage operation?"
"Indeed." Peter thought a moment. "There's a bunker full right under the dome. We've got a fine example of what we've found back here. Come and take a look."
They went to the back and Peter opened the duct-taped hole they'd made in the covering of the 'Mech. "What you're looking at was probably the fastest 'Mech in the Inner Sphere when it was first fielded."
"Really?" The adept shook his head. "I have to be honest, I find that hard to believe."
"Well, that was back in 2443." Peter let a little of his smile show. "I dare say there may have been just a little bit of wear and tear over the last six hundred years."
"Do you know, I think you may be right. Is this junk... I mean, museum piece, really worth the time to haul it away?"
"Museum is right." Peter agreed. "And for any they don't it's still hundreds of tons of high value material as scrap."
"And then there's the core," Frye added.
Right in that moment, Peter could have punched her.
"A core, you don't mean like Helm?" The adept's eyes were wide.
"Something like that, but not as new."
"Yeah. It's been locked up since back before the Star League, but it should have all the information needed to rebuild these old 'Mechs good as new," Peter offered. "As well as a good number of other designs of someone wants to see what their own states were building at the same time."
"Well I wouldn't have thought that that would be worth all that much," the Adept admitted, "But it seems as if you've figured out how to make a profit off a find that most would have written off."
"I'd like to think I'm shrewd businessman." Peter assured him. "I'd offer you hospitality but this is kind of a working camp."
"Oh, we're all in favor of hard work." Coltrane cracked his knuckles. "Prayer is enhanced by some good old sweat in my experience. You won't offend me by that."
"Then why don't we give you a little tour." he offered the adept. With a bit of luck, Catherine would be out of sight and Coltrane wouldn't investigate Holstein's shuttle. The dwarf was even more distinctive than Peter's sister.
Two jumps to Terra, he thought. Or coming the other way. It's a safe bet that there's a working HPG here on New Dallas. Let's hope that they don't have anyone closer because the chances are mighty slim that the Word of Blake will be inclined to believe that the core and the 'Mechs are scrap.
That means we have two weeks, give or take, to finish loading and get out of here.
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