Salvage

From: Cecelia Stanley

To: Irisz Magyari

Subject: Parts pillaging

I'm gonna be honest here, boss. The Chasseurs' situation could be best described as 'rooted'. I mean, first up they were crushed by the Elsies which is what drove them to flee out here to the arse end of the universe to begin with. And the next seven or so years after that didn't do them any favours either.

They were already a poor unit to begin with, and not exactly blessed with deep pockets. Having half their unit ripped up didn't help them any either, but then living off what they had out here in the middle of hell took its toll. There was next to nothing left in their spare parts pile, for starters. Just some armour, a bit of structure and a few other odds and sods that could be good for emergencies but that was about it.

You could tell that just form looking at Their 'Mechs. The logs from Terrace's Wammer told me it hadn't had a full SRM load in forever, and one of its lasers had been busted for years. And that's just the data; diving under the hood tells me that thing was running on a nightmare of jury-rigging and bypasses, making do with whatever they could scrounge in order to get by. Up close, that thing looks like a Third Succession War era-wreck, all duct rape and ill-fitting repurposed spares. The Hunchie was in similar shape, although there was a lot less left of it by the time your boys were done.

Looking at the battleROMs told me a few other things. The reason why the Cronus never fired its Streaks was because the launcher was busted. Given that Streaks are sensitive little princesses of equipment, they probably didn't have the tech to fix it and instead just pooled the remaining ammo in the Wammer. Likewise, the way that the Yeoman moved suggested gyro damage to me; it wobbled and over-compensated at every step. Again, likely got itself buggered at some point and they didn't have the parts to fix it.

The Hovers were in a bit better shape, but that’s only because most Vees can get by with more makeshift repairs. The four of them are good for scrap, but not much else. Though the Rotary on that Musketeer was a bomb waiting to go off, I swear.

They'd been getting by through scrapping the machinery in the old plants for raw metal, copper wire or whatever else they could find. I mean, we could strip that down as well, but it's such a crappy option that I wouldn't even waste the time, especially not when the real prize is yet to come.

I got to hand it to them that they did a good job of hiding their Union. Yeah, you can camouflage a dropper given enough time, and it wasn't like that thing was going anywhere in a hurry. The Hawk's Nest was north of the site itself concealed in among some industrial wreckage with judicious use of old machinery, camouflage netting and its general decrepitude actually doing a good job of hiding it from space. I'm also going to say now that the old bird was not going anywhere, but it's condition was a result of the degree of schizophrenia and wishful thinking going on within the Chasseurs.

The techs had been slowly cannibalizing the ship for parts to keep their 'Mechs and Vees running,  but the info we got form Terrace and the others suggested he wanted to keep the ship intact in order to leave this rock. It's a pipe dream, I know, as there was no way they were going to replace some of its drive components, and even then they lacked the infrastructure to work on it. But they kept the ship intact-ish and hidden against the day that a miracle occurred.

But the good news is that we have the reeking carcass of a reeking old Union. And as rooted as that thing is, it’s still a goldmine of parts. With your permission, I'd like to get the tech crews into it on a pillaging spree and strip that thing for all its worth. I reckon that with just that alone we could come out ahead on this little jaunt.