Star League Base Beta 25,

Drop Zone Alpha,

Einstein, Deep Periphery,

3^rd March 3068

 

The mercs’ first impression of the structure’s interior was a dim, dank building punctured by beams of light in some places where sunlight streamed in through holes in the walls. It was once obviously a well maintained, high-technology entry station, as could be evidenced by the cracked electronics on the walls and the broken cameras and shattered auto-turrets scattered all over the place. There were quite a few human bones left behind, since the Spidercrabs kept out any animals that might have taken them.

The place was quite large, almost the size of half a football field. There was a main reception lobby, a guardroom, and several general-purpose rooms with dusty couches and dusty chairs. The furniture was all broken or damaged in some way. Obviously, there had been some vicious fighting going on. Frank thought, who was fighting what?

The ragtag groups of mercenaries slowly explored their immediate surroundings, being sure to aim at any movement that did not belong to their team. Sure enough, there were anxious moments when one group bumped into another. Things often straightened out quickly, and they went on their way.

It didn’t take them long to find two staircases leading down, presumably to where the labs are. A lift was found as well, but without a power source to operate it, it was unusable. The mercs gathered in the reception lobby to discuss their options.

“Okay, we have three ways of getting to the next level down, wherever that is.” Captain Jadine Sheik was, not surprisingly, the first to speak out and take charge of the situation. “I think the base defenses have all been destroyed, but we can’t afford to make that assumption. There could still be more Spidercrabs waiting for us down there, as well as who knows what else they had been cooking in their labs.”

Most of the mercs had agreed that the killer machine drones were a result of an experiment gone wrong. After examining the remains of the drones, however, Frank, as well as the techs all discovered that the components were far too advanced for the Inner Sphere’s present level of miniaturization. Not to say that the Star League could not have done it, but they just could not believe that the Star League had this sort of technology available but did not employ it in the war against Amaris.

“But what are our objectives here?” Frank asked. “I mean, looking for artifacts and lostech is fine, but shouldn’t we look for a way to activate the base power so that we don’t have to scurry around with our lights? It’s also much easier to see what’s going around in case we get into a fight. I think the computers may have valuable technical data that we can sell, so that’s another reason for finding the power switch, since they need electricity to run.”

“Good idea, but how are we going to find the power switch, circuit or whatsoever? I dunno why, but maps seem to be in short supply here. I guess that paper maps have a habit of being rotted away in three hundred years,” a tanker commented.

Captain Sheik replied, “I guess we’ll know when we come across it, won’t we? Just keep your eyes open, and don’t mess around with stuff if you don’t understand them. If you find anything that looks like a power switch, you just radio the rest of us so that we can get someone who deals with fusion engines to you that is, if you don’t have one.”

 

In the end, it was decided that a group would use the lift cables to rappel down. Assuming that any defenses in the lift shaft had been deactivated, destroyed or expended, it should be a simple matter to get to the next level.

For the staircases, two teams had also been assigned to take each staircase. They would advance slowly, watching out for any remaining automated defenses, as well as more Spidercrabs. The remaining two groups would remain at the reception lobby, to reinforce the other groups should they encounter opposition or cover their retreat if necessary.

The primary objective of all the teams would be to restore power to the base, either by activating the base fusion reactor, or the auxiliary diesel generator, provided that the fuel had not completely evaporated in the past three hundred years. Once this had been done, they would discuss over radio their next move.

Frank’s team had been assigned to one of the staircases. Loaded down with equipment, it was an exhausting trek down the endless flight of stairs. After about a hundred flights without an exit, they were so tired and hungry that they decided to have a quick meal and a short nap before continuing. Judging by the transmissions from the other teams, they were not doing much better either. The other staircase team had also stopped for a breather, while the lift team had been held up by the lift blocking the way. They were currently cutting their way through, and resting at the same time. Treasure hunting, it seemed, was a tiring task.

At least we don’t have to fight dragons, Frank thought as he bit off a portion of his ration bar.

But the Spidercrabs had been bad enough, and he really hated to think of what else might be lying in wait for them at the next level.

The other members of his group were either sprawled out on the stairs taking a quick nap, or wolfing down their food. Everyone was drenched in sweat, and panting heavily. They were in no condition for a fight, and Frank worried about how they were going to get back up later if anything went wrong.

After about an hour, they got on their way again. All of them prayed that they would reach the base level soon. The joke was soon running around that if the Spidercrabs did not get them, the stairs will!

Thankfully, they finally reached an exit door after another thirty flights. By this time, their batteries were already at less than half power, making the resumption of power throughout the base an absolute priority. Nobody wanted to try to go back up in total darkness, up a hundred and thirty flights of stairs!

The door was locked, and it took a bit of skill with a wire by the team’s technician to open it. Grasping their weapons tightly, the mercs slowly opened the door.

It was pitch black past the door, and a heavy musk smell was everywhere. The mercs inched their way past the door, being careful to illuminate the immediate area around the door to check for dangers.

