Dead Worlds
Planets fall off the maps for all kinds of reasons. Terraforming fails, or doesn't take right. Maybe some Lostech equipment they were reliant on breaks and can't be replaced. Or some natural resource that made colonisation worthwhile in the first place dries up. Natural disasters like a super volcano or asteroid impact may just wipe one out overnight. Others are inhabited, but just not worth keeping on the bigger maps, and eventually are forgotten by all but the locals. Then, there are the worlds that got removed because some idiot back during the Age of War or the first couple of Succession Wars decided to play with something they shouldn't have. Plenty of plants out there that are too hot to visit, even today because of some bioweapon that got out of control.
Even the Cappie's, at their craziest, know that sometimes the juice just isn't worth the squeeze.
Still, there are a lot of forgotten worlds out there, colonies and outposts that were, for whatever reason, just abandoned. And, where there's abandoned equipment, there's salvage-hunters looking for their next big score. We go out, looking for the forgotten places, and pick over the bones of the long dead for anything worth taking. You're probably conjuring up some overly romantic image of some lone treasure hunter, testing their wits and resourcefulness against the elements. And yes, such people exist.
They're called idiots.
I don't think there's any possible treasure you could recover by hand that's worth the cost of mounting an expedition somewhere worth visiting. Despite what some people might call us, and trust me, I've heard them all, we're professionals. We go in with heavy equipment and take our time. Nobody wants to hack some pieces of equipment apart, only to discover when they get home that they've left an important part behind. I'll give you an example: we found a computer terminal, built into the bulkhead of a crashed DropShip once. And we cut the entire damn bulkhead out and shipped it back in one piece. Turned out to be worth twice as much because we didn't damage anything, and the buyer could see how it connected to other systems. Sure, independent collectors and museums might buy random, broken junk. But the real money to be made is selling functional, or at least, intact, equipment to NAIS or the big multiplanetary corporations. They're the ones with the deepest pockets at the end of the day.
How deep? Let's just say that Hanse Davion's little science project has made me a very wealthy man, and leave it at that.
Now, you never know exactly what you're going to find when you go off the map: besides the aforementioned reasons, the Star League had a habit of using backwater worlds to test some crazy ideas of tech. Ever see a fusion array designed to change the rotational velocity of an entire planet? I have. I've also seen the remains of orbital elevators, static tethers and solar shields that once turned hot-house worlds into paradises. Even visited an old fuel processing rig where the locals blow of steam by running jerry-rigged aerospace fighters around improvised race courses. Lot of places just aren't worth the map-makers ink, is what I'm saying.
Anyways, we get a tip: merchant Captain we know was doing a spot of cross-border trade, the kind of job where you have two transponder codes, two sets of registration documents, and the local authorities look the other way so long as you don't try and bring in anything
too illegal. Lot of trade goes on like that, even during declared wars. The economy is just to interconnected to do otherwise. But, on one particular run, our contact decided to get a little lost in a way that just so happened to avoid a tole station, and spent a week recharging his drive in a supposedly uninhabited system. Only she picks up all kinds of noise over the long-wave. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a lot of repeating, automated signals that indicated that something had been going on in-system. She kept her head-down, not wanting to announce her unscheduled visit, and left as soon as she was able.
But she logged the system, and information like that can be worth a lot more than just running contraband.
We paid for exclusive rights to the data, and she knew well enough to keep up her end of the deal, less she get a reputation for double-dealing, something you can't shake off. But that's not so say we played it stupid: we left sealed files with a lawyer, only to be opened if we failed to return or make contact by a set date. That way, at least, they'd know where to look for us. We also went in leaded for bear, with two
Mules, a
Union and a
Leopard CV. Now, that may sound like a lot of firepower to you, but I very much doubt you've even come face-to-pitchfork with a group of angry, inbred farmers who don't want you poking around their planet. I have, so trust me when I say that having even a half-dilapidated BattleMech to call on for support can be all kinds of reassuring.
The
Leopard went first, fighters scouting ahead of our little fleet, as we headed towards the only planet in the habitable zone. Oddly, it was actually an Ice Giant, but it had a couple of moons big enough to have a decent gravity and atmosphere, and one of they seemed to be the source of the automated transmissions. It became stronger as we got closer, and we managed to identify it as an maintenance beacon for a Storm Inhibitor array.
Jack and Pot!
Talk about Lost Technology: those things are like finding an honest man on Atreus! Even in pieces, they'd probably pay for the mission on their own, even if the planet was bust. But, even back during the heyday of the Star League, nobody would invest that kind of infrastructure on a planet without good reason, so we soon got to work scanning the surface.
