5: A Hole in the Ground

Mount Caelius

Nova Roma, Alphard

Marian Hegemony

November 5th, 3009

Marius slammed the door behind him, threw his overcoat onto the nearby bed and slumped into the next best chair with a groan.

Posca appeared from a nearby alcove to pick up after him, but not before patting him on the shoulder.

"That bad again, dominus?"

"The universe seems to have a perverse sense of humor. Here I am, the Emperor of twenty billion people – Em-pee-roar! – and I still have to contend with the worst vestiges of parliamentarism!" Marius ran a hand over his face. "There's so much to do, so little time to do it, and most of that is wasted trying to please the egos of halfwits."

"How terrible," Posca commented flatly. "I take it you managed to claw some form of compromise from the Senate's grubby fingers? All those 'talks' with domina Octavia keep bearing fruit then, it seems. Your pain truly must be unbearable."

Marius turned to look at him. "You know, Posca, I think I'll have the physicians do an autopsy on you when you eventually die. I wonder. Will they find blood, or all your veins clogged by sarcasm?"

"Far be it for me to stop you from satisfying your curiosity, but unfortunately I intend to stay alive for quite a few more years. Someone has to provide you with much needed counsel and common sense, now that you keep losing yours in between your sheets," he scolded his former student. "Besides, be a magnanimous ruler and take it as just one further compromise."

"I feel like I'm making too many of those," he muttered quietly to himself, shaking his head. "Old habits."

"Well, then it does give me small comfort that I am not the only one here being a slave, even if you are just a slave to your own circumstances," Posca smiled.

"You're just way too much of a smart ass for your own good, old friend," Marius chuckled despite his sour mood.

"That's why you keep me, dominus, that's why you keep me," the older slave replied.

"Alright!" Marius pushed himself up again and stood. "I need to get a bite to eat and take a quick shower. What's left on my schedule today?"

Posca picked up a noteputer and scrolled through the calendar.

"You have a meeting with the magister militum at three o'clock about the time frame for the groundbreaking ceremony for the Collegium Bellorum Imperium, your Imperial War College. He is currently attending the unveiling of the public tender at Camp Sulla together with General Volkova and will fly in by VTOL once that's concluded."

"That was today?!" Marius smacked his own head. "I completely forgot about it with all the attention I had to give those parasites in the Senate." He would have loved to handle the negotiations and presentation himself, but delegation was a core quality for rulers. "Would have loved to watch it just to see how Uncle Corv and Alina get along."

Posca frowned. "Given their personalities, I would say they do get along like fire and water. Lucky for your uncle, the General will have to bow down too much for her to slap him in the face. Conversely, she can just keep him at arms' length should he get angry. Or hungry. Well, you will find out this afternoon, dominus: if he makes it to your meeting, General Volkova has at least not squashed him with her 'mech!"

Camp Sulla

Forty Miles North of Nova Roma, Alphard

Marian Hegemony

November 5th, 3009

The nondescript warehouse sat at a dead end of one of many of Camp Sulla's concrete slab streets, looking similar to the next one, and the next one over, just sheet metal thirty feet high around a metal frame. Bright industrial lighting illuminated the interior were rows of chairs had been lined up in front of a large podium. Along one side of the warehouse large pallets, whatever they carried covered in tarps. Spread across four table catering was provided for the camp's guest who made ample use of the fingerfood and refreshments. Guards in standard combat fatigues covered the warehouse' entrance and stood in intervals along each side of the building, inside and outside as well.

Corvinus 'Corv' O'Reilly, magister militum and therefore the Hegemony's secretary of defense, looked not a centimeter slimmer in his elegant combination of tunic, toga and business suit than he had a few months prior wearing Alphard Trading's corporate security uniform. Walking next to him, General Alina Volkova looked like chiseled granite next to pudding.

A few years older than the member of the O'Reilly dynasty, she towered over her nominal superior as she and the secretary slowly walked along the perimeter, observing the camp's invited guests as they mingled and talked amongst each other. Volkova did her best to mask her scowl, just as she did her best to match her long legs' speed to the waddle of the younger man. She failed at both.

"Is there anywhere else you need to be or why are you running?" he piped up at her, smiling broadly.

Volkova opened her mouth and snapped it shut again, biting down a remark that would have been wholly disappropriate to the mind behind the new Marian army. The Marian army she had to take from column on a piece of paper to a proper fighting force. Instead she stopped in her tracks and gave it her best to make her answer sound level.

"I realize why they are here today, but I still dislike civilians taking up space and time at Sulla. Especially if they eat the value of a centuria's weekly rations worth of chow."

"Tut, tut, general. The Hegemony needs them buttered up nicely to play ball on what we've got in mind." He snatched a tiny salmon sandwich from a nearby plate and made it vanish in his mouth. "Champagne and good food has been known to do the trick."

