Chapter 26
A True Beginning
HEL-293
2nd April, 3025
The Aurigan Coalition was reborn and, off to a shaky start. Lady Kamea had secured her powerbase and begun gathering her resources to her breast as I took the Legacy and sent my fleet to Artru to begin packing everything of value from Castle Nautilus. That could be managed before our return. The plan to give the world back to Kamea if this went well was high on the plate. Mandalas would be where the true beginning would be.
As the lights went down Ostergaard came in looking weary. He'd had a hard time since the events on Coromodir, but seemed to be recovering, even if his only sleep came from the bottom of a bottle. He couldn't pilot the Styrix anymore, and the medicaes said he'd developed a pathological fear of the machine. Terrified it'd drive him into true insanity. "Does this really happen after every jump?" He asked looking out of the viewport before heading over to it.
"So far yes, we don't have the expertise needed to figure out how to get around it." I said staring at Miranda until the lights came back online one after another. "Let's get to the bridge." I said and got up heading for the door. Glitch turned up in time to throw an arm over Ostergaard. She'd formed an almost maternal attitude towards the ex-Commodore keeping him from eating a laspistol.
The walk went quietly as Trotter joined us, we were all curious to see what we would find here. And on entering the bridge, I felt a deep sense of awe. Though it was a thousand or more kilometres away I could see it. Silhouetted against the backdrop of a red dwarf star. "Augury, what do you have."
"Unknown. The system locked me out. It says it required a Cameron Bloodline release authority." The officer said as he failed to look up.
"Wait here guys. I'll see about this." I said turning to the flight decks officer. "Prepare a shuttle for us. That fancy Aquila would be great."
"Yes sir."
Heading into the operation stateroom I went to the cogitator and pressed my thumb to the ident-scanner, the jab of a needle and the cogitator whirred and came to life. A full-sized hologram of my Uncle dominated the room.
<"My boy. I know i've cared for you like my own son since your father's passing, and if you've received this message then you returned to us and my mission was not all in vain. There is only one place you could have received the co-ordinates the ships cogitators report you as having jumped to. Which means you've learned the truth of our families legacy. The failed Star League."> Holograms projected themselves, footage i'd never seen.
<"The people of the Legacy were never entrusted with this secret. It was too important. You're in the system most maps called HEL-293. The system where a prototype Yardship made its way after the evacuation of Castle Nautilus in the wake of Amaris' treason. It is a Universe Class Mass Conveyor. And our ancestors have been working on it since our exile. The last Invader class we had was used to carry out this work before I sent my work with you for the Inner Sphere.">
A hologram of the ship hovered in front of his hologram and I felt my breath catch.
<"The people on board were sent a message to go into rota-suspension. I can't leave you without the support you need, and I only wish I could have installed such a system on the Legacy to prevent its failure. But we couldn't jump away and leave you without an ability to locate it."> He shook himself as if distracted. <"Boy, this ship is beyond anything that the Inner Sphere could ever hope for, even a Newgrange couldn't do a hundredth of what the Forgeworld can. Salvage, Gas Giant Mining, Asteroid Mining, Shipyard operations and much more. It is where the Rejuvenat project was stored and produced.">
My blood raced. This is where Rejuvenat was made....
<"It is not as well protected as the Legacy, though it has more overt weapons, the slow speed and poor agility make it a terrible combatant. As such, my first order was the construction of three escort ships. To 'Guardian' class Destroyers and one Watchman class Destroyer. By now at least one of them should have been completed. Kane.">
My uncle paused. As if wondering what to say.
<"Kane, over half a million of our people are aboard it. The best and brightest of Lathe. Please, protect them."> The image faded off-screen and the machine spirit brought up the words. +Cogitator Interlocks Released.+
Leaving the state room I headed for the bulkhead doors at the rear of the bridge. "You lot. With me. Captain, if you can hold position. I have to go. The Legacy will remain here."
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Behemoth.
Excitement fluttered in my belly as we accelerated, Kane had taken direct control of the Aquila, vowing to conduct this flight himself, having been practicing for a long while now to fly it, more for personal pleasure than any major need. The Aquila was a gorgeous shuttle, and fitted out with the height of luxury. A viewing dome was fairly large, and in the main bay a number of screens were black at the moment, and we closed on the mystery ship. I could hear Kane on the vox as I listened in.
