Chapter Thirty-Five: Achievement unlocked…
Tybalt, Federated Suns May 5th, 3007
"You want to work for us?" I asked the redhead sitting in front of me. "You've already got a decent paycheck with the Dragoons, why come work for us?" I paused. "We don't really do things the way the rest of the Inner Sphere does."
"I know," She replied. "I just want to get a glimpse of what a smaller company might look like." She then smirked at me. "And, it's not every day you watch a Warhammer drop an Atlas."
"Alright, you're hired provisionally," I said. "We'll put you through our basic after we get to a different world and settle down for a bit." I stood up from my desk and shook her hand.
"See you Colonel." She said, and glided away.
I just facepalmed after my door slid shut. "Why does this keep happening to me?" I asked Sheppard who was seated next to me in his wheelchair.
Sheppard had just grabbed his 'Noteputer 'and started hitting it against his forehead again and again. "He's an idiot Jack. But he's our idiot." He kept repeating until I snapped him out of it.
"You with us Jack?" I asked, making sure that his injuries weren't flaring up.
"Huh?" He stopped and realized what he was doing. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Alright then," I said. "We've got to meet up WIth Dunham and Frye along with our gear. I'm planning on sending Jewel and Paige with the Overlords to get them repaired before we head over towards the periphery."
"Sounds good." He responded. "Where we going to set up shop in the meantime?"
"I was thinking a return to Pierce was in order." I responded. "They should be fine with us renting out some facilities to use as a base camp temporarily."
"You talked it over with the First Prince right?" Sheppard asked. "Yes, I discussed some R&R while he got our bonus ready. Pierce is a bit far, but a lot of our vets are from there and they'll enjoy the visit.
May 20th, 3007.
We were finally lifting off of this misbegotten rock. Lieutenant Dunham and the refitted DroST's along with the Argo had arrived in system around five days ago. Captain Jewel and her team had gotten the Overlord and one of the messed up Unions capable of holding atmosphere and at the minimum making the jump to New Avalon.
The plan was to have the DrOST's transfer over to our Leviathans, while the Overlords took the King Henry V to the New Avalon Shipyards in order to get them fixed up. Jewel was going to head up that mission while the rest of us began the long journey towards Pierce.
Before I boarded the Messenger though, Prince Ian Davion grabbed me by the shoulder. "New Avalon for Christmas next year," he told me. "Don't be late."
He left me with those words as we burned for orbit.
May 29th, 3007.
We docked with the Whirlwind at the same time the Argo did. Allowing us to transfer the wounded over to the advanced facilities on board the Argo. We had also transferred the bodies of our fallen brothers and sisters to the Cargo holds. I had written personalized letters to each of their families, and would be sending a part of the bonus that the Davions had given us to each of the fallen's families.
"Get well soon." I told the wounded senior staff as they were taken over to the Argo. Sheppard just flipped me off, while the rest of them responded with affirmatives.
Currently, I had a lot of XO's filling in spots that normally the senior level staff were on and once we had charged the K-F Drives, we would be splitting up. The Leviathan with the Argo, the Unions, the Triumph, and Both Buccaneers along with one Leopard and one Leopard CV. We weren't taking chances on the Capellans taking a shot at us.
While Sheppard and most of the newer veterans were going to Pierce to set up a temporary training camp, I was taking the other Leviathan and the rest of the dropships and heading for where I had left the Manassas. It was time to go Lostech prospecting.
Location: Classified, somewhere on the Taurian Concordat and Davion border. Date: October 31st, 3007
All of the company I had brought with me watched with bated breath from their dropships as the depot's bay doors slid open to reveal the two Warhips inside. The senior staff and other people entrusted with the info had believed me, but seeing it was a whole different ball game.
"Now that is a ship." Lieutenant Packer observed, he was currently serving as my temporary XO.
"She's beautiful ain't she." I responded. "Take us in slow to the docking bays. We're gonna have a lot of work cut out for us on getting the advanced stuff off of the Confederates.
The pilots of the various Dropships. (the Bittersweet, Puma, and Messenger) eased us in and docked fluidly. When we were docked and the bay doors shut down, I sent the SLIC codes to repressurize the bay. Once everything was set, we all left the various ships in order to get to work.
Personal Journal: November 5th, 3007
I had almost forgotten what the massive Warships looked like until I saw them again. As soon as we had docked, we began to work. Maneuvering the Confederate Dropships off of the Manasses one at a time in order to unload the cargo stored on each one while also gettin the Unions off of the Age of Discovery in order to transfer everything over. Thankfully, we were able to fit everything from the Confederates, and a good chunk of the spare parts from the Manasses. (Freezers, Endo-Steel, Ferro Fibrous, ER weapons and Gauss Rifles, the Manasses had a lot of these things on it.) I also made copies of the Manufacturing core that the Manasses had to take with us and all of the scientific journals, the research that I had done everything that we could. The Age of Discovery still had some things I had apparently missed in its cargo bays, including enough Freezers to outfit an entire regiment of Assault mechs. Anyway, our next stop would be Pierce in order to unload everything we had stripped from this depot. And then we would hit a couple of the others that I had the coordinates for. Even if it was just spare parts, it would be worth it…
Authors note: I'm on a roll today if you couldn't tell