Volkova sighed. "Just get them off my base as soon as possible so that I can actually do the work the Emperor has heaped on my shoulders, roger? Who are these people anyway? I don't know half of them!"

"Reps from everybody with a likely chance to have a go at what we have in mind. Alphard Trading, Hadrian Mechanized, Illuminous Computers, Riatake Metals, the list goes on. Hopefully someone will bite," Corvinus shrugged, making his double chin look even bigger.

"And those kids?" Volkova hissed, tilting her head at a group of informally clad men and women no older than twenty-five. "Did someone bring their children? What are they doing here?"

"Well, they're the odd man out of the crowd, ain't they?" Corvinus chuckled, then cleared his throat when he caught Volkova's decidedly unsatisfied look. "That's the Frat Gang. Hold your horses, that's the name they've given themselves. Bunch of engineering graduates from families with deep pockets. See that girl whose built like she could give you a run for your money?"

"The one with the light purple hair and side cut?" the general frowned. "Mars' matching socks! When they put the question to her how much protein supplements she wanted the only answer she must've had was 'Yes'!"

Broad shouldered, lean, with an angular face with subtle makeup that made her woman's eyes darker and more contrasted to her short and colorful hair, the woman Corvinus had pointed at towered over her peers.

"That's Ana Firenza. Her father's a landholder and runs a small robotics company. Apparently, he's bred some form of goliath tech wunderkind. I let them in as between all their families they've got the necessary venture capital to actually have a shot at this. Though, truth be told, I still don't really get why this is such a big issue."

"What do you mean?" Volkova gave him a puzzled look.

The smaller man clipped his thumbs behind his belt, looking up at Volkova in her resplendent purple dress uniform. "All the stuff we've dragged onto that stage and covered up? It's not like we expect people to reinvent the wheel. Even the newest platform we've trodded out has been a thing for at least half a thousand years. All that stuff? That's known technology, not the holy grail. It's probably why Firenza and her minions think they have a chance at this in the first place!"

Volkova shook her head and ran a hand through her face. "You know how a clock works?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Well, can you build one?"

"What? No?" Corvinus shot her a puzzled look.

"Figures," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "For such a smart man you're pretty stupid sometimes, O'Reilly." Before he could answer she shoved him towards the stage. "Now work your magic! The sooner you're done the sooner I can punt you back to Nova Roma!"

Corvinus caught his step and climbed the meter high podium, tapping the microphone. The murmur in the warehouse slowly came to an end as people shuffled to their chairs and all eyes focused on him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your following our invitation in such great numbers! You're here because the Emperor is convinced that you are among the best companies and inventors of all or the Hegemony's worlds. As magister militum of the Marian Hegemony I am delighted to present a unique government tender opportunity – a gateway to success through competitive and milestone based fixed-price contracts that we intend to couple with a performance-based reward system."

In the audience, plates were put aside and faces leaned forward, their curiosity piqued.

"By participating in this tender, you have an opportunity not only to secure contracts but to forge long-term partnerships with the government. Successful completion of projects will enhance your reputation, leading to future collaborations and a preferential treatment by the national government and local magistrates."

He paused, gauging his audience's reaction before turning halfway around, gesturing at the tarps to the side. Immediately, soldiers stepped forward and pulled them off almost in perfect synchronicity. Murmurs erupted between the gathered representatives.

"This is why you have been called here, ladies and gentlemen." Corvinus pointed at the displayed weapons systems, ranging from small lasers all the way up to LRM launchers and PPCs, neatly spread across pallets with enough space in between to allow for close inspection. "Your task, should you be willing to take it on, will be the domestic development and production of these weapons systems. Each system has different funding and milestone deadlines as shown next to the exhibits, reflecting the complexity of the technologies in question."

"The MHAF will gladly provide you with as many examples of the weapons systems as you need, and you are free to engage in as many projects are you feel fit. But be aware that – aside from a lump sum starter package – full funding is dependent on reaching set milestones in time."

"Our government understands the value of transparency and efficiency. That's why we have established a stringent evaluation process to select the most competent firms. Evaluators will assess proposals based on technical expertise, past performance, financial stability, and adherence to deadlines."

"This is not a 'The winner takes it all' competition!" he emphasized, raising his hands. "The Hegemony will issue contracts to the three most successful contenders providing home-grown alternatives for each weapons system on display here! This means we will either buy from you exclusively, including future MHAF projects, or alternatively, export licenses will be granted. Either way, financial viability once a final working product is delivered can be guaranteed. Now, please take your time. Familiarize yourselves with what the state needs from you. Contact your headquarters, if you need to. Both me and General Volkova will be here to answer your questions," Corvinus shot the hulking officer a smile that was answered with the most unsuccessfully hidden scowl in human history, "and we'll be delighted to start with the paperwork later."

Like cockroaches he saw the assembled representatives of the nation's most viable and capable companies scatter between the pallets and what rested on them which, given the weight of some of the pieces on display was quite impressive to begin with.

