Chapter Nine: Ah, man, I just had this thing washed.
Personal Journal June 15th, 3001. The Invader was interesting. It was owned and maintained by the SLIC (Star League Intelligence Corps) but it was registered to the Federated suns under the ship name King Henry V. In the actual Jumpship was a list of places and planets that it had often been to on it's trade route. The Blackwatch Lieutenants codes had given me access to the systems and had let me start the process of getting the Invader back up and running. The Invader had been moved here to repair a couple of Seals that had burst because someone forgot their routine maintenance according to the logs. They had finished the repairs just as the Age of Discovery limped in and had joined in with the crew that was going to take Terra back in the Amaris Civil war.
"Man, I've got to figure out where to find this coffee blend when I get to civilization again." I said as I enjoyed another freshly brewed cup of coffee while writing down the adventures of the past couple of days. "If nothing else, I'm adding it to my personal stores to take with me wherever I go because this stuff is good." I took another sip as I stood up from the table in the mess hall of the repair depot.
It was time to check out the dropships attached to the King Henry, there were three aerodyne's that were attached and it was time to figure out what class of Dropship that they were and more importantly, the kind of cargo that they had been carrying when they were left here. Making my way through the various hallways, I donned a hardsuit and got ready for another day of long work at a computer and cataloging just like I had done many times over the past year and a half.
"Alright, lets get you refueled and then see what we have here." I said to myself as I began the refueling process on the first of the aerodyne's. When I was done, I started the reactor back up and began to head to the cockpit. Thankfully, aerodyne's were one of the things available in the simulators back on the Manassas so when I was finished here, I would train in the simulators in between sessions of trying to automate the King Henry V.
Once in the cockpit, I began to go over the ships computers and access systems that will give me the ships names and potentially what the purpose for this dropship was. It turns out, that this was a Buccaneer class Dropship named The Vagabond. It looked to be owned by the SLIC as well and was apparently used as part of the cover story for the King Henry V. I would check the cargo bay once I had gotten the other two Dropships up and running. After I went through and triple checked to make sure that there were no damages, I made my way to the next dropship.
The next Dropship was another Buccaneer called the Troy. Which I found a little ironic given that it was part of an intelligence scheme by the SLIC. Aside from the odd name, this Buccaneer had minor damage to one of the cargo bay doors that would need to be fixed if I wanted to be able to offload cargo from that part of the ship.
The last aerodyne was interesting. While getting the reactor up and running wasn't any more difficult that any other. (I had tons of practice at getting Fusion Generators fueled up and running lately after all.) I was stonewalled in the cockpit. I couldn't get access to any of the ships systems and even using the Blackwatch Lieutenant's codes had gotten me nowhere.
After hours and hours of trying to get access to the ships main computer I decided that it was time for a break. If none of the things I knew about computers worked for now, I would have to go and figure out how to get into the computers the old fashioned way.
Leaving the last aerodyne, I made my way back to the mess hall in order to get some sort of sustenance and another cup of coffee. I would need it in order to finish figuring out how to get into the last Dropship. The mess hall had an attached kitchen and while most of the meat products weren't good anymore, there was fresh vegetables and fruits that I had gotten from the Hydroponics area an placed into the refrigerated storage there. Grabbing a couple of bananas and making a kind of fruit salad with what I had on hand. I went and stood by the coffee pot to wait for it to brew. When the coffee was done, I poured it into my now empty thermos and sat down to enjoy my meal. After almost a year of MRE's, eating something that was fresh was like taking a long hot shower after getting soaked in icy rain. It was delicious and allowed me to wash away my worries with the food and my coffee.
My meal finished, I closed up my thermos and brought it with me in order to do some breaking into computer systems the old fashioned way. By going through all of the crew quarters and the trash and seeing if I could find anything there that might give me access to systems. Despite it being over a thousand years, I knew that people are mostly the same. After working IT for years, I knew that people always leave usernames and passwords written down somewhere. Even if they were information security specialists. People always make mistakes somewhere. And so, I donned some gloves and went onto the last of the Aerodynes in order to go through the trash.
Authors note: I'll add a map in a little bit, I'm gonna need some time to figure out the general location of where I am at in reference to the Inner Sphere map. That being said, General area of between Pirates haven and the Davion/Taurian border. The Manassas has a Lithium Fusion battery and this allowed me to move a little faster in that direction than might otherwise be thought