Good as Gold

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Had some free time over the winter holidays, started scribbling some ideas and forgot to stop. This is the result. I've tried to do a couple of things with this one:

- Write about the scummier side of the mercenary business. Not the flashy multi-regiment outfits, but the more Wilson's Hussars end of the scale
- Thematically, it's a comment on the morality of fighting for money, at least within the context of the BT universe
- Multiple viewpoint characters--fair warning, I don't go all Game of Thrones in here, but not all live to the end of the story (Note I'm rebooting couple of characters from another story--this isn't a prequel or sequel, just its own thing)
- Play around with the standard BattleTech time/date/location stamp things, so that they tell you a little about the story and characters

What to expect: I don't go in for AUs much, nor galaxy-spanning scheming and plotting, nor wall-to-wall battle scenes. I've been told my writing is noirish, so there you go: A small-scale noir story set in the BT universe. Hope you enjoy, 'cos I sure as hell did writing it.

***

1. Sebastian Gore

Think it was called Amber or Anchor City or something
Happy-Cappie Land
What we at now, 3026 or thereabouts? Hard to keep track of standard years, y’know?

He grinned, and his twisted, distorted reflection in the bar of gold grinned back.

Humanity had used pretty much everything practicable, and quite a few utterly impractical, as forms of money at one time or other over the millennia: Paper money, plastic, nickel or copper coins, purely digital currencies based on computing power or communication time, salt, seashells, beer, tobacco, bottle caps, even four-ton stone disks. But gold, good old-fashioned gold, that never went out of style.

Sebastian Gore hefted the brick, enjoying the weight of it, or rather, enjoying the thought of what that weight would buy. He dropped it into his jacket pocket, where it landed in a lump hard as a mercenary’s heart, heavy and merciless as necessity.

“Here that?” he asked the dour-faced man standing next to him, patting the bar in his pocket with a dull metallic jingle. “That, mah friend, is the sound of crime paying.”

Shinobu said nothing, but then Shinobu never said anything. It was what made him such good company.

They stood on the steps of what had, until about two hours previous, been the planet’s central bank and precious metals depository. It might have been impressive once, a squat and brutal statement of power expressed in reinforced concrete, steel and glass. One wall was now missing, along with most of the roof, while a frayed and threadbare line of sandbags blocked the entrance. Here and there were sprawled bodies, or what was left of them, with the red armbands, bandannas or kerchiefs of the rebels.

The Liao arm-and-sword insignia had fallen from over the main doors and lay shattered among the sandbags and the dead, like a green agate geode that had been cracked and its insides allowed to leak out.

“The optimism of people never ceases to amaze,” said Sebastian, shaking his head. He wore a thigh-length leather coat over his black MechWarrior tank top, rounded sepia sunglasses, and a blackened Sternsnacht Python on his hip. A black glove covered a burned left hand, a circular tattoo on his neck of a snake eating its own tail peaked above the collar of his coat. He was, in short, living example of all the worst things people imagined when they heard the word ‘mercenary’. He pushed down the sunglasses to regard the wreckage over the rims. “Has this kinda rebellion ever worked out?”

Shinobu pursed his lips and seemed to consider the question, staring at the meteor-impact crater of a particle blast, and the two carbonized corpses within in.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, Verthandi, but that’s the rule-proving exception,” allowed Sebastian, then gave a little shrug, letting fall from his shoulders a hundred little things, like the lives of the men and women who’d died defending this place. “Can’t complain, though. When the good Lord closes a door, you just got to blast yourselves open a window.”

Shinobu just nodded slowly. Once, twice. Neither agreement nor rejection, just mute acceptance of the ways of the world. Shinobu was a grey cloud next to Sebastian’s ebullient sun, dressed in cast-off Kurita MechWarrior fatigues with all insignia scraped clean—or, if you looked closer, torn brutally away. His straight black hair was styled in the conservative Combine 7:3 style, parted one-third along from the side, and held in place with a solid layer of what was either gel or Elmer’s glue. A short wakizashi sword was stuck upside-down through his belt, looking slightly forlorn with no sign of a larger katana twin.

“Hey, Seb. Here comes Honest Abe,” Danica’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “Looks like he’s brought an adult this time.”

The four BattleMechs of the Anything Associates stood in a ragged semicircle in front of the building, twisted and haphazard things, like post-nuclear mutants, the Four Distortions of the Apocalypse. There was Danica’s twin-cannoned Madapult, Zeke’s hunchbacked Banshee, Shinobu’s multicolored Dragon, plus Sebastian’s own “Mjolnir”, a one-armed crossbreed between a Thunderbolt, Marauder and a Zeus.

Despite his sunglasses, Sebastian had to shield his eyes with his hand and squint up at Danica, perched on the shoulder of her BattleMech. He waved up at her, and pressed the communicator to his throat to talk. “An adult?”

“Uh-huh. Got two armored cars inbound, one in Cappie colors, and one either ComStar or someone willing to risk dropping themselves in a blessed, sainted, super high-tech saucer of hyper-shit and pretend to be ComStar. Think he’s mad?”

Commander Abel Mutai, Honest Abe, was the Confederation liaison, a small man who’d lived a small life, failed his way into a small job in the professional soldiery liaison service on a small world (but not on the Small World), and resented every inch of that smallness with all the petty spite he could muster. Which luckily was not much, on account of said diminutive stature in pretty much every aspect that counted: physical, mental and professional.

“Dani, I’ve had hangovers that scared me worse than Abe,” Sebastian smiled as she chuckled. “I’ll make the nice mouth-noises, smooth his fluffy little feathers. You and Zeke just sit tight now.”

Danica clicked off as the two angular, wedge-nosed armored cars appeared from around a corner on massive toy-truck tires, the first olive green, the second in dazzlingly brilliant white. As soon as the first had rumbled to a halt at the foot of the steps the side door sprang open, and Abel Mutai stepped down. He spent two minutes fussing his uniform into place, tugging his cuffs and pulling down his shirt, adjusting his sash, getting his clamshell helmet straight, before he scowled up at the two MechWarriors and marched up the steps, boots slapping with each furious stride.

Behind him, a white-clad man got out the front of the ComStar car, then opened the rear door and stood stiffly at attention. A black woman in long white robe stepped down, and followed in Mutai’s wake at a more sedate pace.

“Commander Gore,” Mutai barked when he was still ten paces away. “I think I am owed an explanation.”

Sebastian waited for Mutai to come to a halt on a lower step. He spat from the side of his mouth before answering. “You got something specific in mind, or is that more a philosophical position, Mutai? All this fighting got you wondering about the nature of creation? ‘War, what’s it good for’, and that?”

Mutai thrust a finger past Sebastian, at the shattered shell of the central bank behind him. “What is your unit doing here?”

“Ah now, that’s an easy one. Our orders were to quote engage targets of opportunity end quote,” Sebastian shrugged, waving over his shoulder. “This here was an opportunity, and we engaged it all right. Engaged it all to hell.”

“Completely abandoning the units on your flanks, creating a gap in our encirclement of the city, and allowing the rebels to escape!” Mutai’s voice rose steadily as he spoke, ending in what was probably supposed to be a threatening roar, but came out an undignified squeak.

Sebastian shook his head slowly, as though saddened by the failings of his fellow man. “Aw now that is a real shame. They let ‘em get away? Good help is so hard to find, ain’t it?”

Unnoticed by Mutai, the ComStar representative finally joined them. Her skin was a deep, almost indigo black, starkly contrasting against the pure white of her ComStar robe. Almost reminded Sebastian of a Chinese yin-yang symbol. She regarded the wreckage about them with something like amusement. “Commander Gore,” she nodded fractionally. “Adept Levato. Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Sebastian dipped his head in acknowledgement and threw her a mock salute. “Levato?”

“It’s Italian for ‘like a wolf’.” She skinned him a lupine smile, a slash of white under flinty eyes.

“And ‘engaged’ the enemy? You barely fired a shot,” Mutai broke in, trying to wrestle the conversation back to himself. “Take that useless Banshee, for example—”

“Hey, hey, says right on our TO and E: BNC-3E brackets modified brackets.”

“Modified? It doesn’t have any fracking weapons!”

“Still got the laser in the head,” Sebastian pointed out. “Look, you contracted for a heavy lance, we got you a heavy lance. Ain’t nothing in the contract saying how many shots we got to fire or what loadout we got to run.”

Mutai’s mouth worked in soundless outrage for a moment, before he turned to the ComStar woman beside him, gesticulating in fury at the mercenary. “Say something, Adept!” he screeched.

Levato’s lips pressed together in a smile as insincere as it was brief. “Commander Mutai, it’s ComStar job to see that the terms of the contract are abided by, not to do your due diligence for you. You hired a bottom of the barrel mercenary unit, at bottom of the barrel rates, you got a bottom of the barrel unit.”

“Aw thanks sugah,” Sebastian winked at her. She did not smile back.

Mutai threw up his hands and turned his back on Levato. “Please tell me you at least secured the gold, palladium and iridium reserves.”

“Aw, now, about that. ‘Fraid the rebels cleaned the place out before they scrammed. Not a speck o’gold to be found,” Sebastian shrugged helplessly, his shoulders two towering peaks of regret, his sad face between a valley of sadness. On cue, the gold bar fell out of his jacket pocket, landed on the steps, bounced, catching the light beautifully as it spun, hit the next step, then two more, teetered and sparkled on the edge before falling yet one more step to land at Mutai’s feet with a loud, clear and final clang.

“Oh look, there’s one,” beamed Sebastian. “Not a total loss after all.”

Mutai stopped to retrieve the bar, and held it accusingly in front of the Adept’s face. “This is theft, Adept!”

Levato pushed Mutai’s arm firmly away in irritation. “Then arrest them, Commander. Crime is a matter for the Confederation military police, not the MRB. Unless you want to terminate their contract for non-performance. Is that what you want?”

Sebastian’s smile disappeared. He threw back his leather coat and put his hands on his hips, one hand brushing the grip of his Python autopistol. “Is it? That ain’t very neighborly. After all we been through Mutai, you calling us thieves? That hurts.”

Behind them Danica’s Madapult shifted slightly, one clawed foot coming down close enough to the Capellan armored car to make it bounce on its suspension. The foot twisted slightly, grinding the asphalt beneath it with a tooth-rattling pop and crackle.

Sebastian leaned forward. “Maybe we just take our toys and go home, if we ain’t appreciated around here no more.”

Mutai swallowed. “Break your contract?”

“Ah’ve broken better contracts for worse reasons. Now what was that about us stealing something?”

“But without the BattleMechs, we’ll be—” Mutai stuttered to a stop, pulled off his plasteel helmet and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Maybe I spoke to hastily,” he muttered. Slapped the helmet back on his head, where it sat slightly askew. Puffed his chest, tried to restore some pride. “There will be an investigation, I can promise you that.”

Sebastian waved a hand in a circular hurry-up motion. “Take your time,” he said. “We’ll just sit here and wait for you to figure it out. Unless there’s something more pressing we should be attending to? Like the breakout of the rebel army?”

Mutai seized on that, a face-saving gesture. “Right, yes, absolutely. Inquiries can wait. All units are ordered to pursue. We must bring the rebels to battle, and eliminate or capture the leadership element, especially the so-called Commandante Zlato.” A warning finger came up, trembling ever so slightly. “Your unit will be the reserve, Commander Gore. You will not engage unless explicitly ordered, is that clear?”

“Good as gold, Mutai.”

“Good. Right.” Mutai looked around, nodded to himself. “Right. Yes. Well, and, good. Glad we got that straight. And don’t you forget it!” With that, he scrambled back down the steps and all but flung himself into the rear of the armored car. Slammed the door shut with an indignant clang.

The car backed up from the Madapult foot, tried to swing around, found it didn’t have enough room, reversed again, nearly crashed into the front of the ComStar car parked behind it, rocked backwards and forwards a little trying to find an angle, finally worked its way around the foot and jolted off down the broken and blistered road.

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2. Adept Levato

CBD, Anchor City
Ingress (Ingress IV, 49.622/-18.661 LY Terran Relative)
Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation
9 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)/5724 (Capellan Calendar)

Sebastian gave Mutai a wave as he sped off.

Shinobu ignored the car and kept his eyes on the ComStar Adept. Adept Levato, for her part, watched the Capellan liaison officer’s retreat with wry amusement.

Sebastian lowered his arm, noticed the Adept wasn’t going anywhere. He cleared his throat. “There, uh, something Ah can help you with, Adept?”

She turned unhurriedly, scrutinized Sebastian slowly from head to foot, like a wolf sizing up its dinner. “So, between you and me, where did you put the gold?” Her eyes tracked up to the four BattleMechs, then narrowed. “A virtually unarmed Banshee with a big hump on its back. With the weight savings from the PPC and autocannon you could fit, what, 15 to 20 tons of cargo? That Banshee going to jingle when it walks out of here?”

Sebastian just grinned. “Like you said, Ah figure that’s between Mutai and us.”

“Twenty tons of gold, platinum, palladium,” Levato mused. “Must be worth, what, 900 million C-Bills?”

“964 million and change, Adept.”

“Mercenaries,” Levato shook her head fractionally from side to side. “You’re a credit to your profession, Commander Gore.”

Sebastian didn’t answer at first, just looked at his feet, reached down and patted away some of the dust from his boots. “Y’know, people say to me, ‘Gore, mercs like you are nothin’ but dirt under our feet. You got no love for nothin’ but your own self’.” He straightened and grimaced a little. “There’s a cadre commander in a back office in there, Adept. Bet she loved a whole head full o’ things: the cause, her comrades, honor, duty, loyalty. ‘Course you can’t ask her no more, on account of she’s got a ConfedArms pistol in her right hand and a nine-millimeter hole in her right temple, where all those things in her head just leaked right on out, onto some nice shag carpet. Way Ah see it, you can do a whole lot worse in this world than look out for yourself.”

“So, you’re a nihilist?”

“Naw, nihilism’s just another kinda certainty, one step away from the woman back there. Too easy to go from believing it all means something, to believing nothing does. Ah don’t claim to know why people were put in this galaxy, or what the point of it all is. But from what Ah’ve seen, Ah sorely doubt the purpose of humanity is to ‘liberate the agrarian masses’ or put Max Liao’s fat ass on the throne of Terra. That bein’ the case, looking out for maself has been pretty good policy so far.”

“And you?” Levato turned to Shinobu. “Hazukashikunai? Jibun no kodo wa do omou?” 

Shinobu did not so much blink. One eyebrow ticked up for a split second, which was the equivalent of a muted scream for the man.

“Easy now Shinny, she don’t mean nothing by it,” Sebastian patted the man on the shoulder. Then, to Levato: “He don’t take kindly to being reminded of the Combine no more. Now Adept, we can stand here jawing all day about the peculiars of the mercenary trade, but is there some point to this? Like, why you covering for us with Honest Abe?”

“Walk with me, Commander,” Levato clasped her hands behind her back, and began to walk towards her armored car. She glanced back and saw Gore hesitate. “You can threaten to squash me flat too, if I scare you that much.”

“Ain’t really a place for a stroll, Adept,” Sebastian said, but walked after her, not hurrying. “Mines, IEDs, no telling what the FIA left lying around.”

“Just to my car,” she smiled, then frowned when she saw Shinobu keeping pace with them, a step behind.

“Aw, don’t worry about Shinny. This may surprise you, but he knows when to keep his mouth shut.”

“A valuable skill.” Levato paused by the sprawled body of a rebel soldier, one first still clenched defiantly, the other clasped over a ragged hole in his chest. The red armband bore the letters FIA in gold—Freedom for Ingress Alliance. “These rebels have proven remarkably resilient, haven’t they? Getting better and better equipped as the war goes on. They’ve even hired mercenaries.”

Shinobu crouched by the body and gingerly tipped the dead man’s rifle up by the barrel and inspected it, tracing the manufacturer’s marks down the side for the other two to see. “Fed-Barrett,” Sebastian explained to Levato. “Fed Suns make. No guesses where their gear and money are coming from.”

“Hanse Davion,” Levato nodded. “Ever heard of Halstead Station?”

Sebastian frowned, darted a look at Shinobu. Shinobu gently set the Fed-Barrett rifle back down, and mimed opening a book. The memory clicked and Sebastian nodded. “Yeah, ole Hansey raided a library or something, didn’t he?”

“Or something,” Levato agreed. “Hanse Davion is a determined man, used to getting what he wants. Power, wealth, knowledge, information. And now, he wants Ingress.”

“Gonna be a hard fight, Ah guess,” Sebastian said, in a disinterested tone that implied that would be someone else’s problem.

“And with your new-found riches, you might be tempted not to stick around that long?”

Levato was about to take a step towards the body when Sebastian raised a gloved hand in caution. “Careful now. Rebs like to booby-trap the dead ‘uns, put grenades, mines or whatnot underneath ‘em.”

Levato took a hesitant step back, looked like her ruffled pride was struggling with her caution. The latter won out. She turned and resumed walking, until she reached the side of the armored car. Turned around to face Sebastian again. “We’ll keep the Capellans off your backs—but there is a price, Commander Gore. We scratch your back, you scratch ours. Self-interest: Just your kind of deal. We want you to stay on contract to the Confederation.”

“An interesting proposition. But now I am just afire with curiosity. Gonna have to give me a little more detail than that before I say ‘Yes’.”

“Commandante Zlato. Commander Mutai and the Confederation will want her taken alive, for interrogation and a public show trial. We are willing to make it worth your while to see that the Commandante never makes it to her trial.”

“You mean, kill her?”

Levato nodded, slowly and deliberately. “Oh yes, I do mean kill her.”

“What’s it to ComStar?”

“Zlato was once one of us. About six months ago, she defected to the insurgency. We take apostacy seriously, Commander Gore. Some of us, you see, believe in things a little bigger than our next payday. But more importantly to you, we’re willing to pay to see that she pays for her betrayal.” Levato reached down, and swung open the side door of the armored car. Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian could see there was someone else inside.

Distracted, he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Awright, fair enough. We’ll see what we can do, but Ah cain’t promise nothin’. If the Cappies get her first, not much we can do.”