Anna Volkova walked over to him.

"You think they'll bite?" she asked quietly.

"I can only hope so," Corvinus O'Reilly maintained his confident smile, but his voice portrayed less conviction. "Some will, surely. A few will bail. A few always do. But I'm counting on greed. Greed and corporate competition."

"Guess all we an do is wait and find out. Would be quite the waste if nothing came from this. My people worked all day to make it look good," Volkova chuckled drily.

As it turned out, the MHAF had not spent thousands on catering in vain.

The Frat Gang happily signed a contract for the development of a small laser. Most larger interested parties picked up two or more systems to work on. A few of the present metalworking manufacturers formed an ad-hoc joint venture looking into a Thumper platform.

Nobody picked the PPC.

Now all that was left to do was wait and watch which of them dropped out of the race first – and which of them made it to the finish line.

Any talented kid in Physics Club at school can build a simple laser if they've got access to a decent hardware and electronics store. The base knowledge isn't the problem. Take it a step further. My father's company makes medical lasers. Delicate precision instruments, with fine-tuned power outputs, but still: lasers. The same general principle as your common medium laser. So why aren't we, or any other halfway competent company already building that? After all, that tech's been there for almost a millennium. It's easy, right? Why aren't countless corporations across human settled space doing the same?

I'm not talking about the politics behind it. All those inbred so-called Inner Sphere noble houses will look twice before they let someone manufacture weapons of war on some world or another. The locals could develop illusions of grandeur. Maybe a Duke suddenly fancies independence? You think a Kurita or Steiner would want to risk that kind of proliferation? Yeah, right…

The reason so few people do it is because it's hard. Because it's staggeringly expensive to set up. Why? Because that laser has to work at minus 100 degrees C just as well as at 150 degrees plus. It needs to work in vacuum. It needs it's punch in a thick atmosphere. It needs enough energy to vaporize atmospheric dust and debris to emit a clean straight beam. It needs to survive massive and rapid changes in pressure, in gravity, in radiation. More, it needs to be able to handle the massive energy input from a fusion engine. Worse still, it needs to remain functional while the chassis carrying it is subjected to all kinds of physical damage. And when it becomes damaged, it needs to be built in a way that will allow for field repairs, ideally, by people who know next to nothing about the physical principles at play. Each of these points is a small engineering marvel. Combine them all, and then add the little fine print that says 'Has to be available at competitive market prices', and you get your explanation.

In the Inner Sphere, the holdup is control. Out here, it's finances and manufacturing quality. If you have to spend thirty million C-bills to get to a working prototype medium laser, do you have any idea how many of the damn things you've got to sell before you make a serious profit? - Interview with Ana 'Capitan Maximum' Firenza, Journal of Applied Sciences, Alphard 3021 C.E

Illyria

Illyrian Palatinate

December 18th, 3009

Nestled into the cockpit of his GHR-5H Grasshopper Centurio Aidan Volkov watched the drone buzz by a few hundred feet above, the air shimmering in the wake of its jet exhaust, the heavy mech's head turning as he followed its course.

Ever since the Marian expedition had made landfall ten days ago the team had been busy cataloguing and scanning every inch of the one hundred square kilometers large area of the Ferrum claim, first by air-based ground-penetrating radar, then on the ground to follow up.

Currently the drone operator team back on the bridge of Augustulus was busy flying their two-ton remote controlled aircrafts across the terrain in a pre-determined grid pattern. An array of lasers in its nose cone scanned the ground below in a hundred meter wide strips, generating a three-dimensional image of the terrain accurate down to the centimeter.

Ferrum consisted of rolling hills covered in low, dry brushwood and tall grass alternating between lush greens and near brown dry yellows. A few narrow streams in rock-strewn riverbeds flowed south to south-east, and sparse copses of evergreens dotted the landscape. Prime farming terrain this was not.

Aidan watched the drone leave his field of view and sped up his mech again, steering it up a steep slope of yellow grass tall enough to hide a cow. Red-gray rock formations, smoothed by millennia of wind and water, had him zig-zag up the hill. The Grasshopper was a nimble machine for its size and weight, reacting smoothly to his commands. It wasn't the most heavily armed mech in its weigh class, but its jump jets and heavy armor made up for that flaw in his mind.

"Control, this is Watch Dog 1, coming up on patrol point six."

"Roger that, Watch Dog 1. Anything out of the ordinary?" Control's reply came through his speakers loud and clear.

"Negative," Aidan's mech crested the hill. "Came across two Patty 'shepherds' about one point seven clicks to the east. Other than that, everything's quiet."

"Understood, Watch Dog 1. I reckon they didn't have all that many sheep?"

"Negative, Control, no sheep. The Patties seem to keep losing them, the poor bastards," Aidan commented drily.