It was a fairly typical borderline Inhabitable world: lot more open water than most, which meant big storms, hence the need for the Storm Inhibitors in orbit. Much of the land was made up of long chains of volcanic islands, no doubt the result of tidal stress from the Ice Giant. But that was good news, as anyone willing to pay for Storm Inhibitors would likely splash out on Seismic Regulators as well, and they're even rarer. It was starting to look like a literal motherland of Lostech just sitting there. But we didn't just jump in both feet first. No, that's an easy way to get yourself dead. There had to be a reason why the planet was not only abandoned, but in such a way that nobody came back for the orbital infrastructure.
Doesn't matter how hot a planet might get, you always pick the orbitals clean on the way out.
First thing we did was send out an EVA team to snag one of the satellites and pull it into the
Union for a look over. It took the engineers a while to reboot the system, but even after centuries without maintenance, the computer memory was still active, which just goes to show that they really built to last back then. We were able to discern that they'd been put in place by the Kanemitsu Corporation, an old Hegemony interstellar based out of New Earth that had, according to the information we had to hand, been wiped out during the fall of the Star League. Which was good news for us, as it meant that there was nobody left around to try and contest our salvage claims.
With the
Leopard and one of the
Mules collecting as many of the Storm Inhibitors as they could find, the other two DropShips headed down to the surface, zeroing in on what looked to be the ground station for the array. Even from orbit, it was clear that someone had put some work into developing the local real-estate. Nature, after all, doesn't do straight lines, and it takes a little more than three centuries for a jungle to reclaim even a small spaceport.
That said, it had certainly been given a headstart.
I've seen enough battlefields, fresh and ancient, to know one when I see one. Bullet holes, laser scorching, missile creators, they're pretty much universal. And, if there's one thing the last... forever has show, it's that humanity is really good at trying to wipe itself out. But that's why a smart Lostech prospector has at least a passing knowledge of ATO training and procedures, less they get turned into pink mist by some centuries old munitions with a hair trigger. Also another good reason why we carried actual BattleMechs with us, as they're among the few things built to take that kind of punishment and keep going.
Took us the better part of a week just to make that spaceport safe: there were spent munitions and IED's everywhere. Someone had fought a pitched battle there, throwing everything up to and including the kitchen sink into the fight. And that's not hyperbole: someone had actually ripped a sink off of the wall in one building and smashed some poor bastards head in with it. I ain't never seen anything quite like it before or since. It was kind of, well, wired, as if they'd been performing a fighting retreat back through the spaceport towards one of the landing pads. It was empty now, but it had obviously once held a DropShip that had been their ticket off-world. The ground around it was littered with the broken, burnt-out remains of countless cars and other ground vehicles, like they'd grabbed everything they could and driven right up to the waiting ship, then taken off without bothering to clear the blast radius. And, given how much energy even the smallest of DropShip put out when boosting for orbit... not even an
Atlas is built to withstand that.
It was also clear that not everyone had gotten off-world. There were bodies everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Hundreds of not thousands of them were laid out across the ferocreat of the spaceport and outside the buildings, their flesh long picked clean by local wildlife, allowing the sun to bleach their bones. Even after hundreds of years, it was clear that they had not died easy, with most showing signs of multiple injuries, from stab wounds to later burns and explosive dismemberment. Surviving clothing showed that some had been set on fire before they died, but stranger than that was the fact that, based upon the blood stains, it looked like they'd kept moving even after taking what should have been instantly fatal, certainly incapacitating wounds.
Others, inside or atop of the ruined buildings, showed clear signs of having taken their own lives, often by a self-inflicted shot to the head.
Lostech prospecting isn't a job for the fait hearted: you quite often see where people, entire families if not communities, died. I've see the mass graves and ruined worlds left by the first two Succession Wars. I've even been to places scorched clean of life, not even bacteria, by the madness of the Age of War. You either get used to it, or you find another line of work, but that world was something else.
We just didn't know at the time just how bad it truly was.
Once we had gone over the spaceport for anything worth salvaging, which wasn't a lot, given the hot, humid environment, we started looking for whatever the base was built to support. There were three roads leading out from the perimeter: one led to what was obviously intended to be a civilian settlement of some kind, with the remains of prefabricated buildings and the basic outline of a standard grid-pattern of streets laid out, a mostly faded sign informing us that it was the future sight of Delta City. Another road led to a geothermal power station that was actually still running, using water from a nearby river and an underground maga pocket to generate enough electricity to keep itself running. However, it was clear that someone had tried to disable if not outright destroy the place, with large sections of the building having been blow apart with explosives. It was only the durability of the equipment that had kept it intact and functional after centuries without even the most basic of maintenance. What they had done was cut the power leading back to the spaceport, the abandoned construction site and the third location.
Yes: the third location, at the far end of the road that the attackers had come down.