“Why leave things to chance, Commander?” Levato said. The shadow unfolded from the interior of the ComStar armored car, stepped out into the sunlight and towered over Sebastian. A giant of a man, scraping maybe two meters tall, with the battered and scarred face of a boxer and the muscles of a BattleMaster. His white ComStar jumpsuit strained against his seams—you could use him for an anatomical drawing for a comic book superhero.

“Commander Gore,” Levato indicated the giant. “This is Atom.”

Sebastian grunted, trying not to let his surprise show. “Bigger’n Ah expected.”

Levato smiled thinly. “He is our insurance in this deal. His BattleMech will join your unit, and see that the Commandante is dealt with appropriately.”

The giant offered a hand, which engulfed Sebastian’s like a child’s when the shook. “A pleasure,” the man said, though he did not look especially pleased.

“You got a last name, Atom?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian waited a moment in silence, then carefully extracted his hand from the other man’s grasp, working the fingers to make sure they still moved. “Okay. Great. Ah can tell you’re gonna get on great with Shinny here. Welcome aboard.” His eyes behind the shades flicked to Levato. “Not like we got much choice in the matter. So. What’s your ride?”

“A Shootist.”

Sebastian frowned. “A what-ist? That’s a new one on me.”

Levato chuckled, a low and conspiratorial sound. “Now, now Commander. We’ll keep your secrets. You’ll allow us ours.”

[DOC_Agren]

 :thumbsup:
Will there be more

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:thumbsup:
Will there be more

Yes, absolutely. This story is more or less in the can, I'm just spinning it out in installments. Total length is around 30,000 words (i.e. novella length).

[XaosGorilla]

Well, that plot just thickened a whole lot...

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For this story, I've taken a page out of David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series and tried writing a couple of factoid-type sidebars that expand the setting... and hint at the story. I'll post an actual chapter today too, to keep the story moving forward.

This one owes a big debt to the folks at sarna.net for the formatting and info.

***

Fact File: Ingress (Accessed from ComStar database 3026/04/09)

System Information
Coordinates: 49.622 : -18.661
Spectral Class: G6V
Planets: 9

Geophysical Information
System position: 4
Aphelion: 1.6 AU
Perihelion: 1.3 AU
Mean radius: 6,133km (0.962 Terra)
Orbital period (Length of year): 219 days (local)
Rotation period (Length of day): 40.2 hours
Satellites: 1 (Edanu, mass 0.816 Luna)
Surface gravity: 1.0G
Atmosphere: Standard (breathable)
Equatorial temperature: 29 degrees C
Geography: The geography of Ingress is sharply and evenly divided, with water covering 50% of the surface. The northern hemisphere is almost entirely covered by a single ocean, with the exception of a large island near the pole, and a small chain of four volcanic islands near the equator. The southern hemisphere is characterized by coastal plains around the equator and rugged uplands. Two inland seas exist, in the Gong and Oval basins.

Sociopolitical Information
Political Affiliation: Capellan Confederation
Ruler: Planetary Diem Diagur Monaco (in fief to Duke Ryan Teng)
Population: 847,000,000
Capital: Anchor City (Pop. 6,500,000)
Major Languages: Standard, Armenian, Russian
Major Products: Agricultural foodstuffs (rice, soybeans), agricultural machinery
Military Deployment:

(Pre-insurgency) 54th Tikonov Home Guard Regiment, 12 regiments planetary militia, paramilitary/internal security forces (Special Tactics Police, Spaceport Customs Authority, etc.)

(Post-insurgency) Militia regiments expanded to 12 divisions through calling up of reservists, limited draft & incorporation of paramilitary forces, small numbers of mercenaries hired (>500)

Number of insurgents unknown (est. 300,000-600,000) believed to fluctuate seasonally, but includes many defectors/deserters from militia/security units and may include off-world mercenaries

History
Settled early in the Exodus period and thanks to temperate climate and fertile soil quickly became a self-sufficient colony. Major center for agricultural sciences, established at the University of Way. University grounds later converted to [Error, file corrupted. Download again? Y/N]

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3. MechWarrior Shinobu

Short-mura, Chuo-kogen
Ingress-sei
Kapera Renbo
3026 nen (Aihei 30 nen), 4 gatsu, 11 nichi

Time has no respect for memories. Time heals all wounds, whatever you might wish otherwise. Shinobu did not wish to heal. He did not want to get over it, put it behind him, move on, or any of the other trite things people tell you that you should be doing. He wished to feel the pain, to go on feeling the pain, to tear the wound open fresh each day so that he might never forget.

He had read about flagellants, a medieval sect of Christians who whipped and scourged themselves as a penance for their sins. To Shinobu, mercenary service was a kind of self-flagellation, a reminder to himself that he was worth no better, that he deserved to live among the honorless, the vain and the greedy, the lowest breed of MechWarrior. Living this life was his way of making sure the scars never healed.

The wakizashi was part of that, a reminder of his weakness. The blade used to commit seppuku. He hadn’t. Too weak, too cowardly. Another failure. So he wore it, every day, made himself look at it every day, remind himself, bring himself face to face with it, so it would never fade. Time would not heal this wound.

He’d make sure.

The village was called Short. In addition to being the name of the town, ‘Short’ was also a fair description of the naming convention on Ingress: the capital was Anchor, the provincial capital of the central highlands was called Way, they’d passed through the towns of Here and There the previous day. True to its name, Short had just one main road, along which most of the shambolic, unlovely concrete and corrugated steel buildings clustered. It was hot. Dusty. Miserable.

As the strategic reserve during the current advance, the Anything Associates arrived in Short after the Capellan infantry. Before the uprising, Ingress had been home to a Home Guard regiment and 12 regiments of militia. Those 12 regiments had been used to triple the size of the militia almost overnight, each one becoming the seed around which had grown a set of virtually untrained, poorly-led and -equipped militia divisions. In Shinobu’s estimation, the Home Guard and old militia hands were decent fighters, but three-quarters of the new divisions were worse than useless in combat, being more of a threat to the civilian population than the enemy. The remaining quarter varied in quality from poor to dreadful to Wilson’s Hussars On a Bad Day.

Short had fallen to one of the worst divisions.

As the five BattleMechs strode down the dusty road through the town, Shinobu saw clumps of men sitting or sprawled listlessly in the shade of the buildings, some puffing cigarettes, others napping with their helmets pulled down over their eyes.

A boxy two-story structure near the center of town was burning sulkily, desultorily, red flames flickering higher then lower with gusts of wind. Thin grey smoke spread across the road. There were three bodies sprawled across the road in front of it, two in brown fatigues with red armbands, one in a white shirt and blue slacks. A pair of black boots peaked from the doorway of the burning building, toes pointed mutely heavenwards.

“Been a long day. Edge of town, we’ll laager there,” Sebastian announced. It pained Shinobu to follow the orders of this, this death-merchant, this gold-addicted war-whore. Which is why he did it. It was supposed to hurt. Shinobu clicked once in acknowledgement, never taking his eyes off the militiamen staring sullenly after the BattleMechs in undisguised envy and resentment.

They parked the ’Mechs in a ragged circle, each machine facing outwards. “Dani, Atom, you’re on first watch,” ordered Sebastian. “Zeke, Shinny, with me. Time to make nice with the locals.”

“First watch again?” complained Danica. Such slovenly lack of discipline, Shinobu thought for perhaps the thousandth time that day.

“Good point, let’s ask the Commander,” Sebastian replied sarcastically. “Oh right, that’s me. Yes, again, Smallwood. So Ah’d be ever so much obliged if you could stand watch, please, pretty please. Not like you’ll be missing much anyhow.”

Atom, Shinobu noted, said nothing. That one might be a true warrior, at least, in the tradition of Benkei, the warrior-priest. His BattleMech was an odd one, V-shaped chest studded with laser ports, massive autocannon barrel slung under one arm. The Dragon’s T&T system refused to identify it, kept asking him to install something called the “Royal Regiment Appendix”.

The three gathered at the foot of the Mjolnir, Sebastian in his customary tank top, revealing the angry pink and bruised purple of the burn than anaconda’d its way up his left arm. Some wounds, time does not heal.

Zeke fidgeted nervously from one foot to the other. “I got the cadre commander’s pistol from the bank,” he whispered to Shinobu, patting a pocket of his grey shorts. “One she used to off herself. ConfedArms, with the Liao mark on the grip. Think that’s worth something?” Mercenaries, Shinobu sneered to himself. Interested in one thing. He shrugged by way of answer, and Zeke looked like a puppy that had been kicked.

There was a group of just over a dozen villagers sitting by the side of the road, warily watched by a squad of militiamen. Three of the villagers were wearing khaki, combat webbing and rebel armbands, the rest long, loose shirts and pants, open-toed sandals, typical farmer’s dress in the region. One rebel was a woman, the other two men. The woman bled from a gunshot wound in her calf, one of the men from a splinter in his arm. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry to do anything about either injury.

Shinobu wasn’t sure how he should feel about that. Commoners and unproductives, raising their hands to strike against their masters. This rebellion was an insult to the natural order of society, he told himself. And yet. These militiamen. Barely better than unproductives themselves. Slovenly, undisciplined soldiers, prone to looting and desertion. Like mercenaries, almost.

Shinobu wished someone would bind the woman’s leg, at least. But that was a weak thought. Weak. He quashed it, directed his attention back to the militiamen. Zeke, he noted, had already wandered off, and was showing his purloined pistol to a group of militiamen sprawled in the drainage ditch beside the road. Trying to sell it, of course.

The militia Subcommander lounged nearby, cigarette dangling from his lips, watching the prisoners boredly. His eyes barely registered when the three MechWarriors approached and Sebastian threw him a casual salute. “Commander Gore, Anything Associates.”

The Subcommander took a drag off his cigarette. “Uh-huh.”

“Looks like you had a bit of a scrap here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“All cleared out, though?”

“Uh-huh.”

There was shouting now, over by the prisoners. Shinobu glanced over, saw a Liao political commissar had arrived. He was yelling at the three rebel prisoners, ordering men to grab the woman’s arms and haul her to her feet. The woman’s injured leg gave way under her, and the two men holding her stumbled, then wrestled her upright again. The commissar continued to shout—what was her unit, where were the rest of her men, where was the command cadre, which villagers were traitors and sympathizers.

“We’ll be parking at the edge of town for the night, push on in the morning.”

“Five hundred yuan,” the Subcommander said, still watching the prisoners. A faint smile played about his lips as he watched the men struggle to keep the female rebel prisoner upright.

Sebastian put his hands on his hips. “Say what, now?”

The Subcommander reluctantly dragged his attention from the entertaining spectacle of the interrogation. “Billeting fee. Five men, one hundred yuan each. Five hundred yuan.”

Shinobu’s hand drifted down to rest on the hilt of his wakizashi. Sebastian laid a cautioning hand on Shinobu’s wrist, but kept his eyes on the Subcommander, shaking his head. “Ah don’t think so.”

The Subcommander plucked the cigarette from his lips and threw it to the ground. His smile faded, replaced with a look of bulldog determination. “Now it’s one thousand yuan. Or I report you to the commissar.” He nodded towards where the man was still yelling at the female prisoner.

“Now listen here—”

Just then, Zeke trotted up, holding an arm patch. A snarling panther’s head against a white star. “Hey guys look what I found on one of the—”

Shinobu turned at the sound of Zeke’s voice and saw movement from the corner of his eye. The commissar had drawn his pistol, and was using the barrel to lift up the woman’s shirt and try to expose her breasts. Suddenly the woman straightened her supposedly wounded leg, hooked it around the ankle of one of her captors and swept it from under him, knocking him sprawling. At the same time, she grabbed the barrel of the commissar’s pistol, jerking it out of his hands. The man staggered backwards, tripped, and landed heavily on his ass, screaming, arms raised to shield his face.

The rebel prisoner got the pistol turned around, clicking off the safety.

There was an ear-shattering burst of gunfire. The second man who’d been holding the prisoner stepped back, unslung his submachinegun, and fired a burst into the prisoner at point-blank range. The woman jackknifed, back erupting in red craters, and flopped to the group. The guard stood over her, straddling the body, and fired another burst straight downwards.

The commissar was back on his feet, face beet red. He snatched his pistol off the ground where the woman had dropped it, stamped over to the next rebel prisoner, pressed the gun to the back of the man’s head and fired. The body went slack and pitched forward, blood pouring out across the ground and into the ditch. The commissar took a step, stood behind the next man, fired. Crack, echoing between the buildings on the street.

Took another step, stood behind the first civilian. Frail, grey haired man. Checkered shirt. Resigned look on his face. The pistol cracked. Another step. A woman, middle-aged, silent tears.

Without thought, Shinobu found he was striding forward, sword half-drawn. Found Sebastian blocking his way. Gloved hand clamped down over Shinobu’s own. “Not now, kamikaze, not now.”

Crack.

Shinobu tried to wrestle free. Sebastian’s hand on his wrist was iron. Stronger than he looked. Held him with the burned hand, the one that would never heal. “Not our fight, kamikaze,” Sebastian hissed. “No margin in dyin’ a hero.”

Crack.

“Kill these mothers, kamikaze, there’s a million more just like ‘em.”

Crack.

“They were dead the minute the rebs decided to set an ambush here.”

Crack.

Weak. He was weak. Weak for feeling anything for these rebels, these outlaws. In the Combine, their fate would have been the same.

Crack.

Weak because he allowed himself to be stopped. Maybe he was afraid, afraid to die for these people, as he had been afraid to die for himself. A coward.

Crack.

There was a pause in the shots, and over Sebastian’s shoulder Shinobu could see it was because the commissar was reloading, swapping out an empty magazine for a full one. There was a line of bodies, fallen in a neat row, and the blood on the ground had swollen from a trickle to a flood. Militiamen were picking over them, removing watches, jewelry, fishing wallets out of pockets. The Subcommander was jogging towards them—not to stop the looting, but to demand his tithe.

Shinobu angrily slammed the blade back into its sheath, and turned his back. Defeated. Defeated by the dirty, filthy banality of it all. Defeated by his own inability to do anything about it, anything at all. He began to angrily stride back towards the BattleMechs, head bowed in shame.

Behind him, he did not see a militiamen turn over one of the dead rebels, and notice too late the grenade the man had concealed under his shirt, and now rolled free. There was a surprised shout, then a deafening blast. The three MechWarriors instinctively crouched at the sound of the detonation behind them, but when they turned there was nothing to see but sprawling octopus arms of orange-tinged smoke and a pattering rain of dirt, concrete fragments and body parts.

From the dust cloud, the commissar came tottering out, dazed, half his uniform torn to shreds, but miraculously alive.

“The frack was that?” Danica’s panicked voice boomed from the communicator in Shinobu’s already assaulted ears. The ground quivered as the Madapult advanced towards them down the road, Atom’s Shootist just behind.

“Nothing important,” Sebastian spat on the road. Then, sarcastically: “Just your average Cappie intelligence op.”

Shinobu strode towards the blinking, shell-shocked commissar. Unsheathed his blade, and in the same, single, fluid motion, cut off the commissar’s head. There was a shocked fountain of blood from the neck, a violent red exclamation, and the body collapsed. Shinobu held the pose for a moment. Wiped the blade on the man’s uniform. Reversed his movement, and sheathed the sword.

Found Sebastian watching him. Saying nothing for a long moment, the two men just regarding one another. Finally, Sebastian shook his head. “The hell you lookin’ so smug about.” Shinobu was sure his face was quite expressionless.

“Lucky I sold the pistol when I did,” Zeke laughed nervously, rebel shoulder patch clutched in his hand. “And look, a rebel spec forces insignia. Suicide squad. Bet that’s worth a couple hundred Cs to a collector.”

The reason Shinobu never spoke was that he was afraid that if he tried, all that would come out was a scream.

[Dubble_g]

Hmm, seemed to have missed my mark with this one. Not quite found the audience I was hoping but ah well, live and learn.

The idea of posting in installments is to allow for community feedback, comment and discussion, but lacking that I'm just going to throw up a bunch of chapters and let the lurkers read along at their own pace.

***

4. Danica Smallwood

Central Highlands
Ingress
15 April, 3026

Fakes. They were all fakes. She was the only one who could see clearly, who was practical, who had their feet on the ground. Time would come, they’d see that. She’d show ‘em.

Four of them sat around a heating unit: Her, Sebastian, Zeke, and the new guy, the brute, Atom. Shinobu on watch in his ’Mech. On the flattened top of a hill, overlooking the terraced rice fields in the valleys below. Fading orange and pink evening light scattered and reflected in the thousand crescent saucers of the flooded paddies.

Couple of MREs cooking themselves on their built-in heating plates. Sebastian already spooning his from the can, going hah-hah-hah between mouthfuls to stop from burning his tongue.

Seb? Forget the accent. Seb wasn’t from the Davion outback, probably never been there. Danica had looked him up—‘Sebastian Gordon’ was from Atreus. Fracking Atreus. Third Marik Militia. Forget the accent. Civil War refugee.

She’d met him in a bar, on Galatea. Should have been a red flag, now that she thought about it. She remembered how the waitress had been star-struck. Hah. If she’d known. “You guys mercenaries?” the waitress had whispered breathlessly. Sebastian had allowed that they were. “Like Natasha Kerensky?”

Sebastian had looked at Danica, back at the waitress. “Yep,” he’d deadpanned. “Exactly like her.”

Danica snorted at the memory.

Sebastian had leaned a communicator against his rucksack, tuned to the Capellan battlenet. A lot of excited chatter going on, synchronized to bright thunder flashes that danced along the horizon. Upside-down lightning.

“Hovertanks inbound—set the AT guns—fire, fire, fire—they’re too fast—where the frack are the BattleMechs—here they come—”

They’d been pursuing the FIA forces south, headed for the regional capital, Way. Seemed the prey had turned, shown they still had claws. Wasn’t a mistake Danica would have made. Whole Capellan high command were a bunch of amateurs, far as she could see.

“You are the chosen hand of vengeance,” Atom was saying to Sebastian, ignoring the communicator. “You must be very proud.”

Atom? Man was two protons short of a nucleus. Not stupid, exactly, but had the unbelievable naivety of the true believer. Trying to act so pure, but in the end he was just a hired killer, just another thug.