The local terrain wasn't good for much more than sheepherding, and the Marians had told what few farmers there were they could keep their herds grazing as long as they didn't interfere with their operations. Only, the 'shepherds' that came to Ferrum seldomly, if ever, had sheep in tow, always came in pairs of two, or three, and were particularly interested in what the Marians were doing, from afar. And their backpacks and ponchos were more likely to hide cameras with telephoto lenses and communications equipment than a shepherd's lunch box.

He supposed it was only natural for the Illyrians to be wary of the Marian expeditions, despite the warm words and handshakes that had been exchanged by people in fancy clothes. As long as their mission wasn't put into question, Control had decided to play ball, but even then patience was a finite good.

"What a shame, Watch Dog 1. If they can't find them soon we might need to give them a push in the right direction. Off our property."

"Understood, Control. Continuing patrol. Keep me posted."

The Grasshopper continued its patrol route, following the drawn-out ridgeline of the hill to the north-west. He had to divert the mech to the west about halfway down his path as a thicket of evergreens with grey bark and thick reddish needles blocked the way, rising into the clear blue sky three times as tall as the mech. Further down the western slope a group of green-gray tents congregated around the metal frame of a drill site. Workers stopped their tasks as he walked down the hill, waving friendly, and he returned the greeting with the Grasshopper's arm.

Ferrum had dig sites and prospector teams spread all over the claim's territory. Practically, they were all legitimate geologists and mine workers and knew what they were doing. Most did not even know they were part of a large deception scheme. The less they knew the less someone could give up.

"Dig 4 looking good, Control. Continuing patrol," he reported dutifully as he marched back up the hill.

Control's response took longer than expected this time. He was about to repeat his statement when his speakers erupted with activity.

"Understood, Watch Dog 1. Be advised we've got a situation at the primary site. Patching you in right now, centurio." Control's voice sounded excited and tense.

Aidan could hear static for a moment, then another voice filled the ether. "Uh, hey, Control? We've got most of the main gate excavated. There's metal plating down here that my techs tell me must be service paneling. Pretty rusted and stuck. We're going at it with blowtorches and moving in the mobile generator. The gate itself looks fine, almost pristine!"

Aidan could feel the adrenalin fill him with excitement. Instinctively, he put the pedal to the metal. "Dig 1, Control. This is Watchdog 1. I'm heading your way! Control? I want all eyes on the perimeter and our guests. The moment they get too close to Dig 1 I want to know!" Worry mixed with his excitement as his detached mind registered the acknowledgments from Control.

His Grasshopper accelerated to his full speed of almost 65 kph. Not satisfied with his speed, he punched his jump jets into action, short-cutting the way back to Dig 1. This was it.

Their mission brief had given them a good lead as to where to start looking, probably courtesy of the new spymaster, Aidan thought. A few passes with ground penetrating radar had sealed the deal. The other large claim on Illyria. The claims on two other planets. The digs and soil samples. While technically useful, everything they had done was a diversion. While smaller teams kept whatever eyes the Patties had on them busy all over their claim, the main site had slowly been taking shape, with excavators moving hundreds of tons of soil, rubble and rocks already. When the old owners had left, they had done a meticulous job of turning an entrance and road wide enough to drive two tanks on abreast into just another hill side.

Landing on fiery rocket exhaust Aidan's mech came to a rest on a rock ledge.

Up ahead at the bottom of a low valley, the base camp came into view, two dozen white prefab houses clustered around a central plaza housing the expedition's pool of heavy machinery and vehicles. The remains of a paved road ran through the valley, overgrown and cracked enough that only every few meters patches of pavement stuck through soil and vegetation. Little enough that it had been completely overlooked on a world with such low population density as Illyria.

Looming over it all was a Mule-class dropship and, almost in its shadow, their Union-class dropship, the Augustulus. A few hundred meters further up the opposite side's hill another tent camp bustled with activity. Half a dozen excavators, some tracked, others with wheels twice as tall as a man, ate a trench into the side of the hill with ravenous speed while trucks carried off the spoil onto a growing small hill at the bottom of the rise. Dig 1.

Right now, the work concentrated on a stretch halfway up the hillside. Magnetic detectors and ground-penetrating radar had screamed out loudly there, hinting at a large mass of metal, twenty tons or more, that the dig site CO had been certain to be the main bunker doors. That had now been confirmed.

Aidan made his way around the camp and back up the other side of the hill, stopping the Grasshopper as he came close to the trench. He left the cockpit and slid down the ladder, and immediately ran towards the center of the commotion.

Shaped like an irregular V, a large funnel had been dug that now revealed two wings of a near seamless steel gate. At the bottom, the original pavement of the access road saw the light of the sun for the first time in more than two hundred years, dirty and wet from the loamy ground but otherwise intact. At the right side, a group of technicians in hard hats and orange overalls huddled around a switchbox. Thick cables ran from it to a nearby mobile diesel generator. Around the trench, more and more people gathered as work on other parts of the dig site grinded to a halt, clad in work overalls and mercenary fatigues. The lead tech gave a thumbs up. Clapping his hands, the site's foreman, and square ebony-skinned fellow in his late forties turned to the generator. "Fire it up, folks!"

