Commander: “Have a drink, privateer. What I’m about to tell you is between you and I, okay? I happen to know things I’m not supposed to. Be warned: If it ever came out of your mouth, I’d deny any knowledge and they’d believe me, not you.”
Burrows: “Understood, commander.”
Commander: “You’re familiar with the Steltek. Our primary mission is a raid on a planet the kats are digging into for Steltek remains.”
Burrows: “When did Confed become aware of the Steltek?”
Commander: “That depends on how you define ‘awareness’; as well as on how you define “Confed”. Some echelons in the Confed were aware of the Steltek as far back as Dr. Monkhouse was digging in Mars, Sol system. But no Confeds were aware of the existance of a Steltek map that was originally found in Mars, and smuggled out.”
Burrows: “The map I came to be in possession of?”
Commander: “That one; exactly.”
Burrows: “The kats seem to be pretty aware of it, and of Dr. Monkhouse’s whereabouts...”
Commander: “They sure were. They sent a whole fleet across Clarke quadrant to go bomb Palan and we Confeds were wondering what the hell was going on... Anyways, we knew the story by the time you defeated the drone.”
Burrows: “If the Confed knew about the Steltek, how come they let the Retros get away with my gun?”
Commander: “We didn’t. When you fought the Steltek drone at Blockade Point Tango we noticed you had a special kind of weapon. As soon as you landed in Perry, our technicians took holos of it. Now, if you allow me to go back in time, about 12 years ago, there was a research project on some kind of laser weapon. Pretty much like a normal laser but it shot green bolts, rather than red ones. It was twice as powerful as a laser and equally as efficient. It would have been a good weapon, but was too expensive to produce: About 15 times as expensive as a regular laser. To make a long story short, the project was cancelled.
Anyways, we’d noticed right away that the weapon you had shot green bolts, and a Military Intelligence agent suggested a substitution operation. Some Confed agents followed you around until you landed on Jolson, while the engineering people were working around the clock to make an outer casing that looked like your Steltek gun. Soon after you landed, they had Jolson base security remove your Steltek gun and replace that modified laser prototype. That was the weapon that the Retros managed to steal a few days later...”.
Burrows: “So now Confed are trying to copy it?”
Captain: “Apparently it uses Dark Matter for its energy source, which can only be found near the center of galaxy clusters. Further than we can travel by many orders of magnitude. Doesn’t look like they’ll be able to get it to work in our lifetime. But we’d like to let the kats think we’re getting there.” (Wink)
Burrows: “Interesting story, commander.”
Commander: “And we might find an old friend of yours, if we’re lucky...” So now we jump to Theta Prime...
- 2669.236 Theta Prime (Surprise: kats have a big fleet protecting the site)
Big battle ensues first in space and then on the planet. When the last resistance is overrun we find Monkhouse. Monkhouse says he saw a Steltek map but destroyed it before the kats realized it was there. The map showed a system one jump North, one jump east. But Monkhouse says the spot was indicated with a different symbol than the usual X. More like “#”. Burrows is sent with two wingmen to investigate the next system North; –Lambda.
- 2669.240 Lambda
When they return, the data is analyzed and there’s another jump point there. Sent to explore it.
- 2669.242 Lambda Prime
Lambda Prime seems safe, and there’s a weird-looking planet. Upon return, Burrows is sent to lead the way for one of the carriers to come along. Carrier arrives at orbit of this planet.
Monkhouse and a team of people and some marines are sent down to land on the planet. Burrows is sent to explore another jump.
Upon coming back, while data is being analyzed, Burrows hears a rumor that on this planet there are remains of what they believe are Mantu ships and buildings. Data analyzed. Burrows sent to explore another jump; “possibly a long one”.