“Murderin’ some woman, you mean?” Sebastian regarded a spoonful of stew, as though it held the answer. “Very proud. Dee-lighted.”

“A bad woman, an evil one,” Atom nodded. Danica didn’t think he’d gotten the sarcasm. “Adept Levato would not have chosen you without reason. You must feel very fortunate, to have created such a fine unit.”

“What, this?” Sebastian waved his greasy spoon towards the shabby, battered BattleMechs. There was a long pause. Sebastian dropped the spoon back in the can. “Yep. A real dream come true.”

“Sure,” Atom blinked. The giant looked to Danica for support but she ignored him, pretended to be examining the contents of her own meal. “Any unit can rise to greatness,” Atom went on. “All you need is a little—”

“Ah tell you what we need,” Sebastian interrupted, face set in fierce determination. He let the moment hang, before continuing: “Salt. Damn things’re practically tasteless.”

Zeke said nothing, just lay on the grass with a fuzzy smile on his bearded face, eyes half-closed.

Zeke? Druggie. Keep an eye on him, make sure he never touched her stuff. Tried to act like he had it together, but he was slipping more and more each day. Wait a little more, he’d slip for good. She’d be long gone by then. She had a plan, and the only role Zeke would play in that plan was the fall guy.

Would be nice if there was one of them she could trust, but no, not even Shinobu. Play-acting samurai. Where was his other sword then, ay? Probably stole his little pig-sticker, and the cast-off uniform, from the real deal. No way was this guy one of the Kurita elite. Probably some low-life or yakuza. No, she couldn’t cut him in.

Set Zeke up, plant something of Shinobu’s on him. Get Zeke kicked out, or killed maybe. She would take the con of the Banshee, and the treasure inside. Time her run, when she was on watch and the rest sleeping. Use the money to hire a ship—or maybe work a deal with Liu?—anyway, somehow, anyhow, get down to the Magistracy. It was a matriarchy, women like her would be in demand. Better yet, she heard they let you buy an officer’s commission. Unity. With 900 million C-Bills, she could purchase herself a generalship. Finally get some damned respect.

“Every ohm has a home in Blake’s vision, every amp can camp in Blake’s mission, each volt is a bolt of His thought, each watt has a spot in His heart,” Atom recited. “You see, we all have a role to play. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Danica clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing out loud, tried to cover it as a fit of coughing. “Like angels pouring honey into mah ears,” Sebastian agreed. Zeke just smiled vaguely and nodded.

Shinobu’s Dragon raised its left arm, pointing north. A few minutes later they heard the chug of an approaching ground car. Sebastian stood, wiping his hands on his shorts and waited, hands on his hips. Atom frowned and then stood, looming over the other two like the Tower of Babel.

An open-topped car crested the rise and before it could skid to a halt, a man with the silver lapel triangles of a Capellan Captain leaped from the back seat and came storming towards them.

“Now why is nobody ever happy to see me?” Sebastian asked softly.

“Because you’re a prick, Seb,” Danica offered. Sebastian grunted and nodded. Meant, fair enough.

“What the freaky frack do you think you’re do—” The Captain registered the presence of Atom, his height, his bulk, his look of mild puzzlement that was slowly avalanching down into anger. The Captain reconsidered. “I have been calling for you for the last 30 minutes. My boys are getting pasted out there!” He waved a hand towards the horizon, where false sunrises blossomed and winked out.

Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe you should get back there an’ give ‘em a hand, then.”

“Get your machines in gear and get out there! Engage the enemy! I want your unit to march right up the center and smash through those enemy lines. That’s an order!”

“Danica, remind me again, what were our orders?” Sebastian turned to her.

“No action without the explicit authorization of Commander Mutai,” she replied. He remembered as well as she did, the faker.

Sebastian turned back to the Captain. “See? Wish Ah could help you.”

The Captain tore his plasteel helmet from his head, and threw it to the ground. It bounced and rolled to an anticlimactic stop against the heating unit. “Frack the freaky fracking chain of command! My regiment is getting slaughtered. Don’t you understand what this means? Do you know what this does to any chance for my promotion? I haven’t slaved away in some malking piss-poor militia all my life just to have this one chance ruined by fracking mercenaries. Now power up, switch on, whatever you freaking fracking need to do, and make me look good out there!”

Sebastian turned to her. “Wha’d’you say, Dani?”

Stalling for time, the liar, hoping the fighting would be over before they arrived, but that was fine with her. She needed Zeke’s Banshee intact. For now. “That’s Commander Abel Mutai, Mercenary Liaison,” she told the Captain helpfully. “Em-you-tee-ay-eye.”

It took another 30 minutes of screaming and cursing for the Captain and his communications officer to get through to Mutai and issue their orders.

They moved down the winding valley in a loose diamond formation, following the course of a broad but shallow, fast-flowing stream. Sebastian’s Mjolnir sloshing through the water in the lead, making a minor tsunami with each footfall. Atom on the left, her Madapult on the right, Zeke trailing behind. Shielded by the other three. Shinobu scouted a little ahead with his faster Dragon.

“Nine HTs, speed one-two-zero, range two thousand.” Shinobu’s battle chatter wouldn’t win any oratory prizes, but at least he spoke.

The four ’Mechs halted. “Gotcha Shinny,” Sebastian replied. “Fall back, grab some altitude, HTs’ll be sticking to the valley.” Danica’s T&T began peppering her display with angry red lozenges, 25-ton hovertanks, with range numbers that were racing down like the second hand on a stopwatch. They’d be on the Associates in less than a minute. No visual yet. Still hidden by the shoulder of a hill and a bend in the river. She backed up a step, another, keeping her Madapult between the onrushing tanks and Zeke’s Banshee.

A flash of grey hurtled around the bend and Sebastian immediately cut loose with a salvo from his shoulder missile rack. Danica’s T&T ID’d it, a Harasser. Almost at the same instant, Atom fired a chest-mounted laser. Idiot, the range was too far. Sebastian’s missiles landed ahead of the tank, blasting geysers in the water. The tank swerved, and was impaled by the searing beam of Atom’s laser.

Danica blinked. Atom had hit. Impossible at that range, but he’d hit.

Grey smoke billowed from the hovertank’s side, then something caught fire and a jet of yellow-white flame flared from the hole. The hovertank plowed into the ground nose-first, flipped, and landed on its crew compartment, crushing the turret beneath it.

Danica was still so stunned by Atom’s shot, she nearly missed another handful of hovertanks tearing around the bend in the river, kicking up great sheets of water as they came. “Danica!” Sebastian shouted in her ears, and she fired the two shoulder-mounted particle cannon reflexively. Fast, they were moving too fast. Her shots detonated on either side of a tank in twin novae, fountaining dirt and rocks harmlessly into the air.

Two tanks scythed in front of Sebastian, loosing clouds of missiles at him as they swept by. Splinters of armor plating were blown free from the Mjolnir’s shoulders and arms. The tankers must’ve figured his left side was weak, with no arm there. They cut left. Not seeing the laser and short-range rack built into a ball turret on the stump there. The river water fountained as the missiles fell short, but one tank slowed, just enough, for Sebastian’s laser to burn a line down the side of the hull, from nose to rear stabilizer. Armor plates curled and peeled away, glowing white hot, and the tank lost power, slamming into the ground and gouging a furrow before sliding to a stop.

“Guys!” shouted Zeke, panicked.

Danica twisted her machine around, saw a pair of tanks were circling the Banshee, just out of his reach. Zeke had crouched, arms raised to cover the torso and the cargo. The armor there was already cratered from a dozen missile hits.

Danica clenched her teeth, sighted. Squeezed. Metal-on-metal scream of the particle cannon. Missed. Lead the target, lead the target. PPCs weren’t point-and-shoot like lasers. Lead the target. A tank darted behind the Banshee, firing at the unprotected back. At her ticket out of here, her ticket to a better life.

“Do something!” Zeke wailed.

Banshee blocking her shot. Wait for the tank to come around the other side. Anticipate. She fired. Twin bolts of cobalt slammed into the nose of the Harasser, erupting in a corona of dazzling white fire that consumed the front third of the tank and tore the rest apart.

The second tank veered away. Then Atom’s Shootist was pounding past her, autocannon booming. Shells smashed into the rear of the Harasser, ignited the ammunition, and blew the tank to pieces in a tumbling fireball.

And they were retreating, on unheard signal the remaining tanks heeled over, and fled back up the valley. Turrets angled backwards, scattering random missile fire Parthian-style as they zig-zagged away.

Then Shinobu’s Dragon was there, blocking their path. Autocannon thudding. Shells detonating among the tankers. Punching a series of holes in the lead tank’s turret.

The five remaining hovertanks cut power and slowed to a stop. Danica saw a red light flash on her communications panel. The enemy, asking for parley. She clicked the channel, set to listen only, see what Sebastian would say.

“Sebastian Gore, Commander, Anything Associates,” he introduced himself. “Make this good.”

“Captain Khitai, Barsegh’s Bandits. We ask for quarter.” Danica’s eyebrows shot up. Not FIA, then. Mercenaries. So much for the idealism of the Freedom for Ingress Alliance, she thought. Guess revolutionary fervor didn’t count for much when the other side had BattleMechs. So they’d hired off-world mercs, just like the Cappies they were fighting against.

Fakes, just like everyone else.

[Dubble_g]

5. Zeke Fallon

Ingris, CC
About an hour since my last smoke. Only got two more pipes left. Gotta find a plug, man, get some more smoke. Think Atom has any? He looks like he knows people. Yeah, hit him up, score some smoke. That’s how you do it. Man, I could go for a smoke right about now.

Zeke Fallon was sure he was the unluckiest man in the galaxy.

Well, someone had to be. That was just logic. If luck was quantifiable and distributed throughout the human race in a bell curve, then mathematically there had to be someone who had less of it than any other person in existence. That person just happened to be Zeke Fallon, MechWarrior, Anything Associates.

Never mind the fact that as a man currently with all his faculties and limbs intact, free of major diseases and illnesses, in possession of liberty, a roof over his head, three meals a day, a place to sleep, and a war machine to keep him safe, he was more fortunate than about 80% of the human race. No, there was no doubt in his mind, when it came to luck, Zeke always came dead last.

It hadn’t always been that way. Fresh from Nagelring, he’d been assigned to the 12th Donegal Guards, a prestige unit, the Deadly Dozen. And that’s when everything had started to go to shit.

First R&R furlough and he’d been introduced to the smoke. Smoke a pipe, unwind, meet some girls, have some drinks, smoke a pipe, hit the casino, watch the croupier rake away his money, smoke a pipe, discover he was flat broke, smoke a pipe, start stealing from the others to pay for his habit, smoke a pipe, caught and court-martialed, smoke a pipe, smoke a pipe, smoke a pipe.

Unlucky. Just a bad break.

The pipe was like the mercenary trade, he figured, which meant he and the merc life were made for each other. Mercenaries fight to earn money. What do with the money? Buy more guns, ammo, tanks, armor plating, lasers and whatnot, so they could fight some more, so they could get more money, so they could go on fighting. Classic addiction.

Need money to smoke, but coming down off the smoke makes you dull and lethargic. So you got to smoke so you got enough energy to get some money to buy some more smoke so you could smoke to get enough energy to get some money … and then three years later you were in the worst mercenary unit in the Sphere, in the middle of the worst contract on the worst planet in the worst successor house. Just. The worst. The unluckiest man alive.

That could change though.

The back of his Banshee was hollowed out, and in that hollow now nestled hundreds of crates, filled to the brim with the contents of this planet’s central bank reserves. Worth, as Sebastian had mentioned repeatedly, over 900 million C-Bills. You could buy a lot of smoke with 900 mega-Cs. He just needed to figure a way of keeping it for himself. Just needed to think. Needed a smoke. That would help him think.

Zeke, Atom and Sebastian were standing in front of the tankers, the surrendered company of Barsegh’s Bandits. About a dozen of them. Atom had them covered with a blazer rifle—rifle, hell, thing was a double-barreled laser cannon, looked like it should be mounted on a tank—but that seemed excessive. The Bandits didn’t look too eager to escape or fight or do much of anything. Some sat, knees drawn up to their chests, others lounged on the grass, picking idly at the blades or talking to each other in low voices. Real relaxed. Maybe they had some smoke?

In the growing dark they looked like little, weather-worn statues, Zeke thought. Like the stone Buddhist jizo you saw on Combine worlds, the ones they put up in memory of their dead children.

He fished the panther insignia out of his pocket and held it up for them to see. “Hey guys, FIA spec forces patch.” A few eyes glanced up, eager for some entertainment, if nothing else. “Real rare, only their suicide assault squads wear these. Got anything to trade for it?” The eyes slid away. “Anyone? Anyone?” He stood there a minute, began to feel foolish. Angrily stuffed the patch back in his pocket.

Sebastian and their Captain, little guy with a van Dyke beard called Khitai, were talking in low voices. A red ember of a cigarette held in Khitai’s hand flicked back and forth as he explained some point. Zeke squinted, but no, it was just a regular cigarette.

“Hey Atom, my guy,” Zeke sidled over to the giant. “You seem really chill, am I right?”

Atom didn’t take his eyes from the prisoners, but nodded easily. “Of course. I am at one with the galaxy.”

Zeke snapped his fingers. “Knew it!” he exclaimed, then hurriedly looked over at Sebastian, worried he’d spoken too loud. No, the Commander was still deep in conversation. Quieter, Zeke said: “You got something to help you unwind, yeah? Something to take your mind off things. If you know what I mean?”

Atom looked down at him, and beamed happily. “Of course. You, too?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, I mean, for years now,” Zeke said, eagerly. “You got it with you? Help a guy out, my guy. Set me up. Just a little bit of haze, you know, little light fog, 50 C’s worth. Just to tide me over.”

That puzzled Atom. “Of course I have it. But why this talk of money? It is free to all who seek it, my friend.”

“It is? Fan-fracking-tastic!” Unity bless these lunatic cultists. He knew his luck had to change some time. “Oh man, I knew I loved ComStar for a reason. Free, yes, you’re absolutely right, free. It is. To all who seek it. Like me, man. I do. I seek it.”

Atom laid a titanic hand on Zeke’s shoulder, nearly knocking him off-balance. “Then come to my tent, when we are done here,” he said.

“Oh yes my guy, absolutely yes. You got your rig, or. You need me to, you know? Bring one. You know? Pee-eye-pee-ee?”

Atom chuckled, like a parent listening to the questions of a child. “Brother, nothing but your mind is needed to understand the Collected Wisdom of Blessed Jerome Blake.”

Zeke’s grin dissipated. “The what?”

“I shall read to you my favorite passages,” Atom reassured him. “Then, you and I shall chill, unwind, take our minds off things and be at one with the universe.”

Zeke was saved from answering by Sebastian, who came ambling over, looking thoughtful. “You two getting’ on all right?” he asked.

Atom nodded. “Tonight we will read together from the Collected Wisdom of Blessed Jerome Blake.”

Sebastian titled his head and cocked an eyebrow. “You will?” He shot Zeke a look. Zeke just shrugged, guiltily. “Welp, much as Ah hate to stand in the way of a man’s education, Ah’m gonna ask you to put your plans on hold for a spell.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the prisoners. “Zeke, you are going to escort Khitai and his boys back to Anchorhead and our DropShip.”

“Oh hell, yes!” Zeke exclaimed. His luck was getting better and better. He might be the luckiest man in the galaxy. He could see what Sebastian was thinking—keep the Banshee and its cargo out of danger by sending him to chaperone their prisoners back to Anchor City, out of the war zone. This was fine with Zeke. First up, he knew a couple of guys at the spaceport who could get some smoke. Better yet, he’d be away from Sebastian’s watching eye, with all the money. Maybe work something out with the DropShip Captain, Liu. Blast off a little ahead of schedule. That might work.

Zeke blinked. Sebastian was watching him oddly. “I mean … uh, you guys sure you’ll be okay without me?” Zeke assayed a smile, without much success.

“We’ll manage somehow,” Sebastian smiled, and put a hand on Zeke’s shoulder. And kept it there. “Now Zeke, Ah’m not one to criticize, let he who is without sin an’ all that, but Ah know you’ve got your vices. That’s okay. Feel free to indulge from time to time while you’re waiting. But Zeke, buddy, pal, Zeke, if you are not there when Ah get back, if the gold is not there, well then, Ah might get a little ornery. Ah might forget mah forgivin’ ways.” Suddenly, Sebastian’s Python was in his hand, the barrel jammed against the underside of Zeke’s jaw. “Fact is, Ah might track you down, shove that pipe so far down your throat you’ll be farting like a steam train the rest o’ your life. We clear?”

Zeke tried to nod. Found he couldn’t, with the pistol pressed cruelly against his chin. Settled for an “Mmmhmm” instead.

“Outstanding.” The pistol was gone, lurking back in its hip holster. Waiting. Sebastian gave Zeke’s shoulder a final squeeze, and let go.

Atom had watched the entire exchange without expression. He frowned now though, an obelisk of finger raised in thought. “Shouldn’t prisoners be turned over to the Capellans, though?”

“Prisoners?” Sebastian repeated, in mock shock. “Atom, mah friend, is that any way to talk about your new comrades? Gentlemen,” Sebastian spread an arm to indicate the waiting tankers. “Say hello to the new Armored Recon Lance, Anything Associates, and their commanding officer, Lieutenant Khitai.” Khitai threw them a wave.

Sebastian leaned close to Zeke. “You stick with him,” he whispered. “You keep your mouth shut, or. Choo-choo. You get me?”

Unlucky. Zeke was the unluckiest man in the galaxy.

[Dubble_g]

6. Way City

Neither Here nor There
Ingress
Dawn, Day 126/Year 786 (Traditional/Local) 15 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)

The ridge overlooked the city of Way, still deep in shadow in the grey half-light. The clustered buildings were featureless lumps, a haphazard graveyard filled with mismatched tombstones. The embers of a dozen fires flickered here and there, shrouding the city with a funerary veil of drifting smoke.

The dark thread of the Vine River traced a curving, sine-wave route through the city, spanned by the bony ribs of half a dozen bridges. Further south, across the river, was a massive rectangle of nothing, a lightless black abyss without visible lights, buildings or roads.

