SLD 601

In 3028, just before the outbreak of the Fourth Succession War, a small detachment of Hansen's Roughriders was sent with a dig team to recover the contents of SLD 601, a forgotten Star League Defense Force depot on Rosetta, a moon in the Periphery. The depot was found to contain thousands of intact HHM Starfire Mark 2500 missiles in crates marked M-2500, "the lost Holy Grail of military technology" which the commander felt would "change the course of modern warfare."

It also featured a computer center (possibly a memory core) and numerous BattleMechs including namely at least one Griffin and Shadow Hawk, and a number of Riflemen. It was noted that these were vintage Star League era models, not the downgraded Succession Wars era variants.

However, in the face of armed resistance from local forces with Pegasus hovertanks the dig team eventually had to retreat empty-handed when a local environmental phenomenon flooded the dig site with liquid sulfur. In the aftermath, they wondered if the locals had maybe used Headhunter Missiles, as one Roughrider 'Mech had suffered an exceptionally lucky hit to its cockpit from a missile salvo during the fight.

Bibliography

• Starfire (short story), in: BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction