Located 27.53 LY south of Taurus, the Bolthole system had no habitable planets. Due to this, it had been chosen as the secret base of the Taurian Navy and the place for R&D and production of the HPGs.
After producing its first 6 HPGs, 2 of which were of class A, the Concordat had changed the R&D focus to work on the production tools needed to produce in large scale HPGs. Finally, in early 3037, the program had reached the point where the production of HPGs of class A and B was fully industrial, with no components to be manually produced by highly skilled technicians. This both increased the number of parts available and dropped the number that did not meet the required quality.
Much of this development and research had been done in conjunction with NAIS in New Avalon, one of the few areas where both nations collaborated fully and in the utmost secrecy. At the moment the production of new HPGs was kept at low numbers, partly because of the high cost or the low number of components, but also because at the time being it was not planned to install a full operating network of HPGs independent of Comstar as it would attract unnecessary attention. But thanks to the stocks of components we were slowly building (to try to keep a low profile as much as possible), this possibility existed in the near future.
To provide the needed resources through extracting raw materials in the two in-systems asteroid belts, 6 Improved Snowden, a new model, mixing the traditional model equipped with K-Boom and modernized technology for better performance, were also present.
Due to the components brought in from Mundo Nublar and the continuous investments made by the Concordat (a large part of the black budget was applied to this system), Bolthole had a fully operational shipyard capable of processing ships up to 2 million tons. The three Concordat Navy warships were present, the TCS New Vandenberg, a Vincent class Corvette, the TCS Samantha Calderon a Congress class Frigate found on Epsilon Pegasus and the TCS Amanda Calderon a modified Soyal class Heavy Cruiser found on Mundo Nublar. Completely rebuilt and in perfect condition, they served as Bolthole and Taurus guards (Taurus being only one single jump away) and as training ground for various navy crews.
Although the construction of new WarShips was, for now, out of the capabilities of the Concordat because of the tremendous costs of building one and because building the powerful and complex intra-system engines that any Warship needed had proved extremely difficult, curiously much more than working on the K-F compact cores, the Concordat was slowly building all the necessary infrastructure for their future production.
To ensure the maximal secrecy, the safety level in the system was far more than paranoid even for standard Taurian levels (which shows how serious things were). Several Aerospace Fighters and Tigress gunships squadrons, mostly armed with Alamos, patrolled the system and 2 space marines regiments provided the security, together with an impressive TMI security apparatus.
Communication between Bolthole and Taurus was done via a pair of HPGs of the Concordat. Its location in the Taurus system had been extensively studied with all types of sensors and at several ranges, which made a location on the other side of the more distant Taurus moon a safe place to operate it. At this distance and location if the best sensors owned by the Concordat (Star League tech for this test) had only been able to barely detect the transmissions from the Comstar HPG, it was reasonably safe to presume that Comstar couldn't detect anything. Probably.
Any JumpShips arriving at Bolthole had previously to be announced by one of these communications, with the list of people and cargo onboard coinciding, any deviations being treated as saboteurs or dangerous cargo. If a ship arrived without clearance, it was immediately dealt with by the TDF in a not "soft" way. So far, 'only' two ships had gone through such treatment.
In spite of all the precautions, there were some incidents delaying the overall production or research. So far, nothing had been proved but there was not a month without someone being reassigned or imprisoned (did I mention that only a few selected officials could leave the system?), a reminder not to let our guard down.
Although the production of WarShips was for a not yet foreseen future, since 3035, the Concordat had started on a small scale the production of BattleSats,small armed stations of 1,500 tons, equipped with a NL55 and a tiny crew. Several of these already protected both the shipyard and the other facilities in the system. In the future, they were also expected to be placed in the Taurus system and other systems considered strategic for the Concordat. The ground version, a small (relatively) fort with a fusion reactor, one or two NL55 and the necessary tracking systems and heat sinks was in final phase of testing. If I were in another universe, I would say "just imagine the Ion Canon on Hoth".
Unlike full Warships, that for now don't exist plans nor budget to produce any, plans for producing a Pocket Warship, based on the Union DropShips were well advanced. Removing the 'Mech bays but maintaining the ones for the Aerospace Fighters and the weapon systems, two Killer Shark launchers and 16 capital missiles were added. This project would quickly gave an extra punch to the Concordat Navy at a much lower price and well inside the budget capabilities available right now. A further bonus was that the missiles could also carry nuclear warheads (Santa Ana variant), an obvious plus. For simplicity and lower price, the normal weapons systems and armor had not been upgraded, at least for the prototype phase.
After extensive analysis of the Lee DropShip found at the same time the Congress Frigate, it was considered too complex and expensive to produce, so it was send as a "gift" to the 1st Taurian Guards Regiment.