They could hear the gunfire, as they sat on the ridge, the rattle of automatic weapons, the thud of autocannon, the insect buzz of laser and particle fire. An artillery battery had been sited at the foot of the ridge, great guns booming at irregular intervals.

The arrow shapes of delta-winged aircraft screamed overhead and flitted through waving, arching streams of tracer fire, letting fall a line of tiny black dots that vomited and splashed flame across the buildings. One bright stream brushed an aircraft, and transformed it into a blazing comet, plunging down to add its own small contribution to the fires consuming the city.

Sebastian sat on a crate, chin in his hand, elbows on his knees. “So go downtown, thing’s will be great when you’re downtown,” he hummed to himself. “No finer place for sure.”

Two more crates were on either side of him, but empty of occupants. Shinobu stood, arms folded across his chest, watching the city. Impassive, as always. Danica paced behind the two, stopping every once in a while to stare off in the direction Zeke and the turncoat tankers had gone.

(“This better not be a double-cross,” Levato had called him—most likely she was in contact with Atom, or else had other eyes on him. He'd told her not to worry. She hadn't sound convinced.)

“That’s the last we’ll ever see of him, you realize that?” Danica’s voice was tinged with desperation. “Nine hundred million, gone.” Captain Liu, she was thinking, she’d have to work that angle now. Sisterhood, girls in a man’s world, that kind of thing. Get her to stall, stay. “Poof, literally up in smoke.”

“Oh Ah don’t know,” said Sebastian without turning around. “Have a little faith in the incompetence of your fellow man, Dani. Zeke’s too hazed to work up a plan, Liu too cautious and Khitai don’t know either of ‘em so he’ll have a hard time double-crossin’ us all on his ownsome.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Cain’t,” he shrugged. “But everybody’s hungry for something. Trick is to finding what that is, an’ using it. Zeke wants out, Ah’ll use that. Khitai wants his freedom. Ah’ll use that.”

“And you? What’s your hunger, Seb?”

“Ah got me a fierce hunger for squaddies that won’t question mah every order,” he said dryly. “Seems Ah’m destined to starve to death.”

“What about you Shinobu. Don’t you care?”

Sebastian looked over at the Kuritan. Shinobu just scratched his neck, and sighed. “Well don’t you start in on me,” Sebastian groused. “Everybody’s a critic now.”

Danica threw up her hands in disgust, came around to stand in front of Sebastian and block his view. “How do you do it? One day you’re planning a heist, the next day you don’t care what happens to it?”

“Not at all,” Sebastian said calmly, tilting his face slightly to look up at her. “We gotta trust each other at some point. Maybe Ah’m right, maybe Ah’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. But if we let our greed run away with us, we’ll just tear ourselves apart. So please, pretty please Dani, drop this.” He kicked his heel against the trunk he was sitting on. “’Sides, there’s 25 kilos in here, 25 in the other two trunks. That’s a million each for you, me and Shinny. We’re set even if Zeke skips town or we never find this Zlato person.”

Danica looked to where Atom sat alone, leafing through a large book with a brightly-colored dust jacket: The Collected Wisdom of Blesse Jerome Blake: A Primer for Children Age 8—12. “That man gives me the willies. His ’Mech gives me the willies. This whole setup gives me the willies. We could just arrange an, you know, accident,” she suggested quietly.

“An spend the rest of our lives on the run from ComStar? No thank you.” Sebastian nodded down towards the dying city, and the vast acres of nothing lurking at its center. “We get down there, we find this Commandante Zlato like Levato wants, we do the job, we get out.”

Would ComStar let them go so easily, Danica wondered. Once someone found they could blackmail you, what could make them stop? She shelved the thought. Problems for another day. “What is down there, anyway?” Danica gestured to the dark heart of the city.

“Called the Citadel,” Sebastian told her. “Fortress set up by the Terran Alliance, seriously ancient. Alliance, you dig? Not Hegemony. Must be what, seven, eight centuries old. Bunkers hard enough to stop a nuke. Got a spaceport at the south end, where they’ve been getting reinforced from off-planet, Barsegh’s boys an’ others. The Citadel was abandoned way back when the Alliance collapsed, just left to rot. People here forgot about it, ‘til Way got big, expanded, butted into it. They left it untouched, kind of like a park, a memorial, but Atom says the FIA reopened it. Got all their top guys inside. We go down there, we crack it open.”

“Just like that?”

“Maybe. Ah dunno,” he shrugged again. “Maybe there’ll be a surprise.”

[Dubble_g]

SAFE Assessment of Forces on Eve of Battle of Way

Overview

Militia divisions consist of three regiments of three battalions each, plus integral support elements (typically including mortars/light artillery, transportation and logistics, medical, etc.). Each division is led by a Colonel (usually the Mandrinn of the region where the division was raised), each regiment by a Captain, battalions by a Commander, companies by a Subcommander. Manpower c. 15,000-20,000 per division.

Militia division quality is highly variable and dependent upon the presence of experienced junior officers and NCOs from pre-insurgency regiments. These experienced men may be concentrated in one regiment, or parceled out among the entire division, depending on the policies of the local Mandrinn-Colonel. Emphasis on political orthodoxy and loyalty to Liao regime hampers promotion of truly talented personnel. Senior officer class largely staffed by local aristocracy, without regard for military experience or ability. As a result, while the divisions are sometimes successful in small-unit operations, large-scale maneuvers and operations have frequently ended in disaster (see: Battle of Anchor City). Regional rivalries also hamper strategic coordination.

Equipment is a mix of Confederation-standard and locally-produced models. Local production largely limited to cheap, unreliable, mass-produced slugthrowers, often made of stamped metal. Mobility is similarly lacking, provided by either light APCs or unarmored trucks. Units are unable to effectively coordinate with armor due to lack of training. All units except the Home Guard are severely deficient in heavy weapons, particularly anti-tank and anti-BattleMech weapons, and thus frequently break and rout when confronted by armor (see: Battle of the Highlands).

Order of Battle

54th Tikonov Home Guard Regiment: Shattered in the FIA assault on Anchor City. Withdrawn from combat to rebuild.

1st (Anchor) Division: Filled out by recruits from Anchor city police and internal security units. Well-equipped, but lacking experience in operations above the squad level. Sustained heavy casualties during the Battle of Anchor City, now placed in reserve.

2nd (Path) Division (CO: Aristakes Leyan): Currently engaging mainforce FIA units around Way City. Average unit, though lacking experienced junior officers. Record marred by a number of friendly-fire incidents involving 3rd Division.

3rd (Flat) Division (CO: Ghaukas Karayan): Currently engaging mainforce FIA units around Way City. Began the battle as one of the best divisions, but has sustained heavy losses. Troublingly high number of friendly-fire incidents involving 2nd Division.

4th (Highland) Division: High proportion of draftees from fractious, independent-minded highland communities. High rates of desertion, low morale. Sustained heavy losses attempting to block FIA retreat south from Anchor. No longer combat effective.

5th (Triangle) Division: Equipped with ancient, 28th century firearms, many of which fail in combat situations. As a result, morale is rock-bottom and small-unit leaders show no offensive spirit. Combat ineffective.

6th (Gong) Division: Divided by feud among three brothers from the local Mandrinn family. As a result, units incapable of coordinated action or offensive operations.

7th (Steppe) Division: Fair unit, improving after provincial Mandrinn hired mercenary instructors to train new recruits.

8th (Peak) Division: Fair unit, has achieved limited success in pacifying its province.

9th (Orchestra) Division: One of the better divisions.

10th (Knee) Division: Severe discipline problems. Military police have twice been called to restore order, and over a hundred men have been executed for murder, theft, smuggling, kidnapping and extortion of civilians, arson or other crimes.

11th (Throne) Division: Fair unit, province is now largely pacified.

12th (Marsh) Division: Currently lacks uniforms and most of its heavy weapons due to ‘misplacement’ of cargoes by logistics personnel (i.e. sold on the black market, often to the insurgents). Rebellious, incapable of offensive operations.

Anything Associates: Disreputable heavy BattleMech lance of questionable effectiveness and reliability. Cleared by ComStar of accusations of incompetence and disobedience during the Battle of Anchor City. Helped blunt the counterattack against the 4th Division, though ComStar again rejected a request to censure the unit for failing to act more swiftly.

[Dubble_g]

7. Mercenary Liaison/Commander Abel Mutai

North Bank of the Vine River
Way City
Ingress
Day 126/Year 786 (Traditional/Local) 16 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)

He came from a long line of warriors. Military family, going back 10 generations of proud service to the Confederation. Older brother in the Chesterton Voltigeurs. He was the family disappointment, desk job, rear areas, mercenary liaison. This was his chance to prove them wrong. He needed action, he needed a victory.

Which was why he now found himself crouch-running along a cratered road, one hand clapped to the top of his helmet to stop it bouncing. Towards the bridges over the Vine River. And the sound of gunfire.

Damn but it was hot. Militiamen waiting in nervy, restless clumps along the road, most stripped to the waist, even the women, wearing unfastened plasteel armor vests with nothing underneath. They saw Mutai’s rank tabs and watched him warily, in case he was about to order them into battle. A few shook their heads or rolled their eyes at the sight of a man in full uniform running towards the fight.

One of the two recruits escorting him tugged his sleeve, motioned for him to crouch down behind a half-blasted wall. “Wait here for the Force Leader,” the man said. “He’ll take you to the Battalion CP.”

Mutai nodded, chest heaving, struggling to get his breath back. Looked around. Lance Sergeant standing nearby, communicator jammed between her chin and shoulder, shouting at someone on the other end. Couple of recruits clustered around her, flinching or ducking whenever there was an especially loud crack of cannonfire. Sergeant took no notice, just kept on shouting.

Someone was lying face-down on a stretcher. Mutai couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. There was a ragged hole in their armor vest, and the stretcher under it was drenched dark.

There was a recruit blubbering, great wracking sobs, balled up like an infant on the ground. Another sat next to him, glazed eyes looking at nothing, cradling a combat shotgun in his arms like a baby. A political commissar stood over the two, haranguing them. “For the people of the Confederation! For the glory of the Liao family! Get up and fight, you cowards, you traitors. Get up, I said!”

The crying man only buried his head in his arms and went on wailing. The other didn’t respond at all.

With a snarl of disgust, the commissar unbuttoned the flap over his pistol holster, drew his gun and placed the barrel against the crying man’s temple. There was a shot, a bright spurt of blood. The crying stopped. The second man sprung to his feet, eyes focusing on the face of the commissar.

“Good soldier, that’s more like it—” began the commissar.

In a single convulsive movement, almost a spasm, the second soldier leveled his shotgun, and blew the commissar’s head off. As the body toppled backwards, the soldier let his shotgun fall, eyes going glazed again. Slumped back down. Like a flower, Mutai thought incongruously, wilting once its purpose was accomplished.

The Lance Sergeant had fallen silent. Everyone stared at the comatose shotgunner, then at Mutai. Waiting for orders, he realized suddenly. Right. He was the only officer in sight. Right. So. Orders. Mutai stood up on shaky legs, trying to tug his uniform into place. A dozen pairs of eyes watched him. Okay. So. Command. What to do? Execute the man? Arrest him? He opened his mouth.

“WHAT THE MALKING FRACK ARE YOU IDIOTS STARING AT?” The voice was not Mutai’s. He turned to see a vibrating ball of anger dressed in the uniform of a Force Leader come striding towards the group. “YOU, YOU!” He pointed at two recruits. “GET HIM OUT OF HERE.” Two men rushed forward with obvious relief, took the comatose man by the arms and dragged him, unresisting, down the road. “WHERE THE FRACK IS MY FIRE MISSION, NGUYEN?”

The Lance Sergeant looked sheepish, mumbled “Said we’re Priority C, sir. Tryin’ to get us bumped higher.”

“WELL TRY A LITTLE FRACKING HARDER,” the Force Leader bawled. “WE’RE NOT HANDING OUT ANY FRACKING MEDALS FOR TRYING.” Finally, he turned on Mutai. “You Mutai?” The volume, in contrast to his previous bellowing, was almost bearable.

“Commander Mutai,” he said stiffly.

“If you were any kind of commander, you would have stopped this,” the Force Leader pointed at the two bodies sprawled beside the wall. “Sir.” He shook his head and spat in disgust. “Follow me and stay down. Otherwise you’ll end up like them.”

They made their way through a twisted, mad, funhouse landscape of off-kilter concrete slabs, shattered pillars and the steel bones of buildings poking through the ruins. Their destination, far as Mutai could see, was a broad five-story concrete building, one side of which had collapsed into a ramp of rubble and twisted metal. The Force Leader sprang sure-footed from block to leaning slab to blasted pillar, Mutai stumbling in his wake.

The militia had man-handled a heavy recoilless rifle into the ground level of the CP building, barrel pointed at a hole knocked in the wall. The crew were shirtless, wore bandannas wrapped around their mouths, goggles over their eyes. When the cannon fired, Mutai had to clap his hands over his ears to stop from going deaf. A storm of whirling concrete dust was blown through the room by the back-blast, stinging his eyes.

They crept up the stairs to the second level. Saw someone lying on the floor, head bound like a mummy in thick loops of medical gauze. All around were sandbagged walls and windows. A couple of panels of reflective/ablative anti-laser sheeting had been tacked up, too. Loopholes knocked through the walls, through which infantrymen poked their rifles and loosed rattling bursts of fire. The men by the windows, Mutai noticed, wouldn’t even look, just kept their heads down, raised their rifles over the ledge and squeezed off a dozen rounds blind.

They waited on the last step, just below the level of the floor, before the Force Leader waved him on, dashed to the far side of the floor and up a third set of steps.

Half the third floor was missing, a jagged bite ripped out of one side. A man in full uniform, with the bronze bar and inverted silver triangle of a Captain at his neck, was crouched by a field periscope set below the ragged hole where a window had once been. Half a dozen other men squatted nearby. The Captain looked up as Mutai shuffled low across the floor and threw a fist-to-breast salute. “Commander Mutai, Mercenary Liaison.”

“Captain Volkov, 23rd Regiment, 2nd Division,” the Captain looked up from the periscope, sketching a salute back. “Good to see a man fully dressed for a change.” The Captain through a significant look at the bare-chested Force Leader, who might as well have been carved of stone. “You’re here to guide the ’Mechs on target for us? About time. The Davion puppets have been giving us a hell of a time. Come, look.”

Mutai crawled over next to Volkov, and peered into the periscope. The building was at the edge of the Vine River, at the bottom of a broad U-bend that curved away from it on either side, giving a panoramic view in either direction. The river here was perhaps 300 meters wide, sluggish and brown, its banks railed and concreted. Buildings clustered tightly on both sides of the river. From the opposite side, flashes of laser fire winked from almost every building. A Partisan tank was parked in the shadows of one building. The turret swiveled from side to side, as though its barrels were sniffing the air. Its quad cannons kicked up plumes of dust each time it fired.

“They seem, uh, well-equipped.” Mutai swallowed.

“Where did peasant farmers and factory workers get hardware like that, eh?” Volkov growled next to him. “For years they were an insignificant, hopeless little band of misfits, then suddenly a year ago they start fielding laser rifles, field guns, AA batteries, tanks. Cursed Davion stooges and running dogs. We’ve tried to take the bridge twice so far, but there’s just too much firepower on their side.”

Mutai swiveled the periscope down to look at the bridge, a two-lane bridge span across the river, below and to the right of the building. Sure enough, the blackened husks of a handful of vehicles littered the near side. Bodies lay in heaps along the length, most hugging the railings on either side, though it had not helped them. There was also a strange clump of bodies clustered in the middle of the span. Mutai adjusted the magnification.

“Children,” he whispered. “Civilians.”

Volkov shrugged. “Orders. We don’t let anyone across—force the Davion-lovers to feed the population, run down their supplies faster. Some of them might be insurgents, too, sent to infiltrate. Mind you, half of that is their work, too. They shot down as many refugees as we did.”

“Right. Okay.” Mutai sat back from the periscope, wiping his eyes. Dead children still swimming before his eyes. He blinked, looked down and saw that his hands were shaking. “So. Right. What’s the target?”

“They’ve got a strongpoint in an old tractor factory,” said Volkov. “Key to their position. Take that out, we can crack their lines open, roll up the whole far bank. You can see it just over there.” Volkov stood up, pointing down through the shattered window.

There was a metallic ping. Then the crack of Volkov’s helmet hitting the floor. A neat, round hole in the front, glowing white-hot. Volkov slumped forward, cracking his head against the wall in front of him, then slid down in a boneless heap.

“Shit,” Mutai gasped, throwing himself flat. He noticed nobody else had. “What was that?”

“Laser. Sniper,” grunted the Force Leader. “Silly bugger.”

A series of blasts rocked the building. Mutai, who had been struggling to one knee, was immediately pitched over again. “And that?”

“Felt like autocannon. Volkov just made us a target. Probably their AA tank.”

The walls shook. Something detonated beneath their feet, throwing Mutai a few centimeters bodily into the air, sending a blast of thick smoke up the stairway. Coughing, choking screams followed a moment later.

“What do I do?” Mutai whispered. Nothing, he suspected. Wait for the Partisan AA tank to reload and fire again. Lie there and die.

The Force Leader thrust a communicator in his face. “You’re the mercenary liaison. Liaise.”

The communicator in Mutai’s hand squawked. He recognized the voice immediately, though he wished he didn’t. “Mutai, ole buddy, where you at?” asked Sebastian.

Smug bastard. “Commander Gore, where the hell are you?”

“Ah asked you first.”

The Force Leader waved a map in front of Mutai, stabbed a finger down near the river. “Grid Tango six-nine,” Mutai squinted down at the map, trying to read.

“Sierra,” hissed the Force Leader.

“Grid Sierra six-nine. We’re under fire from a tank. Next to a, um, bunker, thing, ah, on the other side of the river. Oh Unity, that was close. Unity. You’ve got to get me out of here. It’s blasting this place apart. Hurry, hurry, I order you to hurry. You explain it, Force Leader,” Mutai frantically thrust the communicator handset back, and curled up into a ball.