Stuttering, the diesel came to life. For a few long seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Despite the generator's ruckus Aidan thought one could have heard a needle drop.

Then metal groaned. It was a deep, agonizing moan that pierced marrow and bone and made the hair on his back stand up, like fingernails scratching on a chalk board, only much deeper. At the switch box another tech hurriedly was tapping commands into the noteputer linked to the doors' mechanism. Dust and loose soil rippled from the concrete ledge above and from the tiny cracks and openings into which the two solid steel slabs once had retracted.

Above, the diesel strained, whining, which foreman and the workers around him exchanging worried looks until, abruptly, a hissing sound emerged from where the gate's two wings met, and with a series of dull 'thunks' the magnetic cylinders keeping it locked rescinded. Metal grinded over rocks and soil, and with a barely noticeable delay the gates slid open until the halfway point, straining against some blockade before the generator gave out with loud bang as some valve lost the fight against two hundred tons of reinforced steel.

It wasn't every day that you dug up an SLDF Castle Brian.

"Secure the gates and set up lights!" the foreman commanded, and a trio of techs jumped to action with barely a sign of hesitation.

Aidan slid down the sides of the funnel, trying not to trip on the loose ground. He had not even made it halfway down as a voice yelled "Oh shit, there-!"

Whatever they had wanted to say was cut short by the sound of a thundering explosion. Dust, debris, and red mist erupted from the opening. Cries of "Man down!" and "Medic!" were repeated by dozens, and a dust-covered figure tumbled out of the twilight, coughing, pulling two bodies behind them before they collapsed onto the cleared pavement.

Aidan rushed down and was among the first to reach the tech. Her eyes were wide and her breath shallow, but except for the cover of grey dust she seemed unharmed. Her two colleagues did not share her luck. One bled profusely from a dozen chest wounds and something that Aidan quickly recognized as shrapnel in his legs and abdomen. The other one was missing both legs below the knees – and most of his face beneath the hard hat.

"Shit, claymores," a slightly tanned man in his early thirties wearing random camouflage fatigues and body armor knelt down next them. "Bastards must have boobytrapped the entrance. Give the intruders and few feet, then a nigh transparent tripwire or some kind of laser trigger or pressure plate," he muttered, pressing his hands on the still breathing man's most severe wounds. "Kat? Kat! Get down here, and bring the gear! Medic? Medic!"

Medics were already sliding down the slope. Aidan took a step back and stared back into the gap. Dust had already begun to settled again. The air coming from within was cold and stale, and what little light entered the concrete caverns showed only tall and wide corridors, with arrows and signs painted both on the walls and on the floor. Blackened spots and blood now covered some of them. Slowly, consciously, he turned around and raised his voice.

"Listen up, people! Make room for the wounded! Let the medics through." He glanced back over shoulders into the half-light of the bunker. "From this moment on we're all on a tight schedule! OpSec condition one is in effect. I don't need to explain what that means for us 'paramilitaries'," he made the air quotes and earned himself the chuckles of the gathered legionaries sans uniform. "For the few civvies among you that means none of this gets out, under condition of capital punishment!"

The medics scrambled back up the slope with the aid of a few volunteers, the brief moment of levity gone as the wounded and dead passed through the ranks.

Aidan flicked his radio on. "Control, Watch Dog 1. Open Sesame is go, I repeat, Open Sesame is go. I want all hands on deck! Get the infantry out here and on the perimeter, on the double." He turned to the gathered crowd. "I want mobile lights and radio repeaters set up in intervals. Double down on getting the access course cleared and those gates fully open. And get me those camouflage tarps! Keep unwanted eyes off this, from the air and on the ground." He clapped his hands, trying to ignore the queasiness in his stomach as he glanced at the crimson blood on the dirty floor below. "This just went from your lovely camping trip to hard labor, people! No time to lose! Demo specialists and combat engineer up front, the rest behind them. We're moving in, ladies and gentlemen!"

He moved down towards the half-open gates. "You two, with me!"

The man who had just a minute before tried first aid on the wounded tech spoke up.

"Right, sir. Mitch Alramazan, CQC and demo specialist," he nodded, then turned to a short-haired, square-shouldered woman kneeling next to him. "You coming or what, Kat?"

The woman named cat shook her blonde head and rolled her eyes. "Since I don't want to drag your dead ass all the way back to Stafford? Yeah, I'm coming. Kat Ramone," she gave the hint of a salute. "Same field as the big guy." She looked Aidan up and down. "I'll need my gear. You can't go in there like that. Someone get the boss some armor and a helmet!" she yelled over her shoulders in a tone that allowed for no debate. "Let's get you suited up. And then let's go spelunking, centurio!"

