Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Five: Black Site
Hy-Brasil, May 3rd, 3035
"Is there a reason you're loading up every technical manual and textbook that was on the planet?" Major MacIntosh asked as he watched me and my team load up massive stacks of books into all of the air and watertight crates before loading them onto a Sting II.
"It's because even though we have access to data cores from the Star League and Terran Hegemony along with the Clans Data core, they operate off of either teaching you things based off of the First Principles, or off of you already being advanced enough to skip to the end of the development tree," I responded as I sealed yet another crate. "While Sharpshooter and Comstar have been working to fix that, there's still a lack of middle ground educational materials," I shrugged. "This will help to fix that gap and hopefully help us churn out more scientists and engineers."
"It is still hard for me to believe how far the Inner Sphere has fallen," MacIntosh shook his head. "I earned my degree while on deployment," he chuckled. "I'm not quite sure what a historian has to offer in this day and time though."
"A lot more than you might think," I responded. "STEM is important, but not as important as knowing why or howsomething happened," I looked at him pointedly. "People forget that it's important to know how you got to a specific time and place." I sighed and went back to packing up books. "I think you'll understand a bit more once we return to the Inner Sphere."
"Which will be when exactly?" One of the Black Watch Lancemates asked. "Because we've been here for over a month since you woke us up."
"We're leaving as soon as we've finished salvaging everything useful we can from here," I replied. "But there's a lot of useful stuff here. We're all working shifts to pack it up, but even after the destruction there's still so much stuff that we can make use of that we can't afford to leave it behind."
"Why not just make a return trip?"
"Because we are not the only ones with copies of the coordinates," Natasha said as she walked up and handed me a bottle of water. "We did not kill the man who sold us the information, and I doubt that was the only copy he had given the fact we dealt with pirates here already."
"Then where do you want us to start?" MacIntosh asked.
"We need any data you might have on the more important sites on Hy-Brasil," I replied with a smile. "I can only analyze so much data at once, and this is an unfamiliar world to us."
"Then let's get started, I don't want this place to become my tomb," the Major replied as he took the slate I handed him. "Get me a map, and I'll take care of the rest."
May 15th, 3035
"Is that the last prototype?" Mathis asked as we loaded up one of the prototypes that the black site had stored in its facilities.
"I think so, either way, though we've got to leave," I replied. "We've been here long enough."
"Are we taking the pirate point out?" Mathis asked. "The standard point is twenty days out."
"We're taking the standard point," I responded. "Seeing as there are going to be children aboard we figured it would be better to err on the side of caution."
"Probably for the best, especially considering we're two jumps away from the closest friendly system," Mathis responded.
May 25th, 3035
"Any other hidden sites that you might know about?" I asked as we began preparing to jump out of the system.
"I don't have any of that information currently," MacIntosh replied. "But many of the truly "hidden" sites were located in locations ''up" or ''down" compared to the usual flat maps that we use for the inner sphere. For example, let's take a paper map, and then hold it to where it's flat with your vision. That's the typical representation of the Inner Sphere. The truly hidden things would be located three-dimensionally as if you added a Z axis to your standard X/Y graph."
"This was common knowledge?" I asked as I considered the implications.
"Not exactly," the Black Watch Major replied. "As far as I know the Star League emphasized the flat view so much that most of our higher-ups, including the First Lord, began to believe it. I didn't know about it until this site was revealed."
"Do you think there would have been many installations like this?" Natasha asked.
"Probably one or two more, but not many, the more people involved the greater the chance of discovery," MacIntosh replied, stroking the reddish-blond beard that was starting to grow in. "Despite how much funding the Star League and Terran Hegemony had, there's only so many things you can hide in a budget before someone notices it, they probably had two more sites like this that were designed to be self-sufficient, so as not to draw on more resources and funding."
"And the Hegemony was also concerned with keeping the other members of the Star League at bay," I replied. "So I guess they slowly forgot about these sites."
"Not exactly," MacIntosh smiled. "These black sites were also designed to be emergency escapes for the Cameron's. The main family isn't even aware of them until certain protocols are triggered. What you don't know the enemy can't get from you." He shrugged. "That's the way I was read in, anyway."
Author's Note: Took it through Grammarly and went back over everything. Not a whole lot has changed for now.