“Hardened position at Hotel seven-four, maybe company-strength, SRM. One entrenched SPAA tank on right flank. Multiple towed AC-5s in a strongpoint. Tractor works, steel-reinforced concrete.” It was odd, listening only to the Force Leader’s half of the conversation. “Forward positions all along the river bank, overlapping fields of fire. Small arms, machineguns. The river? Depth six meters. Right. Wilco.” The Force Leader clicked off.

Another shudder through the building. The ceiling sagged. Pulverized concrete falling thickly, showering down like a waterfall. Again a blast, and the ceiling cracked open, then two slabs tore free and plunged down, shattering to pieces as they hit the floor. A chunk bounced off Mutai’s helmet, making his head ring like a gong.

The building couldn’t take another hit like that. Wouldn’t matter if Gore’s men came or not. He’d be dead.

“They coming?” Mutai yelled over the roaring in his ears, still flat on the floor.

He didn’t have to wait for the Force Leader’s answer. He felt it. A steady tremor in the floor, working its way up from the ground. Growing stronger and stronger. Rubble on the floor began to rattle and dance, synched to the tremors. Mutai wanted to move, but found it impossible. Gripped with primordial fear, a rabbit part of his brain screaming that something big was coming, that he had to hide, disappear.

The floor was jumping now with each step. Mutai wasn’t sure if he could have stood even if he’d wanted to. The sound next. The crush of titanic footfalls, yes, but also a kind of self-contented purr of machinery. Metallic muscles flexing and readying. Like a weapon being cocked. A deadly promise. Gunfire on both banks of the river died away, as hundreds of men held their breath.

Mutai turned his head, and through the hole in the wall he could see the BattleMechs coming. Huge, so toweringly huge. He was on the third floor and he still wasn’t level with their heads. Sebastian’s mongrel machine in the lead, a riot of mismatched armor plates welded at eye-scrambling angles. Then the shark profile of the Madapult, the swollen shoulders of a Dragon, the sleek one he didn’t recognize. The ’Mechs spread out along the river bank, and halted.

“Might wanna close your eyes for this,” Sebastian’s voice boomed over his machine’s external loudspeakers.   

Mutai was still puzzling that one over when the Madapult fired. Brief halos crackled around the muzzles of the two massive cannon sitting on its shoulders, leaving after-images burned into his retinas. Then two blinding columns of blue-white light, sun-bright, lashed out, washing out every other light, throwing leaping, jagged shadows across the broken room. Superheated air howled like a banshee.

Mutai blinked furiously, rubbing his eyes, trying to wipe away the spots that swam before him. He crawled to the window, where the periscope had fallen and shattered, and peaked over the bottom edge. The Partisan tank steamed, armor still glowing from where the double particle cannon had hit. Amazingly, the turret still moved, angling towards the ’Mechs. Its answering volley, which had seemed like the end of the world a minute before, now seemed a petty, paltry thing.

The other three ’Mechs joined in, blasting laser fire and clouds of missiles into the tank. Like it was suddenly the apex of a New Year light show, four or five beams converging on it at once. Hits came so fast the outline was blurred in clouds of smoke. A boom. An arrowhead of dense smoke lifted into the air above where the tank had been, and its guns fell silent.

As if awaiting a signal, the insurgents opened up with every other gun on the four machines: machineguns, lasers, rifles. Everything. And it was useless. Pinprick laser beams splatted into nothing against the armor. Bullets pinged and sang away, without leaving so much as a scratch. Sebastian’s Mjolnir took no notice, strode forward off the edge of the river bank and dropped straight down into the water. A ring of two-meter high waves raced out from its impact, swamping the bridge, spilling over the river banks.

The Mjolnir strode forward, twisting right and left, raking the opposite bank with three chest-mounted lasers. Buildings exploded and disintegrated in storms of shattered timbers and cement blocks. The other four machines were firing too, blue and red light, streams of glowing yellow tracers, that tore into houses, shops, warehouses and factories. Not a building was left standing along the shoreline.

The Mjolnir stepped up onto the far bank, like a Promethean bather rising from a tub, water falling in great sheets from its legs. The right arm reached down and simply slapped a house flat. The other BattleMechs were crossing in Sebastian’s wake, sloshing the river water back and forth in massive waves. They didn’t even bother shooting at some buildings, just walked right through them, squashing them underfoot. The strongpoint, the bunker that had thrown back the assaults of an entire battalion, was blasted to pieces in seconds.

“Makes you why we even sodding bother,” whispered the Force Leader, as though reading Mutai’s thoughts.

Mutai braced his palms on the window sill, and staggered to his feet. Fumbled with the strap of his helmet with shaking hands, and let it clatter to the ground. It looked like the far side of the river had been hit by a nuke. Nothing left standing, just shattered stumps of walls, greasily burning fires.

“Congratulations, Commander,” the Force Leader said. “A great victory.”

[Dave Talley]

great as usual

[Esskatze]

Dubble_g, the lack of feedback may - and this is just my guess - come from the very fact that your stories are about the best this forum has to offer. What is there to comment except "Awesome read, keep going on!", "Please write moar!", "Hooray, another Dubble_g story!!!"?

I am actually surprised that no one from CGL has yet reached out to you to ask you to write for them. Or have they? As one other poster has already said, your fan fiction surpassed most of what the professional hired BT writers publish. I would gladly pay for a full-sized in-canon novel written by you. Also, I was happy to read that you don't write AU stories. I never understood the need to deviate from canon, since the official storyline offers so much creative freedom.

Oh, and before I forget: Awesome read, keep going on!  ;)

[snakespinner]

We lurkers are just enjoying the story.
This is just the perfect merc unit, a bunch of losers looking for next c-bill. With 900 million of them now.
Keep up the great work and i'll get back to my beer, popcorn and your story. :beer: :popcorn:

[cklammer]

Hey Dubble_g,

 you are posting fasting than I can read  :D

 This is very, very good.

Best Regards,
Christian

[Dubble_g]

great as usual

This is very, very good.

:thumbsup: Ta, Dave & Christian. Strategic pause coming up this weekend, until I get my PC back on Monday.

We lurkers are just enjoying the story.

Aight then. When I'm wrong, boy, am I wrong. Good to know, enjoy the popcorn, unless it's flavored popcorn rather than salted, in which case sit in the corner and think about what you've done.

Dubble_g, the lack of feedback may - and this is just my guess - come from the very fact that your stories are about the best this forum has to offer. What is there to comment except "Awesome read, keep going on!", "Please write moar!", "Hooray, another Dubble_g story!!!"?

I am actually surprised that no one from CGL has yet reached out to you to ask you to write for them. Or have they? As one other poster has already said, your fan fiction surpassed most of what the professional hired BT writers publish. I would gladly pay for a full-sized in-canon novel written by you.

That would be nice if true, for sure  :P. Maybe the fact that people know it's a completed story being posted in installments puts a damper on discussion. Plus I've gone with longer chapters this time, which can be a bit intimidating on the screen (wall of text effect).

Re the writing, there's a sad-but-true story there, involving my unbelievably impeccable timing and the closure of BattleCorps. Some other time maybe.

I think for a long time CGL frankly couldn't afford to pay writers (during the tenure of Loren Coleman & Editors Jason Schmetzer and Philip Lee, they published a string of stories by, er, Loren Coleman, Jason Schmetzer and Philip Lee). Now CGL is back in the fiction game, I think they're largely playing it safe and sticking to the well-known, well-established names of the IP, i.e. William Keith, Michael Stackpole & Blaine Pardoe. Again, it might be a cashflow issue, where they really can't afford to risk anything on an unknown name.   

Plus they say if you're good at something never do it for free, and here I am, enthusiastically shooting myself in the foot on that one.

[cklammer]

I make offline copies of fanfiction threads, blogs and stories for perusal on my ebook reader whilst commuting: this leads to rather spotty commenting in forums such as these.

But when I am home I sit on my couch with a bowl of [trolling] sweetened, Caramel-flavoured [/trolling] popcorn and enjoy reading (your) fanfiction stories.

Using calibre as part of the workflow makes the offline copies easy to manage.

Best regards,
Christian

[pete879]

Hi there!
Another one of those lurkers forced into commenting ;)
A really great story you've got going there. Well fleshed out an superbly written. Plz keep up the great work. And thank you for sharing your talent with us.

[Tegyrius]

Dubble_g, the lack of feedback may - and this is just my guess - come from the very fact that your stories are about the best this forum has to offer. What is there to comment except "Awesome read, keep going on!", "Please write moar!", "Hooray, another Dubble_g story!!!"?

Very much this, at least in my case.  Also, I've been off-forum for a bit due to extreme overscheduling and other factors, so I didn't see this pop up immediately.

Please, go on as you were.  :)

[DOC_Agren]

You have brought to life a scumbag merc unit, well done

[Dubble_g]

Another one of those lurkers forced into commenting ;)

And you suffered through the verification rigmarole to post here, right? Thank you for your service!

Got a couple of comments re: the awfulness of the merc unit, and I'm glad you noticed that (and hope the humor alleviates some of the awfulness) but please also pay attention to the people they interact with! Each episode is a kind of comment on their position/morality...

All right, I'll just hope people are tagging along and carry on with it then. I'll keep posting a couple of chapters a day, and read along at your own pace, whenever you get time to be online or to download.

***

8. Lieutenant Shahan Khitai

Hanging with some tubby in a tin can
Highway A-1, En route to Anchor City
Ingress
16 April, 3026

The fat one was hiding something.

Shahan Khitai, once a company commander in Barsegh’s Bandits, now a Lieutenant in the Anything Associates, perhaps in future something else again, leaned against the rim of his open cupola and watched the BattleMech striding behind his five surviving Harasser hovertanks. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. No, there was definitely something going on here. He aimed to find out what.

They were loafing along at the BattleMech’s walking speed, a snail’s pace for the Harassers, barely inching along the road. They’d tried going on ahead of the Banshee, but the Capellans had roadblocks everywhere and it took forever to explain who they were, get whatever officer was in charge of the roadblock to contact someone who could actually make a decision (or pay the demanded bribe for a pass), and get the way cleared. The process tended to go faster when they had a 12-meter assault machine backing them up.

Bribes were the worst: “Can’t let you pass without an authorized movement order.” How could they get such order? “Might be able to put a request for one in for you. It’ll take time though.” Could they speed up the process, somehow? “Well, I can stamp it high-priority, but I can’t do that without a reason ...” And then they haggled. Third time it had happened, the MechWarrior had just stepped on the barrier and guard hut, squashed them several geological eras deep into the dirt, and kept right on going.

Word seemed to have gotten ahead. Nobody asked for bribes any more. That was the power of information, you see? On the modern battlefield, knowledge was stronger than any BattleMech.

Question was, why were these mercenaries so keen to send him and the BattleMech back to the spaceport? Information was power. That was why Khitai had wanted a recon command. Be the first to find out the enemy’s secrets, where they were, in what numbers, what strength. Then figure out how to use that information to his advantage.

The Banshee was next to useless in combat, virtually unarmed. That was odd. Very odd.

Khitai keyed a private tightbeam channel to the BattleMech. “Hey, Fallon, I hear you got an FIA insignia.”

“Oh yeah, spec forces shit, panther on a star. Know anyone who’d wanna buy it?”

“Might do, might do,” Khitai allowed. Time to probe, do a little conversational recon. “Might be able to work up a trade, you know? Maybe not for C-Bills, but there might be other things we could get you.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Yeah?” Tentative, hoping. A fish on a hook. Time to pull on the line, see what he could reel in.

“Might be able to help each other out, is all I’m saying. Not just this, but all kinds of stuff. Would you like that?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Another long pause. The man working himself up to asking something. Khitai smiled, and waited. “Like, suppose I knew a guy who was into a bit of smoke, you know? Think you could hook up a guy like that?”

Huh, smoke addict. How boring. Had to be more to it than that, though. “Might do,” Khitai said again. “Man in my position hears all kinds of things. Things that aren’t public knowledge, if you get my drift.”

That was certainly true. Khitai had heard a lot when he’d first landed at Way spaceport, seen even more of the rebels’ base inside the Citadel. Of course, he hadn’t told his new commander, Gore, everything. About Anchor City being a diversion, sure, nothing the man hadn’t probably figured out for himself already.

But about the Citadel’s sprawling underground tunnel network, no, let that be a surprise. Ditto the BattleMechs he’d seen down there. Might be Khitai would find himself a free man again, sometime soon. If not, no loss, he could plead ignorance.

Information was power.

“Might be I’ll be in a position to help you out.” Or to eliminate this fool, after Gore and the others got themselves killed attacking the Citadel. One could hope. “That stuff costs though. More than an arm patch. You can pay?”

“Oh hell yeah, money won’t be a problem,” the MechWarrior started giggling. “Oh Unity no. No problem at all.”

Khitai’s eyes narrowed as he watched the communicator. He’d pay, all right, Khitai promised himself. Might not like what it cost, but he’d pay.

“Tell me more,” he said.

[Dubble_g]

9. Commandante Ivetta Zlato

FIA HQ, Beneath the Citadel … A hole in the ground, in other words
Way City, Ingress
The Capellan Confederation, but does it matter? One House is much the same as any other
Year 1, Month 2, Day 16 of the Revolution

She came here to think. To think, and to feel sorry for herself, if she was honest.

Here in this storage room. This was the source of the Citadel’s power, is greatest secret, the source of the Alliance’s strength. It hadn’t been enough. She ran her fingers along the shelves, wiping away the centuries of neglect, and dreamed of what might have been.

She’d done so much, since joining them. Welded disparate groups of ill-armed farmers, ranchers and factory workers into a single movement, trained them, hammered them, forged them into a fighting force nearly a million strong. Smashed the Home Guard regiment and seized the capital—a feint, diverting attention from their buildup here. Brought in outside help when none was forthcoming. Mauled their pursuers. Built a formidable defense.

And it wasn’t enough.

They’d seized the Citadel and spaceport, true, a score of provincial capitals, but the population had not risen. Outside help had not come. Just the crushing weight of the Confederation, merciless as time and unforgiving as failure.

“BattleMechs, Commandante, mercenaries.” Mikayel, somewhere behind her. One of the firebrands, leader of the Panthers. “Broke Arshad’s Avengers. Wiped them out.”

She already knew. She didn’t listen to him. All she could hear was the distant thud of artillery shells raining uselessly down on the Citadel fortifications, the stifled wail of children in the tunnels. The Citadel was filled with refugees now, fleeing the bombardment. Just as the Confederation had planned, no doubt.

“Unleash my men. Make the streets run red with their blood.”

She inspected the dust on her fingers. Each mote, a life. Such tiny, fragile things. Gone in a puff. “If blood could make things better, don’t you think it would have done it by now?” She’d fought to save lives, but now she saw what a contradiction that was.

“Now is not the time for despair, Commandante!”

“No?” Being surrounded by an overwhelming number of enemies seemed a pretty good one to her. She blew, and the dust was gone. As though it had never been. “Let me know when is the time, will you Mikayel? I’d hate to be caught unprepared.”

“Commandante!”

She sighed. “No, no, you’re right. Mustn’t give up while there is hope.” However microscopically dust-grained it might be. “You have a suggestion, Mikayel. Other than ‘kill everybody’?”

“Cut the head from the serpent!”

“Which one? There are so many.” The Houses, ComStar, the mercenaries. Numberless as motes of dust.

“The MechWarriors, then,” Mikayel said. “I beg you, let me and my men do this. Use the tunnels, we can catch them out of their machines. Slaughter the Liao lap-dogs.”

She tilted her head and thought a moment. She rather liked lap-dogs, to be honest. But she could see Mikayel’s point. Such noble intentions, and it had come to this. From saving lives to ordering murders in dimly-lit caverns. Well, this was not the only arrow in her quiver. A dozen men more or less would hardly make a difference here.

“Very well, you’ve quite convinced me with your silver tongue,” Ivetta sighed and turned around to face him at last. Probably just ordered him to his death, but. Well. One more mote to add to her conscience. “Take two squads. Intelligence says they’re at the 2nd Division headquarters. See if you can get Leyan while you’re at it.”

It probably wouldn’t be enough. But you did what you could, and hoped against hope that, by some miracle, it would.

Mikayel saluted, grinning fiercely, spun about and sprinted off. Past a star map carved into the rock surface of the wall. Now centuries out of date of course. She’d looked to the stars for answers once, some time ago. And found the heavens silent.

Time to trust in more grounded things. Subterranean, even.

[Dubble_g]

10. Colonel Aristakes Isahak Leyan III, Mandrinn of Path Province

Leyan Family Winter Palace (20km north of Way City)
Path Province (Mandrinn Aristakes Leyan), Ingress (Planetary Diem Diagur Monaco), Tikonov Commonality (Duke Sean Ryan Teng)
Capellan Confederation (Chancellor Maximillian Liao)
Day 127/Year 786 (Traditional/Local) 17 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)

“Congratulations, Commander,” said the beaming Mandrinn-Colonel. “A great victory.”

Force Leader Zakarig Sohaemus watched Leyan shake Commander Mutai’s hand vigorously, ignoring the mumbling reply. Colonel Aristakes Isahak Leyan III, commander of the 2nd Militia Division and Mandrinn of Path Province, did not cut an imposing figure, he though sourly. Short, fat, his already considerable weight practically doubled by the chest full of medals running from one shoulder to the other. A katana hung like a cavalry saber from a bright yellow baldric across his chest. A grey wisp of hair sprouted almost straight upwards from his otherwise bald pate, as though surprised to find itself there.

Zakarig knew the feeling. He was almost as out of place here as Leyan’s hair, or the four mercenaries.

The Kuritan mercenary had glanced at Leyan’s katana once when they arrived, pressed his lips together slightly, then pointedly ignored it. They were pretty much what Zakarig had expected, the mercenaries. Their leader, Sebastian Gore, looked like a thug. The giant, Atom, like a boxer. The sharp-featured woman with bristling short black hair, like an assassin.

They stood in line in the grand ballroom of Mandrinn Leyan’s winter palace. Leyan had been so delighted with their victory at the crossing of the Vine, that instead of exploiting the advantage and punching through the hole in the FIA lines, he’d invited them all for a celebration—the mercenaries, Mutai, Zakarig, a dozen other officers from the 2nd Division.