The air hung heavy with a palpable tension as the group ventured into the depths of the abandoned SLDF Castle Brian. What had first appeared to be a straight tunnel wide enough for two mechs to walk side by side turned out to be zig-zagging downwards, with each corner providing spaces for casemates and laser emplacements. The infantry holdouts lay empty and abandoned, as bare as the day they had been built. Armored cupolas held lasers in swivel mounts, but the base's central power was down, and the backup batteries had long since discharged themselves.

Simply moving forward was a time-consuming effort. Mitch carried a laser and motion scanner that was meant to detect tripwires and any traps with electronics in them. Kat's tool of choice was "basically a radar mixed with a sniffer", as she had put it, meant detect the chemical composition of known explosives as well as hidden traps. Both also made good use of the good old Mk. 1 Eyeball. How much that would help them against Star League tech, he didn't know. But, he thought to himself, stopping every few meters and checking all those positions still beat getting your legs cut off just above your knees by a 250 years old claymore mine. Besides, it wasn't as if they were the only ones checking for traps.

The tunnel was swarming with people: combat engineers, soldiers carrying heavy weapons, technicians, medics. Getting that many people down here immediately was a gamble. A reckless, but necessary one. With every passing minute those bunker doors lay open the chances rose that the Illyrians or a third party found out just what the Hegemony was doing here under the guise of a mining expedition.

Behind them, excavators rumbled on, widening the entryway. Techs were already busy setting up portable floodlights. The bunker walls were gray and dry.

The colossal underground complex, a relic of a bygone era, exuded an eerie aura that seemed to seep through every nook and cranny. Cameras and other sensors, sitting in armored glass bubbles set into the ceiling, covered their advance. If they were still active then none of them did anything. So far. The corridors stretched out before them, dimly illuminated by the flickering glow of their flashlights, casting long shadows that danced and wavered on the cold concrete walls. In waves the light followed them as the techs struggled to keep pace with the lead teams. Alphanumeric codes in faded blue that meant nothing to him covered sections of the round tunnel.

Aidan had switched his coolant vest and light trousers for heavy body armor and a combat helmet with a visor for splinter protection. Internally, he was far less calm. This bunker was living history, and it had already tried to kill them. Anxiously he stayed in the middle between the two combat engineers.

Two turns further down, Aidan felt the road level off. The tunnel widened into a large cavern of loading ramps, parking bays, and roll-up doors tall enough to let largest assault mechs pass. A few dulled windows and a halfway open door beckoned the trio to explore. In what must have been the guard house and offices for the loading dock they discovered signs of the original garrison's hasty departure. Abandoned equipment and remnants of hastily vacated quarters hinted at a past urgency.

"Secure the area!" he commanded. "We'll set up our temporary base of operations here. Get the generator down here, and set up defensive positions around the main entrance. I want anti-vehicle mines and SRM positions set up!"

Mitch shot him a questioning glance.

"I read the SLDF had a thing for drone defenses on some of its bases," Aidan told him quietly enough that others didn't hear it. "When we figure out the main power I'd rather not have it coincide with murderbots swarming us unprepared."

"Lovely forecast," Mitch muttered.

Kat hadn't gotten the start or the conversation. "Forecast? What forecast?"

"Dry with a fifty percent chance of lead," told her drily, then jumped up two stairs and pushed the door to the office open and stepped inside. He hadn't even put his foot down when he felt Mitch's hand tighten around his shoulder like a vice.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack!?" he hissed. "Look at all that clutter in there! It's like a candy store for booby traps!"

"There's got to be a map of this place in there," Aidan pointed towards the door. "This is the loading dock. The main sorties run through here, and all the supplies come here first. If there's one place aside from base command that has a map it'll be here!"

Mitch grunted. With almost polite force yet accepting no objections he pulled Aidan back and pointed to a place next to the door. "You stay there, mech jockey. Don't move! Kat?" he motioned towards the door.

"Mitch, this is the most reckless shit I've been doing since Basic," the woman muttered as she carefully tapped the door with the tip of her boot and began a sweep with her scanners. Nothing showed up, and careful as a cat in a kennel she placed one foot in front of the other.

"Really Kat, the most reckless? I remember you trying to seduce that girl on Pompey who was as straight as a ruler. Oh, and the base commander's fiancée," the Mitch quipped as he followed her inside with his own scanner, faking. "Besides, it's dry and almost perfectly temperate down here. Now all you'd need is a nice mug o' coffee to make this perfect since you've already got my exalted company."

"Nothing on my scanner. Couple open drawers," she shone her flashlight over a desk with a dead screen and a large folder. "Looks like freight manifest printouts, pretty faded." She refrained from picking them up and hunkered down, trying to shine her light between where the desk ended and the folder began. "Safe," she decided.

Three parallel pairs of desks stood in the center of the room, with consoles and switch boards facing towards the windows and the large space behind.