"This is Duke Kane Giordino to the Forgeworld," What was the forgeworld? Was that the name of the ship? "I am on approach, requesting co-ordinates for a landing bay as well as permission for flyover."
There was no answer for some minutes as the vessel steadily grew in size before Kane repeated his message. Then something changed. Beginning at it's prow, lights began to snap on, one after another, after another, sweeping back in a wall of activating lights.
"This is Captain Musky of the LWN Forgeworld. I have detected your approach. Know that you are within range of our defence grid, permission is cautiously given for flyover and landing at the following bay. Know that we are prepared to defend ourselves." The voice came over the Vox was a womans, "We acknowledge your claim, but will verify once you are aboard."
"Acknowledged Forgeworld." Kane said and I sensed the tension as we approached. But a sense of terror fluttered in my heart as we approached, I had thought it was a vessel like the Legacy. But it kept getting larger, far far larger, what I had thought were mere transmission towers, sensorium masts and other paraphernalia began to resolve into veritable skyscrapers. A city rested on the back of this giant and Kane brought us down closer than I was entirely comfortable with. Turning in the cupola viewing bay I actually saw people now and again in the towers, one that had to have been a child waving at us as we flew by with such happiness I actually awwed out loud.
"Gods nuts... what the fuck is this monster!" I heard Ostergaard say as we passed over a massive agricultural dome within which actual farmland and hydroponics were visible as well as a genuine forest.
"I don't know...." Glitch answered, "But its... I thought that the Legacy was the biggest ship in the universe, but this thing dwarfs it."
Trotter was moving around. "Look at this, it's armed but this is no warship, those look like asteroid mining equipment, gas giant harvesters, salvage equipment, and those piers are ... this is a Yardship." There was silence below, but the assessment caused me to look at it differently, and notice the hulls in the grip of the Yardships arms. A wave of sickness gripped me as Kane rolled us over the hull towards a cavernous cargo door opening.
The interior was beyond vast. And as the door closed behind us hurricane force winds assaulted the shuttle as the bay was pressurized and Kane fought the winds before setting down on the deck near one of the doors. Men filed in carrying Hellguns and surrounded the ship as Kane extended his ladder and dropped the personnel bay to let us out. I climbed down the ladder and stepped out with the others.
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The cargo hold was vast. And the security team was thorough as we all gathered together. Finally a medicae stepped forwards with a woman in a Lathe Navy uniform. "Will the man who claims to be Kane Giord..." She pointed, "Him." The medicae stepped forwards with a diagnosticator and jabbed me with the needle.
"You must be Captain Musky," I said stepping forwards as a muttering passed through the group.
"The bloodline is true." The Medicae said heading for the door they had come from.
The captain dropped to her knees and was weeping. "Oh thank the gods... we weren't forgotten." She removed a Vox from her pocket. "Begin thawing the full crew and passenger complements. Kane lives!"
"KANE LIVES!" The troopers roared and a cold chill ran through my bones.
"If you will take us to the bridge, and give me an appraisal of the ship, its status, equipment, supplies et cetera." I said encouraging the Captain to get up off her knees.
"If you will follow me." She said and headed for the door. Following her we could not help but watch in awe as we passed a vaulted hall as an asteroid was drawn up and into the hull. "Once we received your transmission I ordered us brought out of a hibernation cycle and to recommence work immediately. The escort ships your Uncle ordered are complete, and we're training up about fifty thousand of us to man them."
"Fifty thousand!" Ostergaard said as he watched as massive lascutters began to section the asteroid.
"The Guardian's need a crew of sixteen thousand five hundred. Pure gunboats. With a Ryza pattern Plasma battery and Sunsear laser battery. Capable of about seven point six gees acceleration, equipped with advanced stealth, CIWS, countermeasures and jamming systems. Project name was Iconoclast." She said as we climbed into a transit cab. "They are extremely good at what they do."
She sat down, "The Watchman, Project name Cobra, has a flat crew of fifteen thousand with arguably heavier close in defences than the Guardians, but these were additional systems. The project Iconoclast had a high baseline defence. But the Watchman is built as a ship-killed. It doesn't have the same jamming systems that the Guardian does, but it does possess the graviton flare as well as a Ryza Plasma Battery and Plasma Accelerated Torpedo Tubes. It is marginally faster than the Guardian, and is capable of better turns."
