Back on the ground

With a population of less than three million, Highgate was the third most populous world around Qing Long. The entire subsystem had a population of under twenty million, a third of which lived on the system capital of Meridian. Which made Blue Dragon, the star's other common name, by far the least populated star of the five that made up the 34 Tauri system. In contrast, the metro area around the Alliance capital city on Londinium, had roughly twice the population of the entire Qing Long system.

It hadn't helped that the Miranda incident had cost nearly all of that world's three million people. The thirty thousand odd "survivors" had become Reavers, who'd gone on to kill countless thousands more in the years since through the Rim and Border worlds. While the Reaver threat was active, and the Alliance was actively denying they existed, the population around Qing Long had dropped even more as people evacuated for more densely populated worlds. Or, at the very least, moved from remote communities that the Reavers could easily target into the major settlements.

That had left entire towns abandoned. With the Reaver threat abated, those towns became prime grounds for squatters of one form or another. Smugglers. Pirates. Political refuges. Communes. People trying to get away from active civilization, but not so far away that they were completely out of touch.

It was also a near ideal place to set up a clandestine research center. Ready made infrastructure. Far enough from the center of things to glide under the radar. Close enough to population centers and resources that you didn't have to bring in absolutely everything from the outside.

That was what brought us to Highgate.

Tracking down the transport with the stolen AR3 had been a challenge, but we'd done it. Fortunately for us, they hadn't bothered with extensive secondary precautions at the abandoned industrial complex they'd chosen as a remote base. Also working in our favor, they were close enough to Highgate's main city that we could do fly close enough to the facility to get a basic recon without arousing any suspicion. We were just another boat on final for the capital, rather than an ELINT boat doing a preliminary pass on a target.

There was still work to do on the ground before we could attempt an infiltration, but we knew where we were going and had a good idea what we would face when we got there. Now, it was ground work and arranging a transport of our own.

If we pulled this off as I intended, we'd be coming home with some very expensive kit.