It was no surprise that we were somewhat hesitant to go that way. But, unfortunately, we weren't there for sightseeing, so we started to clear the overgrown road. It was shattered in places where even more explosives had been used to try and stop something or someone, including a couple of places where entire hillsides had been brought down, burying the road completely. That was when we had to call up our WorkerMechs to get it cleared enough to get through. All the time, we found more bodies, more evidence of a bitter, rearguard action being fought all the way back to the spaceport.
Eventually we reached the end of the road: a rusted metal fence laying at the entrance of what had probably once been a lava tube, but had long ago been converted into an underground bunker complex. And it was an impressive bit of work, to the point where we had to wonder if it had been the handy-work of the Star League Corps of Engineers rather than just some independent company. We found the wrecks of a couple of light BattleMechs, primitive
Wasps, by the looks like, just outside the entrance, and tagged them for recovery later. In all honesty, we didn't hold much hope for them: God only knows how many years exposed to the elements had taken their tole, but I'd seen worse down at Discount Dan's on Solaris VII.
The real prize was the bunker itself.
Even without a connection to the main power grid, the controls on the big blast doors were active, indicating that it at the very least had an independent backup of some kind that was still functioning. We had no way of knowing what kind of access code it might want, or what kind of failsafes might have been in place, but the system was ancient, and one of the skills you tend to aquire as a Lostech hunter is hacking. Our crew was fortunate enough to have one of the best, a brilliant young woman who turned down a position teaching at NAIS because it wasn't exciting enough.
Took her an hour of careful, methodical work, but she eventually got the door open. There was a hiss as the pressure equalised, then a series of clicks as lights started to turn on for the first time since a Cameron sat on the First Lords throne. The tunnel led inwards for about a hundred metres, then gave way to a horizontal shaft that, at some point, had held an elevator. But it was gone, somewhere far below, so we had to make use of the emergency stairs built into the side of the shaft. It was a long, boring trek down: there were no landings, no access doors or signs of anything other than a shaft descending downwards. About a hundred metres down, the lights gave out, some showing signs of weapons fire, but that's hardly unexpected in our line of work.
Eventually, we reached the bottom of the shaft, finding the large, flat elevator platform sitting there, seemingly undamaged. The Boss Lady gave order for a couple of the engineers to check it out, to see if it could easily be made operational. The rest of us were put into small teams and told to go exploring, try and find something that would explain just what Kanemitsu had been up to. And the place was massive, the hallways and many of the doors easily big enough to accommodate a small BattleMech, or at least a UtilityMech of some kind. Easily big enough to get lost in, but we were increasingly hopeful, as nobody, not even the Star League, would go to all the effort of setting up private colony like that without good reason.
So we split up into smaller teams, each taking one of the main tunnels. Just as we moved out, we got word from topside that a massive storm was fast approaching the island, no doubt something that the Inhibitor Array had been intended to stop. It wasn't likely to interfere with our exploration of the bunker, but it could make getting anything we found worth saving back to the DropShips. With that in mind, the Boss sent word for them to send a Prime Mover on up the road to the entrance, so it would be on standby should we need it.
My team was assigned one of the side tunnels, and we made our way down the winding path cut by the old lava tube. Every so often, we'd find the reminders of past habitation: dropped files, discarded equipment, even what looked like the remains of an impromptu barricade, complete with the mummified remains of two security guards. Something had obviously overrun their position, something not afraid of combat shotguns and laser pistols, judging by the empty weapons, spent shell casings and drained power packs scattered around the ground. More bodies lay beyond, many showing signs of multiple gunshot wounds, two missing most of their heads.
"Some kind of riot?" one of the others half asked, half suggested.
"Some kind of something." I knelt down to examine one of the bodies: a faded name badge bore the name Dr Alex Isaacs.
"Door." One of the others pointed a flashlight further down the tunnel, "Big one."
Well, that was an understatement: I've seen bank vaults with smaller doors. It must have been a good five meters thick, held in place by massive bolts as thick as my torso. Something had torn it off of the tracks, though, leaving it open just enough for us to squeeze through one at a time.
The chamber beyond was, well, vast doesn't do it justice. If the top was opened up, we probably could have landed all of our DropShips inside with plenty of room to spare. It was shaped like a flattened sphere, the outer walls of which was covered in dull green glass panels, almost like mirrors, all pointed towards the centre. And, standing there, was a tower like structure, accessible by a number of walkways spread out around the chamber. The walkway directly in front of the door had been ripped apart by a massive explosion, leaving a twisted mass of bent and burned girders hanging over a drop several hundred metres deep. Fortunately, there was a circular walkway around the outer wall, so we split into two teams, one headed each way, in the hopes of locating a viable way towards the centre.
I was told to hang back at the door to act as a relay, as something about the way the chamber was constructed blocked all radio signals in and out, meaning that the only way to keep in contact with the rest of the expedition.
"
Central to Team Three." by radio squawked, as if on command, "
Sitrep?"