"Same here," Mitch answered from a few feet away. "Just a lot of junk." He picked up a mug and made a face. "Anybody up for three hundred year old coffee stains? Yuck!"

Kat shone her torch across the room, then stopped and turned the light back the way she had started. "Boss? That map you were looking for? Guess I found it!"

SLDF Castle 401-L RICHELIEU.

Painted on the concrete wall in clean white on faded orange looked a bit like a cross between a beehive and the roots of an ancient tree, with seemingly countless tunnels of all sizes boring into the ground on at least five main levels and easily as many utility sub-levels. Smaller versions of the angled tunnel they had descended down so far led to just below the surface to smaller bunkers and pillbox systems that had once been the castle's first line of defense. At the center of the labyrinth sat a hardened control center, and at the deepest point an equally hardened chamber read 'Geothermal'.

"Jupiter's hairy ballsack, look at the size of that thing!" Kat whistled through her teeth.

Aidan had to agree with the statement. Whatever ideas he had had about the SLDF, he just had been forced to think a few degrees bigger than before. He felt a tiny pit in his stomach. Maybe this was a tad too big for their britches? He pushed the thought away.

Mitch said nothing, simply studying the map closely, tracing a path with his fingers. He checked his watch.

"If he cut through the barracks here and down through storage level two we should be able to make it to the command center in about forty minutes, sixty minutes top. That is, if the map's to scale and the stairwells are still intact."

"And not mined," Kat added with an emphatic nod.

"And not mined," Mitch repeated.

Aidan tore his eyes off the map and checked his watch. "We'll wait until we've set up shop before we move on." He switched on his radio. "Control, this is Watch Dog 1. Do you read, copy?"

"Loud and clear, Watch Dog 1. Signal quality is good."

"Roger, Control. We've got a map of the bunkers. Setting up a base camp at the loading area, then we'll set out to explore the first level. I'll take a small group and make a beeline directly to the command center. Chances are high it'll be sealed, but it's worth a try. Watch Dog 1 over."

"Understood, Watch Dog 1. Keep your head down and your limbs attached." A pause. "You know your mother will never let it go if we bring you home in more than one piece. Control out."

Aidan looked at his radio for a moment, then sighed, and stepped out into the loading area again.

Half an hour later trucks were already driving down the tunnels, hauling weapons, equipment and more personnel down there. He called for a gathering at the center of the cavern.

"This place is nothing but a huge labyrinth, people. We'll have to move methodically if we want to get a look at everything and not have anything bite our asses. Keep your eyes open! This is the SLDF we're talking about here. These guys were professionals, and they had access to tech we can only dream of. We've drawn blanks so far." He winced. "Well, mostly. Expect every kind of passive and active defense you can think of. And then the ones you can't think of, too. Here, take a look." He gave a signal to a nearby tech and a mobile holo projector sprung to life. It was an extravagant luxury, but whatever his friend on Mount Caelus had known had been enough to gave the expedition almost limitless access to tools and equipment. "This is SLDF Castle 401-L RICHELIEU."

Everybody automatically took a few steps closer and leaned in.

"I'm no specialist on SLDF bases, but it looks smaller than your ordinary Castle Brian. Still, we have what looks like five main levels here, each centered around a main hub location. Like the one we're at right now. From each of those, two main axis veer off, and each of those then branch of into a large number of smaller sections, like the crown of a tree. Now here's the plan!" Aidan turned from the hologram to face his soldiers. Your men will hold and secure Alpha Base here, Ostroff," he called out a giant of a man wearing heavy body armor. "Hannigan's people will secure the areas directly behind all those loading gates and mech passages. Cut your way through if you have to, but I don't want any nasty surprises left unchecked right next to us."

"Yes, sir!" Hannigan was a fiery redhead with a temper, but she was also a professional infantry soldier and a veteran of two dozen raids.

"Third Centuria's people will start exploring this level, alpha branch," he pointed at one of the main two lines running from the hub area. "Nguyen, be methodical, note everything down, take inventory. That's why we're here, people! Go only as far as you can set up repeaters and a clear line of communication. And be careful!" he reminded them. "I'll take a small team and try to reach the command center. What are you waiting for?!" he clapped his hands. "Move it, people!"

The atmosphere among the group grew solemn as they walked through the corridors and personal bunks of the soldiers who had called this place home, now mere remnants of a bygone era.

The barracks stood frozen in time, as if the occupants had simply stepped out for a moment and would return at any given moment. The rooms were adorned with personal effects and mementos, telling the stories of lives lived and aspirations held dear. Motes of dust danced in the beams of torchlight. The beds remained made, their sheets and blankets neatly arranged, as if waiting for their weary occupants to return any moment. The silence within the barracks was deafening, broken only by the distant sound of their own breaths.