“Ah, this must be Commander Gore,” Leyan was saying. “Such wonderful taste in couture young man. So delectably savage.”

“A pleasure,” Sebastian said. Zakarig thought his smile looked a little tight. “Nice place you got here.”

The winter palace was a sprawling complex done in Tri-millennial Chinese style, with layered roofs ending in curling, upswept corners, intricate wooden latticework, long halls facing serene gardens and pools of fat, idling neo-carp. A string quartet played in one corner, though the music was interrupted by the crump of artillery fire from a battery that had been sited at one end of the Mandrinn’s palatial gardens. The four BattleMechs had been parked in the courtyard outside, after making a suitably dramatic entrance, to the delight of the breathless courtiers and observers.

“And tattoos! How tribal! Do you do them yourself?”

“Yep. In the blood of mah enemies, after Ah scalp ‘em.”

“Jolly good. Well done.” Leyan’s smile had slipped a little, Zakarig noted. Perhaps not sure if he was being wound up. The Mandrinn-Colonel moved on with a final “Jolly good.”

“Ah, a fellow master of the blade! We must spar some time!” Leyan said to Shinobu, extending a hand. Everyone was unarmed, but the Kuritan had been allowed to keep his sword. Added the right touch of gallantry, Leyan had declared. The Kuritan bowed slightly, mechanically. Made no move to take the offered hand. Sebastian took a step forward, whispered something to the Mandrinn-Colonel too quiet for Zakarig to catch. “Jolly good,” Leyan nodded, withdrawing his hand. “Jolly, jolly good.”

Leyan exchanged monosyllabic pleasantries with the other two mercenaries, and then it was Zakarig’s turn.

“A Force Leader, eh? Backbone of the militia. How many years of service?”

“Twenty years, sir,” Zakarig replied dutifully. For all that the ‘militia’ were looked down upon, on a frontier world like Ingress they had more battle-hardened veterans than half the BattleMech regiments. Experience now sadly diluted by the mass conscription required to make up 12 full divisions, of course.

“Jolly good!” The same adjective that had just been applied to scalping one’s enemies, Zakarig sighed to himself. “Got my boys across the bank, jolly good show. That’ll show Ghoukas how it’s done!” Colonel Ghoukas Karayan was commander of the 3rd Division, and Mandrinn of Flat Province. An old rival of Leyan’s, the two families had been squabbling for control of Way City for generations. “Possession is nine tenths, eh Force Leader? See if I hand back the city to that up-jumped provincial once it’s got my boys all over it. Jolly good show!”

The introductions done, the party broke up into clusters, militia officers here and there, Leyan’s relatives and hangers-on there. Mercenaries in a tight knot strategically close to the bar. Zakarig, as the only noncom in attendance, found himself alone with a tumbler of illegally imported Federated Suns whiskey. Well, Leyan’s brother-in-law ran the Spaceport Authority. Privileges of rank and all that.

There was a digital map on one wall, showing Way City and its surroundings. The 2nd Division positions to the north picked out in blue, with a few now hugging the south side of the Vine River. Karayan’s 3rd Division to the south in green, suspected FIA dispositions in blurry blobs of red in between, in the city and scattered around the rectangle of the Citadel.

“Figure you got ‘em cornered?” said a voice at Zakarig’s elbow. He didn’t have to turn to know it was the mercenary, Gore.

“Again,” he replied, and sipped his whiskey. “I heard someone let them slip away last time.”

“Anchor was always supposed to be a sideshow.”

“If that makes you feel better.”

“Don’t make me feel jack,” Gore answered evenly. “Facts is facts. They don’t give a shit what we think.”

“And neither do you, as long as you get paid, huh?”

Gore reached over and tapped the rank insignia on Zakarig’s dress uniform. “Twenty years in the militia and you never drew a paycheck? C’mon now. We both gettin’ paid for this.” He nodded towards Leyan. “Some of us more than others.”

Leyan was standing in the center of a circle of admirers, looking slightly flushed, holding forth on economics in a loud voice. “—luckily they’ve ruined most of Ghoukas’ crop in Flat Province, so our soybean prices are skyrocketing. Profits are up 32% this year, even with the labor shortage—”

Of course, as Mandrinn, Leyan wasn’t only the commander of the local militia division. He was also the largest landowner, controlling perhaps a tenth of the planet’s agricultural output.

“Hear that? Up a whole 32%, Zack,” Gore nudged Zakarig. “The Alliance is losing, and just listen to what you’re winning.” He tilted his head a little and looked up at the ceiling, at the intricately carved and polished wood, that shone like gold in the light. Gave a low whistle. “Look what you’ve already won.”

Zakarig opened his mouth for a rebuttal when their host hove into their conversational harbor, a school of attendants close behind. “The heroes of the hour, eh?” Leyan’s face was slightly flushed from alcohol. “Let me introduce my daughter, Rozalia.” In contrast to her father, the daughter was petite, fine-featured, quite beautiful, and utterly, utterly out of Zakarig’s league, even if he had been ten years younger. He bowed politely as she curtsied, her red satin gown shimmering like fire as it belled out.

“Your man Mutai’s been badgering me about some funny business with missing gold, but I told him pish! Tosh!” Leyan was saying to Gore. “I’ve had word from on high to let you get on with it, and I quite agree. Just the thing, eh? I mean what’s 20 tons? I’ve got about 300 tons of the stuff in my own vaults. Twenty is peanuts, not worth worrying about. Politicians, huh, think they know how to run a war better than us soldiers.”

One of Leyan’s attendants, Zakarig noted worriedly, was a political commissar. He darted the man a look, but the commissar affected not to hear anything.

Leyan caught Zakarig’s glance. “Oh, don’t worry about Vitalik. Old family friend. If I can’t speak freely here, then where can I? After all, haven’t I suffered enough in this damnable war?”

A war at least partially caused by the food appropriation and quotas of Leyan and the other Mandrinns, that had created a class of starving, desperate servitors with an axe to grind and nothing to lose.

“And the gentle giant, ComStar’s own hand-picked man!” Leyan exclaimed as Atom joined the throng. “If there’s anyone who can bring Commandante Zlato to justice, I’m sure it’s you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do, anything you need.”

“I need nothing more than the Book of Wisdom,” rumbled Atom.

“It’s a good ‘un,” agreed Gore. “’S got pictures.”

“Any wisdom you can share with us?” Rozalia asked brightly.

“Current flows from negative to positive,” said Atom said after a moment of frowning thought. “So must our thoughts.”

“Jolly good young man, I like your spirit.” Leyan tried to clap Atom on the shoulder, but couldn’t reach high enough. Settled for a comradely punch on the bicep. Then winced and shook his hand. “You must all join me in the gardens, my friends,” he said, still wiggling his fingers experimentally. “Rozalia’s got a surprise for us. Come along! You won’t want to miss this!”

Leyan led a procession of guests, officers and politicians outside and along a narrow walkway to a gazebo built out over a giant artificial lake. Done in the same retro-Imperial Chinese style, with six delicate pillars holding aloft a swooping, flared double roof, giving an unobstructed view of a double image of Ingress’s white-and-orange moon Edanu in the sky and reflected in the mirror-still, indigo waters of the lake below.

Four rows of chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing out towards the lake and the twin moons. And there, to the background accompaniment of the distant rumble of 150mm guns, Leyan’s daughter Rozalia played the violin for them. The masters, Sibelius, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Adele, Rose, timeless classics, “Canon in D”, “The Four Seasons”, “Welcome to the Jungle”. Leyan beamed and clapped, and the audience dutifully applauded after.

An artillery salvo interrupted the end of Canon in D, and Rozalia threw her father a look. “Papa!” she hissed. Leyan whispered something to an aide, and a moment later the guns fell silent.

Zakarig closed his eyes, and tried to enjoy the sudden, almost shocked quiet.

[Dubble_g]

11. Cadre Leader Mikayel

A Nest of Vipers
The Motherland
The Day of My Death … The Day I Live Forever

“Easy, easy,” Mikayel said. “Drive slowly.”

Mikayel and the driver were in front, the other ten men packed into the back of a canvas-covered truck. A second truck followed behind. Both painted in STP markings—the Special Tactics Police. The STP had largely been absorbed into the new militia divisions, leaving tons of equipment parked unattended in warehouses, from which some had gone unaccountably ‘missing’, thanks to the efforts of a few brave patriots. Mikayel’s team had exited the Citadel tunnels well inside enemy lines, moved undetected to the garage and the vehicles, long-prepared for a mission just like this.

“Left here. Nice and easy.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “Weapons check.”

There was a metallic clatter as the team readied their rifles. STP stock, locally made and unreliable. Didn’t matter. The spirit of his men made them invincible.

A checkpoint materialized from the gloom in the glare of the first truck’s headlights. Two guard posts, metal barriers and spikes across the road, an APC and a squad of seven men. Beyond that was a three-meter high wall and the gates to Leyan’s compound itself. The gates stood open, the BattleMechs clearly visible beyond them, neatly lined up. Waiting for him.

A guard at the checkpoint waved them to a stop. The APC turret swiveled cautiously towards them, while other men shifted their guns into readiness. “Sapper,” Mikayel ordered.

One man hopped down from the truck. Over his Panthers fatigues with the star-and-cat insignia, he wore an STP uniform, with its distinctive forest green-and-black camouflage pattern. A canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He ambled slowly from the truck, flashing a big easy grin, one hand raised in welcome. “Everybody down.” Mikayel plugged his fingers in his ears and crouched down below the dash.

“Evening—” He heard the sapper say. Mikayel could picture it. One hand would still be raised in a jaunty wave, the other would reach down to the canvas bag, and pull the detonation cord. And, any moment now—

Ten kilograms of demolition explosive erupted in a brilliant flash Mikayel could see even through his eyelids. The sound slapped him with violent force, the blast wave violently rocking the truck from side to side. When he raised his head, there was a blackened crater where the sapper had stood, surrounded by the blasted remains of the checkpoint guards.

The APC crew hesitated, blinded by the smoke of the detonation. Wondering if there had been an accident or if they were under attack. One of Mikayel’s men leaped down from the truck, raised a shoulder-fired missile launcher and loosed a pair of tank-killing warheads at the APC. The twin missiles flashed across the field and slammed into the vehicle, blasting it into a rising ball of flame and smoke.

The driver floored the accelerator. The truck tires spun, caught and rocketed them forward, bumping crazily over the still-smoking crater, and straight towards the compound gates. They were closing. Two men dragging them shut. Mikayel grabbed his rifle, leaned out the window and tried to aim down the sights. Wind and vibration making the barrel bounce all over. He squeezed, felt the rifle jerk against his shoulder. Puffs of concrete from where his bullets impacted on the wall.

“Faster, faster!” He screamed at the driver. The gates were groaning shut, the gap in the center narrowing, narrowing, and with it any chance they had to succeed. Mikayel’s lips pulled back in a snarl and he hauled back on the trigger, not even bothering to aim, just emptying the magazine in one long, rolling burst. One of the guards sagged, dropped sideways on the ground. The other kept heaving the gate shut.

Mikayel tried to swing his hose of bullets onto the second man when his gun gave a metallic squeal and stopped firing. Jammed. Cursing, he tossed it from the window, clawing for his pistol. Too late. They were almost at the gate, too late to stop or even slow down. The gap in the center now narrower than the truck.

“For the Alliance!” screamed the driver. “For Ingress!”

“Shit!” Mikayel screamed, and threw himself from the window, crashing to the ground, trying to roll with the impact, red haze of pain from his shoulder, his leg, his ankle. And over everything, the rending, tearing scream of metal and metal, as the truck plowed nose-first into the nearly-shut gate.

Mikayel found his feet, pain blazing from his left leg. Gritted his teeth, took a step, then another. Too late to turn back now. The front of the first truck had accordioned into a twisted mess of metal, glass and the bloody corpse of the driver. But they’d done it. The truck firmly wedged in a gap between the two gates. The way was open.

Stunned and dazed men were tumbling from the first truck, some bleeding from mashed noses or scraped foreheads, while the squad from the second came sprinting up. “Go, go, into the compound,” Mikayel ordered his Second. Winced as he tried to take another step. “I will follow. Go. Go!”

The men rushed forward, jostling and squeezing past the truck, the gate and one another in their eagerness. Almost immediately guns began to bark and chatter on the far side. Men screamed. A missile launcher howled, followed by a thunderous clap. Mikayel tried to go faster, each step sending blinding jolts of pain up his leg. Faster.

On the other side of the gate was a square flagstone courtyard, the gate behind him, buildings on the other three sides—the steps and grand doorway of the main residence ahead, guards’ and servants’ quarters to either side. The four ’Mechs planted directly in the center.

The front doors of the palace had been blasted apart by a missile, the roof now sagging, bowing over the ragged hole, rimmed with angry embers of burning wood. The haze blew straight across the courtyard, stinging Mikayel’s eyes, making him choke. Security guards fired from behind columns all around the courtyard. Half his team lay sprawled across the stones in crumpled, bloody heaps. Others took cover behind the legs of the BattleMechs. The second squad leader charged towards the hole torn in the main entrance, three others crowding close behind.

“No, wait!” Mikayel tried to shout, but the burning haze strangled his words. He fell to his knees, gasping, retching. “The BattleMechs!” he gasped. “We need to—”

A grey figure leaped from the palace. Something silver flashed. In midair, the figure touched the Second’s throat, almost gently. The Second’s head sagged at an impossible angle, and he pitched backwards. The figure hit the ground in a roll, landed between the next two men, slashed left and right, fast as a viper. Separated one man’s arm from the shoulder, tore open the second man’s belly. The third man raised his rifle, but was cut down by a burst from the palace doorway.

Even as he watched, Mikayel could see the attack collapsing, his men reduced to cowering in the shelter of the mercenaries’ war machines, waiting to die. He wanted to cry but the smoke and dust left him a dried-out husk. Revenge for his brother, shot down during the early protests. For his father, executed during the reprisals. For his sister, dead in the famine that followed. All of it murdered as easily as his men. His once chance for immortality as a hero of the revolution, butchered like a pig.

With an animal howl he staggered to his feet, lurched forward, tripped. Over the body of one of the sappers, canvas bag still clutched to his chest like a baby. Mikayel tore it from his frozen grasp. Seized this once chance for redemption. To become a hero.

Mikayel scuttled forward, vaguely aware of bullets whipping by, lasers singing in his ears, singeing his hair. His eyes fixed ahead, on the leg of the closest BattleMech, the hunchbacked one with the two great cannon jutting from its shoulders. A long chain-link ladder dangled beside the leg.

Six men were still alive about the ’Mechs’ feet. “Cover me,” Mikayel gasped hoarsely, though he doubted they heard. He squeezed the satchel charge tight, grabbed the ladder and hauled upwards. Bright pain shot through his shoulder, his ankle, his knee, but he clenched his teeth, levered his feet onto the next rungs, and pulled again. One of his men glanced up, noticing Mikayel for the first time. “Fire you bastards, fire!” he yelled down. The man frowned, then turned around at another sound.

A short-haired woman was sprinting across the courtyard toward him, screaming incoherently. Her eyes were locked on Mikayel. She had a guard’s submachinegun at her shoulder, and wildly sprayed a dozen rounds up at him as she ran.

“Shoot her, shoot her!” Mikayel screamed down. The man at the foot of the BattleMech raised his rifle, but then a bright line stabbed through his neck and he fell, clawing round-eyed in panic at his throat.

Damn them. Damn fickle fate or destiny or whatever malevolent, uncaring gods there might be. As though life was a game to them, as they diced uncaringly over the fate of men, mere counters in their heavenly diversions from the boredom of eternity. Well, not him. Not Mikayel. He would yet write his name into history. One foot, the other foot. Pull. Higher and higher. The smoke thinned as he rose above it, made breathing easier. He could do this. He would.

Mikayel risked a glance down. Some fat man was tottering from the palace, screaming like a child, a satiny red shape in his arms. Good. Let him know what it felt like to lose those you love. Hold on fatso, the finale was yet to come. Higher, higher, into the cockpit, set his charge. Bring down a titan. Become a legend. He could do this. He would.

The woman was still firing. Bullets closer now, pinging and whining off the BattleMech leg beside him. He was an easier target now that he’d risen above the smoke. Made no difference. Claw, claw his way up.

His thigh went numb. Then burned, so hot, Unity, his leg felt like it was on fire. He saw there was a hole in the leg of his fatigues, blood just beginning to well in the wound. Major artery there. That was bad. That was death. He looked up. But he was close, so close.

“Shoot her!” He reached for the next rung. Next, his foot. “Shoot her!” His foot wouldn’t move. Tried to haul himself up by one arm alone, putting all his weight on it. Just a few seconds. His other foot blindly scrabbling for purchase on the rung below. He risked a glance down. “Shoot her!”

Saw the woman slump, hit, just as she fired another burst. Another Liao dog dea—her second bullet took him in the shoulder. The impact of it threw him back. Bloody fingers slipped on the metal. Reached. Met air.

And he was falling.

[Esskatze]

Oh god no, you can't leave us here in the middle of a cliffhanger! Have some decency, man!

[Dubble_g]

Oh god no, you can't leave us here in the middle of a cliffhanger! Have some decency, man!

Let's see what we can do to fix that...

***

12. Captain Liu Xiao

Anchorhead Spaceport
Anchor City
Ingress, Capellan Confederation
17 April, 3026

The DropShip had originally been named the Preying Mantis. That name had been roughly laser-scored away, and in its place an ancient Chinese coin had been stenciled onto the hull, one of the ones with the square holes in the center. Around the rim of the coin appeared the ship’s new name, Penny Wise.

It sat alone at the far end of the Anchorhead Spaceport, and she sat alone in the bridge, and she thought about money and loneliness and how the two connected, and wished she were more like a mantis, who ate their mates and probably did not feel so alone.

There was Danica, but she wasn’t here. It was just Xiao and this ship.

Instead of people, the Penny Wise was her life and her family. There was a crew of 20, but the demand for skilled crew members meant there was a frothy churn of people coming and going, and endless parade of new faces, and so she never really got to know them. Not like she knew her ship. Modified Seeker-class, tipping the scales at almost 4,000 tons and hitting the calendar at nearly two centuries old—and looking every second of them. Still, it was spacious and comfortable, and even had a state-of-the-29th century-art medical suite.

