Chapter Eighty-Nine: A(Nother) Roll of the Dice
New Dallas, November 16th, 3018
"You shut down those satellites right?" Mathis asked Dunham, "Because I'm pretty sure those were supposed to alert Comstar or somebody else that people entered the system. "
"I got em, you would think Comstar has picked up on the fact that we have backdoors into their systems now, but no. "Dunham replied. "Rook took care of it, he's still our best tech specialist, and so he's coming with us down to the planet."
"Sensors are showing that it's mainly uninhabitable." Dunham said as he checked in with the bridge crew of the Age of Discovery, "But with Mithril, and a lot of oxygen refills and filters we should be fine."
"Remember though," Mathis said. "We should probably start with the capital city complex, I bet if there's anything, it'll be there."
"Makes as good sense as anything I guess." Dunham replied. "We'll need to maintain careful seals though, it's still pretty irradiated down there, my guess is The Free Worlds League used dirty nukes to make sure everything was glassed and unusable."
"We brought the scanning equipment and everyone who was available from the Interstellar Expeditions gig from years back." Mathis said with a shrug, "While no Jenkins or Mendoza, if anyone can help find a hidden computer and stash, it'll be these guys."
"Too bad David wasn't available to help us out given his luck of late." Dunham chuckled.
"I know right, and here I thought it was his father with the luck." Mathis joined in with a booming laugh. "Don't tell Mark, but I laughed hysterically under my armor when I saw him sitting down having fallen into a hole."
"I won't tell him," Dunham replied. "But I bet he'll figure it out anyway."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to make it easy for him."
November 20th, 3018
"Nothing but an old Mackie here." Mathis reported as he gestured to his scanner team to pick up their gear. "Looks like it needs a new engine, but might be salvageable."
"Mark it for pickup later, I want to find the computer core if it exists first." Dunham replied from the Dropship that he was coordinating things in. "Next location is navpoint beta, see if there's anything there and move on to Gamma for me."
"Think this one is a dud Dunham?" Mathis asked on an encrypted channel. "We've been here for days and haven't found anything."
"We were at the Taurus plant for a couple of weeks before we found anything there." Dunham reminded him. "Besides, we've found enough small salvage it could almost be called a success."
"Two lance's of 'mechs in need of repairs are not exactly what I would call a success Dunham." Mathis replied sourly. "But we'll maintain our current pace until it's time to pull out."
"Pack it up people." Mathis told his crew after swapping to that specific channel. "We've got three more nav points to scan before we head in for ruck time."
"Yes sir." They responded and began to pack everything up onto the trucks they had brought, thankfully their equipment was decently portable and did its job well enough that no one was upset that it was taking a long time to go through everything on this archaeological dig.
"Sir, the next location looks like one of the original dome habitats that the Terran Hegemony set up when they were terraforming the planet." One of the scanning team members observed, "Might be in there sir, you never know with the Hegemony or star league."
"Good point," Mathis told him, "I'll let Dunham know we're going to be doing a much more comprehensive scan here."
November 22nd, 3018
"Hey Dunham," Mathis commed. "We've got sealed doors here, and what appears to be a bunch of old wrecks or something on our scanners. Wanna come take a look at it, see if you can get it open with Rook's help?"
"We're heading your way anyway." Dunham said, we're about thirty mikes out though, so see if you can get some generators hooked up to the doors for us so when we get there it'll make it easier on Rook."
"We'll get right on it." Mathis replied, and he turned his external speakers on. "You and you, get those generators off of the trucks and hook them up to the doors, I want them powered up and ready for whatever techno wizardry that Rook and Dunham are able to cook up."
"Yes sir." They responded and got moving. Mathis himself went and grabbed a generator and heaved it up onto his shoulder, carrying it and gently setting it down wherever the engineers told him to. From there, he began supervising and assisting where he saw he was needed until the hovercraft with Rook and Dunham pulled up.
"That's a pretty big set of doors." Rook said as he stepped out of the hovercraft. "Let's see if I can get them open." He cracked his knuckles and neck and walked over to the keypad and lone computer blocking access that Mathis and Dunham had found.
"Oh," Mathis said as he synced his 'Noteputer up to it. "Mathis, I'm glad you called me over, because this thing would have self destructed and taken you with it if you had tried to open it without some of the codes that Dunham and I have."
"But, with the correct access codes that the SLIC and HCID left behind…" Rook trailed off. "We can just have it open for us."
The doors squealed open slowly and the ground shook a bit from how large they were. The Terran Hegemony and Star League didn't do anything small after all.
Hours later…
"Well, look what we have here." Rook smiled to himself as he unpacked a bunch of spare computer cores. "Looks like we just hit the mother lode."
"That's a good thing to hear." Dunham replied. "Mathis is finishing up the inventory of what we ended up finding down here."
"What's the word on the salvage?" Rook asked curiously. "Anything good?"
"Well, we got about two battalions of Age of War Era Mackies, Sarissas, and a bunch of combat vehicles too. We've got a metric ton of Ballista Artillery pieces and Merkava Mk. VII tanks. Think they can do anything with em?"
"I think we can put them to use if we bring them up to modern standards." Dunham said. "And it's not like we haven't fielded the Balista before."
"Fair enough." Rook replied. "Were those DroST's in there able to be moved or not?"
"They're the old original IIb's." Dunham responded. "There's about ten of them there, and the techs say they should be able to fly."
"So ten more Stings to add to our forces in a year or so?" Rook asked.
"Looks like." Dunham agreed. "How goes copying the core?"
"I've made three copies so far, and I'm working on a fourth now." Rook shrugged in return. "It's an older operating system and takes a bit longer to make copies than more modern systems."
"Can you see if there's a way to open the top of the dome?" Dunham asked. "It'll make it easier on us when it's time to get the dropships out of here."
"Sure thing." Rook replied. "I'm kinda at the waiting part of this anyway."
Carver V, November 10th, 3018
"We don't want to fight you," Colonel Stone told the CO of the Stewart regiment that was burning in. "We've just completed a raid and are leaving."
"We don't care." You're taking something that would rightfully belong to us after we subjugated this world." The Co of the Stewart regiment responded. "Now surrender, or prepare for combat."
Authors note: Mathis and Dunham rolled a 15 for the loot rolls. So pretty decent findings. If a bit dated.