Thankfully, there was none. They saw a typical office workplace, but little else. Moving past the door, the mercs tried to decide how to go about restoring power.

“There must be some self powered console that can tell us what we need to know. Bases usually have a few redundant systems that provide backup or information in case of accidents or mishaps.” The Raider tech, Denilson, was proving to be an indispensable source of information.

Frank called out, “Alright, everybody, fan out and start looking for anything that’s a map, a manual or a console. I highly doubt we’ll find the fusion engine easily, so we’ll just do this step by step.”

The area they were in was obviously a lab, with numerous desks piled with mounds of rotted pulp. Smashed computer screens were also everywhere, as well as scattered bones all over the place, testifying to the violence that had been visited upon the underground base. Weapons were also found, mostly around the bones. The mercs picked up some of these weapons. The weapons may be lostech, and valuable. There was not even rust on the weapons, which Frank found a bit strange.

The empty shells of Spidercrabs were also all over the place, reminding the mercs of possible danger, which suited Frank just fine. He had more than enough memories of the vicious machines to last a lifetime.

Clearing the desks of their contents, the mercs searched for the information they needed. Drawers, shelves, and cabinets were opened, their insides examined.

Meanwhile, Frank and Denilson decided to take another tack. Finding an undamaged computer station, they proceeded to try to restore power to it using their own batteries. Isolating it from the rest of the system, to prevent power leakage, they had managed to boot up the system on that one station. Denilson shifted through the files for the information they needed. Maybe they could find some reference to the power supply.

“Hey hurry up, I don’t think the batteries are going to last much longer!” An anxious Frank called out to his teammate.

“Hmmm, there’s a list of base personnel here. I’ll check out the names of the fusion engineers. Ah hah! Here are two names. Lila Nedved and Edward Caruthers. If anything bout the reactors are to be found, it must be in their workstations!”

“Let’s go look for their stations then.” Frank agreed, disconnecting the batteries from the computer.

“Hey, people!” Frank shouted to his team. “Look for the computers of these two people! Lila Nedved, and Edward Caruthers! They’re the engineers in charge of the fusion engines. They should have info on how to start them up in their computer files!”

“I’ve already come across a desk with the name Edward Caruthers on an engraved metal plate! Come on, it’s over here!” A dragoon warrior called Kety replied.

As the team gathered around the desk, Frank and Denilson hooked up their batteries to the computer, which was thankfully intact, and proceeded to access the information within.

Only to come up against several layers of password protected security and firewalls.

“Damn! This is not going to be easy! I’m afraid I’m not very good at this. I can’t break through! Anyone here good at computers?” Denilson asked.

The mercs looked at one another. Obviously nobody has been trained to tackle computer security, since nobody replied.

Luckily for them, Kety knew someone who was.

“There’s a Dragoon tech in Captain Sheik’s team who knows how to break computer systems. She was the one who played all those prank jokes when we were in space. Her name’s Pamela. Let’s get her over here so that we can get the info we need,” he said.

Somebody yelled out, “But how are they going to get here? Heck, we even have difficulty finding our way back to the stairway!”

At that, there was suddenly an explosion from a corner of the room. Two doors were flung away as the mercs dove to the ground.

Holding their weapons at the ready, the mercs anxiously waited to see the culprits.

As images emerged from the smoke and resolved themselves into human shapes, Frank’s team belatedly realized that the doors that had been blown apart were the lift doors.

The team rappelling down the lift shaft had arrived.

And quite conveniently too, as Pamela was with them. It took Frank’s team only moments to explain the situation to the newly arrived members of Captain Sheik’s group. Pamela did not waste any time in cracking the security.

“Wow, the security here is really tough. It’s going to take a while, and more batteries. I can do it. You guys will just have to wait.” Pamela was getting excited at the challenge of breaking into a star league system.

“Hey, don’t you feel uncomfortable here? It’s getting a bit stifling.” A merc commented as they waited for the information.

“That’s due to the lack of ventilation. The air vents and fans are all not working, so the stale air stays down here and doesn’t get flushed out. Another reason for us to restore the power.” Frank replied. “We’ll suffocate in here if we don’t get the fans running soon.”

After a nerve wracking thirty minutes, in which their battery supply run dangerously low, Pamela finally managed to get the information they needed. A detailed map of the facility was also found, which they hastily hand copied onto some spare paper Frank carried.

With the information now in their possession, the mercs quickly followed the instructions stated to activate the fusion reactors, splitting up to speed up the process.

The cooling pumps were activated first using a backup generator. Then the magnetic coils were set to control the fusion process.

After that, it was a simple matter of pressing a switch in the main power control room to activate the fusion engine, which was left to Frank’s group.

As Frank stepped over a destroyed turret, and past the broken security doors leading to the station, he could see that fierce fighting had occurred here. As his group entered the station itself proper, he could recognize the signs of a final stand by the base defenders against their enemies. A skeleton lay near the shutdown switch. Evidently, the base personnel shut down the engine and its relevant subsystems just before they died.