Liu Xiao—Chinese name order, surname Liu, first name Xiao—puffed her cheeks and blew a long breath. Time to go check on the boys down in the hold. She braced her hands on the arms of the captain’s chair, levered herself vertical, and descended down into the bowels of her ship.

The Banshee was parked with its back to the DropShip by the open cargo hatch, her crew now busy transferring hundreds of grey steel cases from the BattleMech to the cargo hold of her ship. A Seeker normally had several hundred bay personnel, but the Associates didn’t have the kind of money it would take to keep hundreds on payroll, so they usually hired locals for the job when required. Somehow though she didn’t think you could trust the locals on a job like this, so the flight crew and gunners were doing the job, grumbling and swearing at the physical exertion.

Zeke Fallon and the new lieutenant, Khitai, stood watching nearby. She silently cursed Zeke for obviously babbling the whole plan to Khitai. She didn’t trust his men, and had the hovertanks parked outside, the men themselves billeted at the port. Didn’t trust Zeke or Khitai, either. Or when it came down to it, her own transient, patchwork crew. She wondered how many bars of gold or palladium had already gone missing, how many more would by the time they found a buyer. Should she put a guard on it? But who to trust?

It was a headache, another one, cheerfully dropped in her lap by Gore, on what she knew was probably a whim. The man had a grudge against reality, and took every opportunity to poke it in the eye, just to see what would happen.

She wished Danica were here.

“Looks so small, when you see it like this,” commented Khitai wryly. It was true. The crates for 20 tons of precious metals would barely fill one corner of the Penny Wise’s smallest cargo hold. “It feels like there’s barely enough to go around.”

That was less true. Xiao had figured that with her crew, the eight BattleMech technicians, the four MechWarriors and even Khitai’s dozen, if they split the money evenly (as if that would ever happen, but for argument’s sake) there would still be over 20 million C-Bills each. But as always with money, when you realized you were getting only 20 out of over 900 million, suddenly that didn’t seem so much, and that gnawing pit everyone had inside them wondered why you couldn’t get just a little more. People, Liu sighed to herself, had not evolved for happiness, and getting what you wanted only whetted your appetite for more. Probably why people were all so icy and isolated, like comets about a star. Or mercenary DropShip captains.

“Yeah,” said Zeke, fidgeting with something in a pocket. Xiao could guess what. He’d already tried to sell her some damn fool arm patch, for the money, for his habit. “Small. Real small.”

Xiao’s eyes narrowed as she looked from one to the other, Zeke sweatily nervous, Khitai basilisk still. Those two had been together for a few days now, and she doubted it was coincidence that Zeke would echo the sentiment so quickly. “It’s plenty,” she said flatly. Damn Gore for leaving her with these two.

Khitai nodded slowly, as though thinking that over. “How long have you known Gore?” he asked suddenly.

“Longer than you,” Xiao replied. She left the rest of the thought unsaid. Khitai know what she meant.

“Hey, hey,” Khitai raised his hands, palms out, in surrender. “Just trying to get to know what kind of man I’ll be working for.” He grinned lopsidedly. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

Xiao rolled her eyes in response. There was an echoing crash, followed by a startled shriek as Zeke jumped in surprise, overbalanced, and fell over backwards. Xiao spun around, to see two crewmen had dropped one of the crates on its side, cracking the lid open. A tiny landslide of shiny, lustrous gold bricks had fallen across the deck. The crew stared at them, mesmerized. “Pick ‘em up!” Xiao barked. “All of ‘em. And put them in the trunk, not your pants—don’t think I don’t see you, Morton! Put it back!”

When she turned back Khitai was extending a hand to help Zeke, blushing furiously, back to his feet. “You okay?” Khitai asked.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Boy, that was loud. Think I’m gonna head on back to my cabin and uh, unwind for a bit.”

Khitai and Xiao watched Zeke totter unsteadily back to the ladder, and laboriously climb up towards the DropShip’s crew quarters. “Can’t trust him, either, though. Can you?” Khitai said quietly, as though to himself. He turned back to face Xiao. He nodded past her, to where the two men were still stacking the spilled bricks back into their case with heavy-sounding clicks. “Or your crew.”

Xiao gritted her teeth before replying. “This going somewhere?”

“Might be able to help each other out, is all I’m saying. Would you like that?”

She slowly crossed her arms. “No. Not really.”

“Hey come on, if you can’t rely on people’s trust, then rely on their distrust. My crew doesn’t know your crew, so they don’t trust each other. They’ll keep an eye on each other. Have a couple of your guys and a couple of mine stand watch over the cargo, at least until Gore gets back. Say two by two?”

Xiao chewed her lip thoughtfully. Despite her misgivings, it wasn’t a bad idea, really. It would mean letting some of Khitai’s tankers onto the DropShip, and they were soldiers—unlike her crew. But it was only two, against her 20. How much mischief could they cause? “All right, but only two,” she agreed. “Morton! Take Khitai here down to landing and open up the door. Two of his guys are coming aboard. Only two, mind you.”

Morton stood up from the case of gold with a surly look, grunted and slumped towards the exit. Khitai threw her a Cheshire grin and a wink. “You won’t regret this!” he said, a bounce in his stride as he followed after Morton.

Xiao glared suspiciously at his back, already regretting her decision. Well, it wasn’t too late to change her mind. One word and she could call Morton back and tell Khitai to forget the whole thing. She reached for a communicator on her belt and unclipped it. Before she could thumb it on, it began to buzz with an incoming transmission.

“This is Liu,” she snapped.

“Medevac VTOL Copper One, inbound to Anchorhead,” came the reply, half-shouted over the background roar of rotor blades. “We got one casualty—”

Xiao felt the deck drop away from under her feet. “A casualty? Who? Who is it?”

“I dunno her name but—”

Her. Her name. Xiao was pounding back towards the ladder and the bridge, screaming for the medic. Gold, Zeke, Morton, Khitai all forgotten.

[Dubble_g]

13. Martyrdom

Big ole house they got here
Same planet I been on since who-knows-when
Half-past I don’t give a shit o’clock

Mikayel was both surprised and disappointed when his eyes opened. Not dead then. Then his eyes flew open as the wave of pain came crashing down, and all he could do was whimper and moan. Not dead yet, but soon.

“Cheer up, chum,” said a voice.

Mikayel found he was lying on the ground, arms splayed out to either side, in the shadow of the BattleMech he’d tried to climb. He lifted his neck, though the effort tore another moan through his bruised and livid throat. A mercenary squatted against the leg of the BattleMech nearby, regarding him coolly through brown-tinted sunglasses. The very picture of a barbarian marauder, a lackey of the oppressors: Unshaven, tattooed, a twisting burn up one arm. A submachinegun lay carelessly across his lap, as though the weapons of war were just cheap and shabby toys to him.

“You should be happy,” he said. “You got what you wanted. Not many men can say that.”

The satchel charge was lying just beyond Mikayel’s reach. He strained, tried to move his fingers, but the arm lay there pasty and puffy like a manikin, something not even part of him. “Die, you dog,” he snarled, but found himself crying instead, dry choking sobs that hurt everywhere. Thirsty. He was so thirsty.

“Name’s Sebastian,” said the mercenary. “Plenty dead today. But not me.” He shrugged lightly. “So it goes. You got Zack and our violinist though. Shot Dani. Lots to be proud of.”

Mikayel’s chest was hurting. He hadn’t the air to reply. Just lay there, glaring up at the man.

“You got a name, son?”

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Mikayel hissed, breath coming in shallow pants.

Sebastian’s eyebrows twitched and the corners of his mouth turned down a little. A disappointed kind of fair-enough smile. “Honestly, your conversation ain’t been all that sparkly anyway.” He stood, and picked up the battered metal submachinegun. “S’okay, we got one or two of your friends. I think the Cappies will make them talk. Eventually. You however, my friend, do not have that long.”

Mikayel had seen the widening pool of red under his leg, and he knew what it meant. He wanted to hurl defiance at his man with his last breath, cut him open with words if nothing else. He couldn’t think of anything though, only how thirsty he was, how cold and thirsty. A mumbled “I hate you,” was all he could manage.

“I don’t hate you. Hell, I used to be you.” For a moment, the mercenary looked almost vulnerable, sad. Eyes far way. Then he shook himself. “Well, better-looking and smarter, but you know what I mean.” He stood, and walked to stand at Mikayel’s feet. “We all got our reasons. Maybe yours were even good ones. I used to think that made a difference, back when I was you, but now? There’s just me and mine. And a galaxy tryin’ to take it away from me. So. I’d say ‘No hard feelings’, but fact is, Ah’m feelin’ pretty hard right about now.”

Sebastian shot Mikayel once through the right foot, just below the ankle, once through the left. Raised his aim and fired again, once the right palm, once the left. Expression never changing as Mikayel’s panting changing to outraged animal screams. “Hush now. You got to be a martyr, just like you wanted.” And fired into Mikayel’s face.

Sebastian turned from the body and walked back towards the palace. Past the hunched and wailing figure of Mandrinn-Colonel Leyan, his daughter still cradled in his arms, his trousers stained dark with her blood. Shinobu stood nearby, face and arms flecked in blood. Not his own.

“Nice little knife you got there Shinny,” Sebastian said. “Saved all our lives back there.”

Shinobu watched the crying Colonel, stone-faced.

“Hey, not your fault Shinny,” Sebastian stepped between Shinobu and Leyan, forcing the Kuritan to look at him. “Whatever it is that you’re still beating yourself up about, just drop it. You got nothing to be ashamed of—you saved more lives than any of us. What you did today took guts. Charging four armed men with just your bit of steel. Unity, just an insane amount of guts. Don’t know if you are, but I’m damn proud of you, Shinny.”

Shinobu’s eyes met Sebastian’s. Shinobu looked away first.

“Aw, don’t get all sentimental on me now,” Sebastian said gruffly. “Can’t stand to see a man so obviously not crying.”

He kept walking. Past the body of Force Leader Zakarig Sohaemus, whose face looked neither angry nor sad, just mildly irritated. Past Atom, sitting cheerfully beside Zakarig’s body, miraculously unhurt, one arm thrown around a white-faced and shaken Abel Mutai. To where a woman with short black hair lay on the ground, her head pillowed on a leather jacket.

“He dead?” asked Danica.

“Well, I’ve seen livelier folks,” Sebastian said, and knelt beside her, carefully setting his weapon aside. Reached down and smoothed her sweat-slick hair from her forehead.

“I got him. Bastard was going for my ’Mech, but I got him.”

“You did,” Sebastian nodded. “You did good.”

“Sebastian Gore being nice? Think I must be dead and in heaven.”

“No chance,” he smiled. “Evac will be here in five, take you straight back to Anchor and our ‘Ship. Best hospital on the planet. Hell, I’m tempted to get shot too, just so’s I can join you there.”

“In hospital with you? Think I’d rather die.”

Sebastian’s smile faded. “Don’t you dare.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Need you to keep me grounded, Dani. You get better, you hurry back to us. That’s not an order. That’s me asking you. Please, pretty please. Come back.”

Danica smiled and raised a hand to trace along the line of his jaw. “Finally,” she said. “A little respect.”

[Dubble_g]

14. Acolyte Atom

On the trail of the Apostate
Ingress
Precentor Sian’s Domain
238rd year since the founding of the Blessed Order by the sainted Jerome Blake

“BANG! You’re dead!”

Three boys were playing Militia and Rebels in the rubble outside the apartment building. Grubby-faced boys with unwashed clothes and hollow cheeks, but still they played blithely on with their makeshift weapons, a discarded length of metal tubing and an L-shaped piece of tiling standing in for their more deadly real-world counterparts. That was a good game, Atom thought, and he wished he could join them.

He followed Gore, Mutai and Shinobu as they carefully crossed the street, dashing across the open spaces in case there were still snipers about. The boys laughed at their caution.

“BANG! You’re dead, too!” The open with the metal tubing pointed it at Shinobu as the four men crouched by a pyramid of fallen debris. Shinobu smiled, almost sadly, reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair, and said:

“Natsukusa ya
Tsuwamono domo ga
Yume no ato”

The boy jerked his head away, frantically patting his hair back in place and muttering about foreign devils.

“Good shot,” Atom told him. “One day, you’ll make a fine addition to Blake’s footsoldiers!”

The boy had to crane his neck to look up at Atom, squinting one eye against the sun high over Atom’s head. The boy seemed to consider that for a moment, trying to decide if it was a compliment or not, and if he wanted to be complimented or not.

“Bang,” said the boy, pointing the tube at Atom’s head. “Got you, too.”

“It would take more than one bullet to kill me,” said Atom.

“No it wouldn’t," sniffed the boy, then turned and ran off after his two mates.

“C’mon, Atom, we’re going,” Gore patted him on the shoulder, then sprinted to the apartment entrance and ducked inside. Atom spared one last look after the boys, still dashing in mad, happy little circles about one another, insisting they had killed one another, inventing new excuses why they hadn’t. Maybe one day, they would join the Order. He could hope.

He got up, followed Gore into the building, and up the stairs to the roof.

*

“We attack.” Gore tapped the map. “Here.”

They stood on the roof of a ten-story apartment building, affording an almost uninterrupted view across the city. Gore held a hand-drawn map of the Citadel, with the spaceport circled in red. The wind made it flutter and flap at the corners, like a moth trying to escape. Atom liked Gore’s map. The Citadel outline was done in black, the defenses in red, Confederation units in green. Almost like a circuit diagram. It reminded him of the pictures in the Collected Wisdom.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill Gore when this was over. Adept Levato said he’d have to, if any of them spoke with the Apostate Zlato. That made him sad, but he’d promised her he wouldn’t say anything to the others. He’d kill them though, if he had too. Blessed Blake said they were each his little warriors. Atom liked the sound of that. Sounded better than ‘acolyte’ anyway. He liked it when Levato touched him, too, in that special place, the one she said he mustn’t tell anyone else about. She was always watching, with that magic eye in the sky, always listening. So he kept his promise, and said nothing.

“Ain’t that right, Mutai?”

Commander Mutai stood at Gore’s elbow, though his eyes were far away. “Mmm? I, uh. Yes. That is, I mean. Well.”

“Thanks Abe, couldn’t have said it better myself.” Gore’s finger traced a line from the green boxes around the edge of the map towards the red circle. “Intel says the FIA have tunnels from the Citadel all throughout the city. Cappie—no offense Abe—foot is going into the tunnels, trying to flush ‘em out. Tunnels’re too small for a ’Mech, so our job is to cut off any off-world escape at the port. Far as we know, there are still a couple of DropShips they used to bring in mercs like Khitai’s boys, stored in underground hangers. Our job is to take the above-ground facility, stop them from moving anything into launch position.”

“Zlato will be there,” grinned Atom. “When the noose closes, she will come to us, and when she does—” He smacked a fist meatily into his open palm. Of course she would. Zlato was the only one with anything that could match the firepower of a BattleMech. Which was, of course, why Levato had insisted he be there to take her out. What a fight that would be! He giggled a little to himself in anticipation.

Gore looked at him oddly. “You feelin’ all right, Atom?”

“Grounded as a wire, charged as a battery.”

“Ah’m just gonna assume that means ‘yes’,” Gore sighed. He folded the map away and stuffed it into a pocket of his leather jacket. Then pointed away across the city, over rubble-strewn roads and ragged columns of marching militiamen, to a distant sparkle of silver amid the black forest of the Citadel. “Ain’t gonna be a cakewalk. You can see the defenses from here.”

Atom raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes, and adjusted the magnification. Was presented with a sudden close-up of a crumbling wall, beside which a militiaman squatted with his trousers around his ankles. “Your pardon,” Atom muttered, reflexively. He adjusted the binoculars, panning upwards, until the spaceport filled his view.

The spaceport itself was quite plain, consisting of four circular ferrocrete launch pads, plus two cracked landing strips for aerodyne DropShips. A number of squat, unlovely buildings of mossy or mold-streaked concrete clustered around the edges, many missing windows, doors, or walls. Two great ramps led underground, presumably towards the DropShip hangars.

The perimeter of the spaceport was dotted with a dozen dug-in tanks forming mini-bunkers, mostly Partisan SPAA tanks with a scattering of 60-tube missile platforms. A platoon of four Bulldog tanks was parked around one of the buildings. Atom could just make out the twin mirror-image Bs of Barsegh’s Bandits stenciled on their turrets.

The outer ring of defenses was formed by a zig-zagging, 10-meter high ferrocrete wall, trapezoidal in cross-section with sloping sides, perhaps 10 meters wide at the top, 60 meters wide at the base. Stick-figure soldiers prowled the wall, and firing positions with field guns crowned each outward-flaring ‘zig’. The blunted teeth of pyramidal ‘Dragon’s teeth’ tank traps studded the outer slope of the walls. There was no gate, but rather the only road leading out from the spaceport ran straight towards the wall before dipping into a tunnel directly under it, reappearing a hundred meters on the other side.

It reminded Atom a bit of the picture of an atom getting split in a nuclear fission reaction: The nucleus of the spaceport, throwing out little electrons of gun pits, tanks and trenches. It was a nice image, and he savored it a moment—Atom and the atom. Made him feel good, like confirmation he was on the right path. Like destiny.

“How do we get in?” he asked Gore.

“Gate,” said Gore. “It’d be one thing if we could jump over the wall, but none of us can and climbing up that thing’ll make us silhouetted all nice and pretty against the sky, and a perfect target for every gun they got in there. Nope. We’ll punch through the gate, try to use the buildings to block their LOS so we can defeat the tanks in detail, take ‘em out one at a time.”

“Will the Capellans help?” asked Atom.

“Mutai?” Gore turned to the liaison.

“What? Oh yes, um. The ah. The 21st regiment and 2nd independent armor company will attack first and pin down their perimeter defenses.”

Gore raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Spaceport’s right on the boundary between the 2nd and 3rd divisions, Abe. I don’t want my ass hangin’ in the breeze just cos some o’ your boys back at HQ’re havin’ a pissing contest. Specially not with Leyan bein’ a little, you know, upset these days.”