"This is Team Three: we've found a large chamber that's interfering with radio signals." I reported in, "Rest of team are inside."
"
Team Three, hold location." the Boss sounded unusually tense, "
Any markings around the outside of the chamber?"
"Some." I looked at the writing, "Hang on: my Japanese is a little rusty." I carefully and slowly read the katakanas, "Something about 'primary containment' and a string of numbers..."
"
PULL BACK, NOW!" she shouted so loud, I probably could have heard her, even without the radio, "
GET THEM OUT OF THERE! GET OUT!"
I quickly ducked into the vaulted chamber, just in time to see one of the teams reach the central column, and the glass chamber at its top. I grabbed my radio, and was about to pass on the order to retreat, when they looked inside.
Looking back, even all these years later, and I still find it hard to explain exactly what happened, in part due to the distance between where I stood and the centre of the chamber. I've been told by those who've gone over the footage recovered from my helmet-cam that they all seemed to stand perfectly still for a moment, as if they were transfixed by something...and then all hell broke lose
One, Dominique, let out a loud, mournful scream, turned and leaped over the railing, plunging to her death hundreds of meters below, screaming all the way. Two more tried to gouge their own eyes out, blood and I don't want to imagine what pouring down their faces. But the last three... they simply turned and started to slowly walk towards the second team. The second group had stopped maybe fifty meters from the centre of the room, only the team leader slowly advancing.
They grabbed her and started pulling her towards the glass sphere in the middle, ignoring her orders to stop and her struggling to get free. Two more of her team rushed forward, one drawing a wrench and brandishing it like a club. But the remaining member of the first team reacted with almost inhuman speed, turning round and grabbing him by the throat so quickly he dropped his weapon in surprise. He was probably even more surprised when he was flung bodily towards the centre of the room, landing just in front of the glass. He looked up, froze for a moment, then slowly stood and started walking back towards his team mates.
"Pull back, now!" I ordered over the radio, "Get out of there!"
But by then, it was too late: the two groups had met, and all hell was breaking lose. More members of the second team were grabbed and dragged to the glass chamber, then silently joined their attackers. One of the resisting members drew a stun-stick, something I've been on the unfortunate receiving end of more than once while on shore leave, and jabbed the lease of the first team centre mass. Through the sights of my rifle, I could see arks of electricity plover her chest, but she kept moving as if it was nothing. And by moving, I mean she grabbed the man's arm, snapped bent it back double with an crack that was audible even where I was standing, then grabbed his head and spun it round she he was looking back the way he'd came.
My finger pulled the trigger before I even realised they'd started to move, putting a burst of three rounds into her left shoulder. They may not have been the biggest rounds, and soft lead, but they still all but tore her shoulder off, but she didn't even seem to notice. Oh, shure, her body rocked with the impact and her arm hung limp at her side, but her face remained expressionless. One of the surviving member of the second team managed to get their side arm free, and put three rounds through the chest of one of the... I don't know what to call them, even to this day, but their former team mates. 3mm high-velocity explosive rounds, well, they can do a lot of damage to someone only wearing the lightest of body armour, and they tore the guys guts open real good, but they only seemed to stagger him. And, unfortunately, the gun was a TK Enforcer, a notoriously unreliable piece of crap, so it predictably jammed after the third round.
A pulsating glow started to build in the middle of the chamber, and I didn't even think before diving back through the open hatch. Even then, the pulse of light was so bright I saw blotches floating in my vision after. I tentatively looked back into the chamber, and everyone had stopped moving: they just stood there, still as statues, for what felt like a lifetime. Then, as one, they all turned to look at me.
Or maybe they were just looking at the chamber door. It's not like I hung around to find out.
That base was a maze of passages and chambers, and in my blind flight, I soon got turned around and lost. I eventually stopped in a junction, trying to make sense of the signs on the walls, but they were all in Japanese. Then the sound of gunfire echoed down the passageway to my left, and I tentatively made my way towards it. I came to a corner, and carefully peeking round it, I saw three members of another team fighting a staggered retreat, taking it in turns to move towards me whilst the other two covered them. Chasing them, if you could call the slow but relentless pace they set, was the rest of my team, and a few others I recognised from one of the other search parties. Most showed signs of injury, but seemed completely oblivious to all but the most catastrophic of damage.
I saw one take two round to the chest, effectively shredding his heart and lungs, and he simply sank to the floor like a puppet with the strings cut.
The furthest of the three defenders waited a little too long before pulling back, and a young looking woman with a glazed expression on her face grabbed him. Taking hold of his head, she forced him to look directly into her eyes. He froze for a second, then his body went limp, and he turned to face one of his teammates, who was shouting at him to move. And move he did; he raised his gun and put two rounds through the other man's head before joining the slow advance towards us.
TBC
Poll