They must not have wanted the base and its secrets to be revealed, Frank reasoned. But if that was so, why didn’t they just blow the whole place up by letting the reactor go critical?

Flicking open the button cover, Frank uttered a small prayer before pressing the power button firmly with his finger.

The lights came on immediately, and the whirl of fans starting up could be heard, as the base came to life after a hiatus of three hundred years.

Thankfully, none of the base defenses gave the mercs any trouble, since the base attackers had apparently destroyed all of them.

The mercs wasted no time in pulling out every drawer from the desks, hunting for advanced technology. They avoided the labs like the plague, fearing what they might find.

Frank took a different tack, as usual, entering the laboratories instead to look for lostech. He also had a hunch that things are not as they seemed on this world.

Meanwhile, the lift, operational but with holes in its floor and the ceiling, was patched up by welding some metal plates onto the affected areas. It was then sent up to the entrance floor to fetch the other two teams, and the other mercs, down to the basement labs.

After sauntering through the labs, looking at the equipment, Frank had finally decided to sit down at a computer terminal in the lab and see what exactly the Star League researchers had been doing. The security protocols throughout the base had just been disabled by Pamela, so accessing the data was no trouble at all for Frank.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when he ran through the information databse.

 

“Where’s Frank?” Captain Vansen asked when he stepped off the lift.

Kety had a huge grin on his face as he said, “He strolled off into the labs, sir. The boys have found some great equipment lying around. We’re going to be stinking rich when we get back to the Inner Sphere!”

“If we get back.” Frank suddenly butted in, as he walked up to his commanding officer. “And for your information, the lightning gun is not lostech. It’s technology discovered by the star league. And what we’re here for is actually this new technology, not these star league era weapons. Captain, can I talk to you and Captain Sheik in private? It’s very important.”

Looking carefully at Frank, John Vansen noticed that Frank was wearing a shocked look, as if he had just seen a ghost. He did not miss the emphasis Frank placed on the word ‘discover’ either.

“Sure. Let’s get Jadine, and then you’ll tell us what’s so important.”

Ten minutes later, they were in a small office that once belonged to the commander of the base. The mercs had already scoured the office for all and any lostech technology, and had come away with several antiques. There remained an engraving on the wall, with the words “On the shoulder of giants”.

Words once uttered by Issac Newton. Fitting words for this base. Frank thought as he looked at the engraving.

“Alright, what are you going to tell us that is so secretive that you have to do this in private?” Jadine asked.

It took Frank a while to answer the question, as he gathered his thoughts. “When we were first told about this place, it was described as an abandoned star league installation out in the deep periphery. And with advanced technology research going on. We were shown weapons that we had never seen before, that seemed impossible to make with our present level of technology.”

“So we came here, to this world, to seek out these technologies and weapons, to make a fortune by selling them to the highest bidder. But we never stopped to ask, why here? On this world, not some other desolate rock where there’s no atmosphere, harsh weather, or some such? Such a garden paradise, which I’m sure you’ll agree, will attract anybody to set foot on it, which will put the bases at risk of discovery. Also, why so many bases, all over the planet?”

Reports had just come in to the mercs off the Nile, that at least five other groups had encountered Spidercrabs, and discovering similar bases after beating the drones off.

“Wouldn’t it be better simply to put the bases all in one place, where it’s easier to defend and coordinate research? There were so many things we never bothered to think about, that we took them for granted and made assumptions. When we landed, you know I took samples of the local air and soil. I did tell you that there weren’t any dangerous infectious agents here, but there’s also something I’ve found which I did not tell you at the time because I wasn’t sure what they were.”

“What I found were tiny particles that were neither virus nor bacteria. I didn’t know what to make of them at the time so I did not mention it. But apparently the scientists here knew what they were. What I found were nanomachines. Imagine tiny machines operating on a cellular, or even molecular level, and you get the idea. These machines were fixing the nutrients in the soil, leeching harmful chemicals and breaking them down, and killing any organism that seemed to be harmful to people. This paradise was a direct result of the nanomachines engineering the environment. Also, when I went through the medical reports, not a single person got sick due to an infectious agent.”

“So you’re telling us that everything we see on this world was created by the Star League?” Captain Vansen asked, incredulous.

“Nope. I didn’t say that.” Frank shook his head. “The Star League did not create the nanomachines, though the scientists found a way to control them after they were discovered very early on. They didn’t invent the technology behind the lightning gun either. Someone else got the idea first, and they just copied it.”

“Then where did the technology come from? The Rim Worlds Republic?”

“Oh, all the technology came from this world alright, though not in the way you would expect. This wasn’t just a research station. It was an archeological base as well.”

At their uncomprehending looks, Frank finally threw down his bombshell.

“They were uncovering alien, as in non-human, artifacts on this world.”