In the mess hall, tables were set as if expecting a gathering—a stark reminder of shared meals and conversations that had once filled the space. Hundreds of empty chairs stood as silent witnesses to the immense scale of the abandoned fortress.

In the recreation area, games lay untouched on tables—decks of cards, chess sets, and holovids ready to provide entertainment to those who would never return.

Walking through the corridors, Aidan and his comrades encountered forgotten memorabilia—trophies, medals, and plaques that adorned the walls. Each artifact held a story, a testament to the valor and achievements of the soldiers who had once called Richelieu their home.

The stairwells were solid ferrocrete rather than metal lattices. That meant no black abyss beneath their feet, but also no idea of what was around the next turn of the stairs.

On Storage 2 they they encountered a series of purposefully blocked tunnels, their entrances collapsed by carefully placed demolition charges. It was clear that someone had made a deliberate effort to seal off these passages, raising questions about what lay beyond. Questions for a later time.

Storage 2, or what they could see of it, was empty. The underground warehouses on the part of the level they had to traverse were all open, each of them two hundred meters long, possibly a quarter as wide, and prime examples of gaping nothingness.

They descended another set of stairs to Storage 3. Again they found a number of collapsed tunnels, but before frustration could set in they also came across warehouses that proved Richelieu was not just a hole in the ground. Infantry kits, assault rifles, all kinds of infantry weapons and support weapons, all neatly vacuum sealed. Stores of ammonution in various states of filling. Mech spares in shipping crates, covering everything from myomer bundles to targeting electronics. One warehouse held damaged mechs that most likely could not have been easily field-repaired and thus had been abandoned when General Kerensky and most of the SLDF left. Various infantry combat vehicles. A warehouse filled to the brim, the writing above the blast doors simply readin 1.

The hardest part was to press on and not to waste time gawking. And they only saw a tiny part of the facility as they made it to the command center. Aidan reckoned that, even beneath all the rock and ferrocrete and bare steel, the command center had to be an ferrocrete sphere at least a hundred meters across. The last redoubt, only to be taken with lots of patience – or vast quantities of explosives. Or, as the Amaris coup had proven, subterfuge.

It was sealed.

"Thing's been rigged," Kat muttered as she knelt next to a keypad. "See how it doesn't quite fit with the casing?" she pointed to a barely visible gap.

Mitch knelt down next to her and hummed. "You think someones set it up to blow when you punch in the wrong code?"

Kat nodded slowly. "It's what I'd do if I didn't have much time and wanted to keep my stuff from people with sticky fingers."

"Can you defuse it?" Aidan asked.

Mitch and Kat exchanged a long look, the simultaneously shook their heads.

"Not like that," Mitch said.

"And not on the fly," Kat added.

"Well need the rest of the team. Decent lights. Professional code-breaking equipment. Patience."

"And some luck," Kat finished his list.

Aidan sighed, tired and defeated, his body aching from the unfamiliar weight of the armor. "Alright. Let's get back. Enough for today. Besides, there's dozens of square kilometers of tunnels still left to explore. Lets get something to eat and some sleep, and I'll get you the gear you need."

He didn't tell them the emperor had already provided the expedition with the necessary gear. Just another foresight of his old friend. One step at a time.

Later that day, when night had already fallen, Aidan slumped onto his cot in the small cabin he called his own on Augustulus.

Hannigan's soldiers and engineers had opened all the gates leading away from the hub and found the vicinity empty. No immediate threats, no drones, no IEDs, no traps. What they had found was a machine shop and garage that had once served as a repair center for the garrison's vehicles, and a dozen mechbays with automated repair gear.

Nguyen's people had ran out of repeaters and turned back after about two thirds of the way. Which still meant they had covered a few kilometers worth of tunnels. Half the storage where empty. A number of tunnels leading to larger sections of branches had been deliberately collapsed, and apparently in some cases flooded. Whatever was in there, the SLDF had considered it to be important enough to go the extra mile to deny unauthorized intruders easy access to it. The idea gave him just one more thing to worry about.

What Larry Nguyen's men had found in the twenty-five percent that wasn't empty and was accessible already was a treasure, though. There was probably enough stuff down here alone to equip an SLDF infantry brigade or two as they had stumbled across warehouses filled vac-sealed Mausers, armor kits and uniforms. There were ammo crates stacked to the ceiling. Racks and racks filled with artillery shells. Mortars. At least a company of early production version Marksman artillery vehicles...

He sighed wearily. He'd have to figure out a way to prioritize. The Mule he had was just a drop in the bucket. He'd need more transports. More time. More luck...

Aidan Volkov fell into a restive sleep, full of dreams where men in Star League uniforms with bloody stumps for legs chased him through concrete caverns.

Aurea via ambulemus / Golden is the path we walk.

Scrambled message transmitted from the primary Marian dig site on Illyria to the provisional embassy, December 18th, 3009. The same message was transmitted via the Illyria HPG to Alphard the next day.