Ostergaard looked worried. "Why the massive crews?"
"These ships, they mass far more than the old vessels we used to use. The old Invader that his Uncle used to use for operations with us massed only a hundred and fifty thousand tons approximately. The Watchman weighs five point seven million tons, and the Guardian six point one. About forty times the mass of an Invader." She said by way of explanation.
"But an Invader has a crew of 42. You've got over three hundred and fifty times the crew, not forty." Ostergaard said disbelieving.
"Correct. Each ship has ten times the crew estimated to be required to run them at a skeleton level. But the technology on these ships is labour intensive. The Watchman with it's fifteen thousand is..." She took out a datapad. "Two thousand five hundred engineers. Eight thousand ratings. Two thousand security personnel. Two thousand weapon specialists and five hundred officers. At skeleton crew, that'd be 250 engineers, 800 ratings, 200 security and weapon specialists with 50 officers." She smiled, "If that impresses you, this ship has a crew of sixty thousand and half a million passengers."
Ostergaard went pale.
"Ok Captain, what is this ship equipped with?" I asked cutting off Ostergaard.
"Ah..." she said as if not sure where to begin, "You might have noticed the Arboretum Dome as you approached, as you might guess it's not adequate to supply everyone on board. Not even close, but the Forgeworld has suspension chambers, nobody really likes them very much, but they accept the necessity of them. You've seen the Asteroid mining bay," She said calling up specifics on her datapad, "There is also cloudmining facilities, salvage systems, the spacedock piers naturally, a Labratorium, Medicae Deck and Pharmacia," She paused there, "they're where your Uncle had his people develop the Rejuvenat treatment, we still have the facilities for that naturally."
She called up the next page. "There are other advanced systems on board, auxiliary plasma banks, a teleportarium and cogitator interlink and that's without mentioning the cargo holds. Defensively, her turrets aren't nearly good enough for her size, it's why your uncle ordered the escorts built. But offensively, she has some Las-Burners on the spin, and a couple Laser batteries in her flanks. But she really isn't made for defense. If anyone catches her, she'll be depending on escorts to keep her alive."
"No manufactorum facilities?" I asked leaning back.
"No sir. The Legacy was intended to fill that role."
"Not good enough. We're going to be returning to Artru to retrieve as much as remains of Castle Nautilus, including moving the Machine Spirit and STC into one of the cargo bays. As well as the generatorium powering the Castle, I'd wager you're at the edge of Generatorium capacity already."
"Yes sir. It's not so bad but we restrain ourselves from powering systems not currently in operation. The Labratorium, Cloudmining Facilities and Salvage systems are all in a powered down state at the moment for that very reason."
I nodded, there was no reason to waste power on facilities not being used.
"Sir.. Duke Giordino... do you have somewhere for us to go... we received a transmission saying they'd gone Nuclear on Lathe, and this ship can't support half a million people forever once they're taken out of suspension." She sounded worried.
"How many of them are trained soldiers?"
"Not many, two percent maybe. But most of them are..." I put a hand on her shoulder, she sounded truly worried.
"That's ok. I have a world I plan to secure as our new capital. Called Mandalas, they've been suffering a plague of religious extremism. And frankly, I have no tolerance for that." I stood up as the transit cab came to a halt. Emerging into a well appointed corridor, a pair of trees stretched over out heads in a boulevard heading for the bridge entrance with gardeners currently checking the gardens at their feet.
"A little ostentatious, but I liked the greenery." The Captain admitted. "I had them transplanted from the Arboretum." She said as we headed into the bridge as she waved us through the security gate, the pair of assault cannons there just waiting for someone unauthorised to try and effect an entry. The size of the bridge was entirely impressive as we moved over to the observation port now looking down the length of the Forgeworld.
"The three escorts, you said they're complete? Have you undergone any jump tests?" I said moving to examine the cogitators across the bridge, the arrangement was very different from that of the Legacy.
"No sir. Only simulated testing through the machine spirit has been conducted so far." She said.
"Order the crews to man the ships." I moved over and examined the navigation computer. "Is there any critical operations being undergone at the moment?"
"No sir."
"Good. We're going to Artru, jump co-ordinates will be given to you from the Legacy