Mutai wet his lips nervously. “I’ll, ah. Yeah. Don’t worry. They, um. The headquarters. I’ll make sure they do it. The thing. Back you up. And. Stuff.”

“Very reassuring.” Gore turned away from the liaison, so Mutai would not see Gore roll his eyes.

“What about civilians?” Shinobu asked. Gore’s head snapped around to look at Shinobu. Even Atom found himself blinking in surprise. “Civilians,” Shinobu repeated. “Refugees. What if they try to escape through the spaceport?”

“They knew the risks—” Mutai began, but was cut off by a sharp metallic hiss. Shinobu had thumbed the hilt of his blade a centimeter out of its scabbard, glaring at Mutai with murderous eyes.

“Can Ah suggest a different answer, Abe?” Gore asked tightly. “We see your guys gettin’ trigger happy, all bets are off. Ares Conventions and whatnot.” Then, in a quiet whisper to Shinobu: “Of all the times you could discover your tongue. We gonna talk about this later, kamikaze.”

There was a long silence, broken only by a stumbling “Well, yes. I’ll see what I can ah. Right,” from Mutai. Atom watched them all with eager anticipation. He was slightly disappointed when finally, Shinobu nodded slowly, and snicked his sword back with a quick, sharp movement.

Gore sighed and tipped his head heavenwards, a give-me-strength look on his face. The skies had little support to offer though, only the mindless blundering of a great rolling band of morning glory clouds, and above them the fading contrails of fighter aircraft. It wasn’t like anything in the Collected Wisdom, and Atom found himself quickly losing interest. He was about to look away, when one of the contrails caught his eye. Not a fighter. A long bright thread, arcing up from just over the horizon to the north. A flickering candle flame now visible at its tip.

“What the frack is that?” Gore had gone very still, his upturned face now turned in the same direction.

Something buzzed at Mutai’s belt, and he fumbled for his communicator. Had a rushed and mumbled conversation in Chinese, “Shi ma? Zhen de ma? Zhen de!”, as the other three watched the comet burning brightly across the sky. Coming almost certainly straight towards them. Mutai clicked off the communicator. Gore looked down to meet Mutai’s look, one eyebrow arched in unasked question.

“It’s uh,” Mutai said. “Haha, weird. But it’s. Ah. Your DropShip.”

[Esskatze]

You really have a thing for cliffhangers. ;-)

That being said, I find myself reading with morbid fascination how the story about the Gray Death Legion's evil twin unfolds. Please keep your promise to make this a full-fledged novella. Can't wait to read the next chapters!

[Esskatze]

Oh, and one thing about the metallic unsheathing sound that Shinobu's katana supposedly makes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYAmdQbQmE

It's actually a wooden clacking sound.

[cklammer]

Very nice installments - loved them  :)

Just one question: why unload the gold as it is warm and dry inside the Charger: that way is not only potable as usual but it is portable, too.

Not it is comparatively visible for every Dick, Tom and Harry whilst being stuck inside a cargo hold.

Thieves and/or Customs go there first ...

[Sir Chaos]

Very nice installments - loved them  :)

Just one question: why unload the gold as it is warm and dry inside the Charger: that way is not only potable as usual but it is portable, too.

Not it is comparatively visible for every Dick, Tom and Harry whilst being stuck inside a cargo hold.

Thieves and/or Customs go there first ...

Why would they go there first? NOBODY simply stores their gold in crates in the cargo bay - it´s way too obvious. So of course, thieves and/or Customs (those two probably overlap on many planets) wouldn´t ever bother looking there.

[Dubble_g]

Me: Aw, nobody posting on my story [People post on my story, pointing out the mistakes and plot holes] No, not like this :'(

It's actually a wooden clacking sound.

Huh, Hollywood movies LIED TO ME  :o. Actually, this kind of comes in handy, as I'm kind of scribbling a non-BT story about Renaissance assassins, and I think this comes up. Cheers for the find, my dude.

Also, the action is supposed to kind of avalanche together from here on to the end, so it's all going to be a cliffhanger of one kind or another. That's more the structure of cutting back and forth among the viewpoint characters than any particular love for cliffhangers on my part.

Re: the unloading thing, while I'm not a big fan of the CinemaSins approach to entertainment consumption, my thinking was (A) that due to lack of trust among the crew, they'd want to keep it somewhere visible so no 1 person can sneak off with it, and (B) customs doesn't inspect military transports. That either works for you or not I guess?

***

15. Danica Smallwood

What?
Where?
How long have I been out?

White sheets. White walls. White light. That hurt, so she shut her eyes again. Shaking a little. Distant roaring. Odd. Come back to that in a moment. Focus. What had she seen? White sheets. A bed, she was in a bed. White walls. A bed, in a hospital. Right. The DropShip’s medical suite! She was in bed, in the Penny Wise’s medical suite, and everything was going to be okay.

Danica tried to move a hand to feel the wound, where she’d been shot, above the hip. And found she was strapped in. Zero-G restraints, used to keep patients in their beds during free-fall. Some idiot had tied them way too tight, though. She could barely move.

Another quiver ran through the ship, and the restraints rattled against the edge of the bed. Roaring, a steady growl. Engines. The DropShip’s engines. They were flying. Was it over then? Mission accomplished? Heading off for their next contract? Or fleeing before their former employers found them?

Danica risked opening her eyes again, just a slit. Xiao was beside the bed, strapped into an acceleration couch. Xiao! “Hey,” Danica croaked, then coughed. “Shouldn’t you be up on the bridge? Xixi? Xixi! Xixi, what’s happening?”

In the acceleration couch, Xiao twisted her neck to return Danica’s gaze, but didn’t reply. She looked pale, Danica thought, and—and there was a bruise on her cheek. Dried blood at one corner of her mouth. “Xixi?” She asked again, suddenly frightened.

Xiao shook her head, her eyes looking past Danica. Danica turned her neck, following the gaze. There, in the doorway to the medical suite, stood their new-found armor lance commander, Shahan Khitai. Leaning against the doorframe with one shoulder. Sharp little beard, dagger smile. “Ah, the patient is awake!” he smiled.

“Khitai, what the malking deep-fried low-fat malk is going on?”

“Change of plans,” he said. “Decided I liked being a captain more than a lieutenant, and being filthy rich more than being just very rich. Crew saw things my way, ‘cept for the captain here and one guy who tried to leg it with the gold.”

“Morton,” Xiao said flatly. “His name was Morton.”

Khitai shrugged the comment aside. “So, we’re on our way to Way. Ha ha. We’ll put down, offload the stuff onto our DropShip, and skip town with the rest of the Bandits before the Louies bury our former employers. Only question is, what to do with you once we get there.” He arched an eyebrow. “Any ideas?”

Danica swallowed, hard. Mind racing. “I’m a MechWarrior,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, true, but not like a noble one, so no chance of ransoming you,” Khitai scratched his beard thoughtfully. “I mean, we’ve got two MechWarriors, but only one ’Mech. Seems a little redundant, doesn’t it?”

“Zeke,” Danica said flatly, letting her tone do the heavy lifting.

“Not much of a MechWarrior,” Khitai agreed. “Still, not much of a ’Mech, is it?” He tapped his chin again. “You close with Gore?”

“Hardly,” Danica snorted. “The man is a wanted war criminal. Look him up: Sebastian Gordon, 3rd Marik Militia. The Berenson Burner, the Bastard of Bernardo. Nobody’s close to him.”

“Oh yeah? Huh. Such a quiet lad, last person you’d expect, never bothered the neighbors, etcetera. So, when we put down, I could use your help shifting the cargo onto our DropShip. Can I count on you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Danica lied. “Why not? The others are nothing to me.”

She ignored Xiao’s accusing glare, boring into the back of her head. Just kept her face expressionless while Khitai nodded, clucked his tongue and shot imaginary finger pistols at her. Even managed a smile in response. Sebastian was not the only one who could lie.

[Dubble_g]

16. Ivetta Zlato

The Eye of the Storm
Getting Close to the End

The command center was chaos. Cadre commanders running in every direction, shouting conflicting orders at one another. DropShip inbound! Barsegh said it was one of theirs: Allow it to land! Shoot it down! Attackers in the tunnels: Retreat! Counterattack! Save the refugees! Save yourselves! Collapse the tunnels, blow them! No, keep them open! Ivetta gritted her teeth, drew her Nakjima pistol and fired a single shot into the ceiling.

Silence. Broken by the patter of blasted rock falling from the ceiling. A large piece landed on someone’s head. “Ow, shit!” he squeaked, then clapped a hand over his own mouth. Ivetta resisted the urge to shoot him for spoiling the drama of the moment.

“We knew this might happen,” she said. Silently cursing Mikayel, which wasn’t fair, and herself, which was. His commando raid had achieved little, at the cost of revealing the tunnels to their enemies. “We knew this day might come. We’re prepared for it. We stick to the plan. I want everyone we can spare in the tunnels, hold the pigs there. Dynamite only as a last resort. Fall back towards the spaceport when we have to—delay, delay, delay. Every Panther team is to strike—find an unguarded tunnel, hit targets of opportunity. Doesn’t matter what, we just need to keep them off-balance. Let the incoming DropShip land but keep it on the platform. Move every DropShip we have into launch position, get as many people onboard as we can. If the mercs object, deal with them.” She looked slowly about the room, making eye contact with each of them in turn. “I know what you all want. Ingress will be free, one day. Our job is to keep our people alive until then. Understood? Then you know what you need to do. So do it.”

She waited until the room had emptied before collapsing into a chair and putting her head in her hands. When she closed her eyes, she could picture what would be happening. Men and women in dark, narrow tunnels, basements and cellars, clawing and tearing at one another blindly, like worms, like rats, the high-tech wizardry of BattleMech, laser and missile giving way to the old methods, of bayonet and hand grenade, of tooth and claw and blade. She shuddered.

“Commandante,” whispered a voice at her side.

Ivetta opened her eyes, sat up straighter. Pushed those thoughts away, as though she could do that as easily as she pushed herself up from the chair. An aide stood nearby. “We must get you to safety, Commandante,” he said.

She could be first on the DropShip if she so ordered, of course. And there was a part of her that screamed at her to do just that, to run and hide and escape this planet forever. But no. The same arithmetic that had led her to abandon her calling and code to take up the mantle of their leader also dictated that she was responsible now for pulling something from the wreck. Numbers were are unforgiving as stars, and duty as heavy as the stone over her head.

“No,” Ivetta said simply, walking to her personal locker and palming it open. She unzipped and shucked off her jacket, and pulled out a bulky cooling vest from the locker. “Get my Companion Guards.” She bent, and retrieved a neurohelmet from the bottom of the locker. “We also have a job to do.”

[Dubble_g]

17. Mjolnir

95 Tons
285 Engine
20 Heat Sinks
1xAC/10 (3t ammo), 1xLRM15 (2t), 1xSMR6 (2t), 1xLarge Laser, 3xMedium Laser
Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online. All systems nominal.

There was almost a kilometer of open ground between the battered, blasted ruins of the city and the spaceport walls. The Mjolnir strode forward past the waiting Capellan militiamen, huddled in their trenches, swept past their advanced pickets without slowing, straining like a hound at its leash, eating up the distance between it and the wall about the spaceport with each thundering footfall.

The Penny Wise had touched dirt maybe 30 minutes ago. Unity knew if the crew was still alive, Liu or Dani. Oh yeah, or Zeke. And the gold.

The cockpit was filled with the excited babble of a dozen Capellan officers each try to talk over one another—“Are we attacking?” “We’re not supposed to attack for another hour!” “Well, what’s that then?” “We’re attacking!”—but Sebastian told the ‘Mech to ignore them, locked its sensors on the road ahead, and the tunnel that dipped below the spaceport wall.

The tactical computer beeped fretfully at Sebasitan as targeting sensors locked on to the Mjolnir, confetti-ing the HUD with markers of gun emplacements and crew-served weapons. The ground about the Mjolnir’s feet erupted in tiny puffs as a long-range autocannon opened fire. Sebastian tagged it, waited for the tone of a lock, and loosed a salvo of fifteen missiles. They arced up in synchronized trails, before plunging down and detonating along the wall, one after another, like a string of giant firecrackers.

The icons blipped form his HUD. Target eliminated, purred the ’Mech’s voice in his ear.

More guns were ranging in on him now, hits rattling against the armor like hailstones. Sebastian fired his missile rack as fast as it would reload, saw Shinobu firing his own volleys from the Dragon, Atom adding to the devastation with that impossibly accurate laser of his.

A hit on an ammunition pit blew its gun, along with a great chunk of the ferrocrete wall, meters in to the air. Atom’s laser sliced across another position, bisecting the gun and beheading its five-man crew. Soon, the entire rim of the wall was burning, blackened gun barrels twisted and pointing accusingly at the sky.

The Mjolnir’s speakers picked up a great rumble from behind; Sebastian snapped a look at the 360-degree monitor and saw an entire regiment of men pouring out of their trenches and charging after him. Six-wheeled APCs in the lead, each sheltering a duck line of infantrymen. Others shunning all over, simply sprinting after the BattleMechs, herded forward at pistol-point by their officers. One man had a giant Capellan battle flag, snapping bravely in the breeze as the standard-bearer charged forward.

The Mjolnir charged down a ramp, into the tunnel beneath the spaceport wall.

The rebels had parked a pair of towed Sniper artillery cannon into the tunnel, and pointed their barrels horizontally, right at the entrance to the tunnel. And fired the instant Sebastian’s Mjolnir appeared at the other end.

Sebastian only had a split second to register, react. Throw the Mjolnir sideways, fling the right arm up in front of the body.

The first shell blasted into the road just beside the Mjolnir, sending scything fragments of shrapnel tearing across the ‘Mech’s left side. The second impacted directly against the out-flung right arm. Savage yellow light bloomed and filled the tunnel, followed by a massive wall of furious black smoke.

Cheers were cut short as the dim light of the tunnel was throttled and squeezed out. Gunners coughed, choked, fought to wipe their eyes and squint through the gloom. They got him. Surely, they got him. A direct hit. They got him.

A great shadow lurched from the darkness. A four-clawed hand reached down and swatted the first cannon aside, throwing it against the side of the tunnel and burying most of its crew there. The crew of the second cannon frantically tried to reload, but the hand swept back, grabbed the barrel of the Sniper and twisted, and twisted, and twisted, until it was pointed uselessly up at the tunnel ceiling. A trio of lasers carved through the murk, and burned through the gun crew, burning them to blackened smears.

All targets eliminated. Did Sebastian detect a hint of triumph in its voice?

The Mjolnir emerged from the smoke, arm covered in tatters of armor, great lengths of titanium bone and muscle exposed, but still intact. It stood before the spaceport gates a moment, cocked its fist by its shoulder, then pistoned it into the gates. Again, and again and again.

Metal crumpled, bowed and bent, then gave way with a despairing shriek. The Mjolnir strode through, and into the Way spaceport.

[Dubble_g]

18. Bandit Harasser

25 Tons
120 Engine (ICE)
0 Heat Sinks
2xSRM6

“Yes, Colonel Barsegh. We’re almost ready here. I’ll signal Code Yukon when it’s time to move. Yes sir. Out.” Khitai thumbed off the communicator, and stuck it back on his belt. He’d deal with the Colonel later.

Five tons of short-range missile ammunition didn’t take up nearly as much space as 20 tons of precious metals, and wasn’t nearly so shiny. Still, they had a certain cold beauty, Khitai thought, as they nestled cozily against one another in the hold of the DropShip.

A simple thing, to rig a timer to one of the warheads. And leave it here, among its fellows. By the bulkhead, on the other side of which were the fuel tanks. A terrible, tragic accident of course, and everyone would assume the Associates and any gold they’d stolen had been blasted into superheated plasma. And Barsegh’s Bandits—perhaps renamed to Khitai’s Cavaliers?—would leave this fractious little murder-world to throttle itself to death, and sail off into space with none the wiser.

He’d left Zeke with a fresh pipe. Ah the irony. The man himself would be carbon in a few minutes.

“All right,” he told his men. “Let’s move. Don’t want to be anywhere near when these fireworks go off.” The others chuckled in appreciation, and jogged towards the five waiting Harassers. The Banshee was also waiting outside, with its new pilot. Khitai hadn’t told her about the surprise. He just needed a little more, to help move the goods to the Barsegh’s DropShip. After that, well. Not like their DropShip had room for a ’Mech. She’d be deadweight.

Khitai jumped up onto the skirts of his tank, clambered over to the commander/gunner’s cupola and slid down, so he was standing on the chair, his upper body still outside. He tapped the toe of his boot against back of the driver’s helmet. “Tick tock, time is money,” he said. Signaled to the other tanks, make a circular helicopter motion, then pointing towards the underground hangar. Move out.

The hovertanks began to move, the Banshee and its cargo lumbering along behind.

He switched to the Bandits’ comm channel. “Colonel Barsegh, this is Captain Khitai. We are moving into position. Code: Yukon.”

“All units, pull back, pull back,” sent Barsegh. “Regroup at the DropShip we are bugging out. Bandit One, prepare for immediate launch.”

All about the spaceport, tanks, SPAA guns and LRM carriers stirred to sudden life, belching black smoke as their engines engaged and began to tractor out of their pillbox positions. Ignoring the frantic shouts of the FIA soldiers nearby. At the panel by his feet, Khitai’s comm buzzed with heated demands for answers. He smiled, and used the toe of his boot to stab the Mute button.

They were halfway to the hangar when the first missiles fell on the perimeter wall. A string of explosions fireballed into the sky, taking with them the remains of at least one cannon and the flailing figures of half a dozen suddenly airborne men.

At the same time, an ant-swarm of people emerged from the hangar ramp ahead of them. Some armed and in uniform, but many not. Elderly, children, some with meager bags of possessions strapped to their backs or clutched under their arms. An officer stood on the back of a jeep, yelling at Khitai through a megaphone.

“What the hell—” He was interrupted by another series of thumping explosions from the perimeter. “Get back in position!”

Khitai cupped his hands to yell back. “Orders! Defending the DropShips!”

“What? Nobody told me!” the man hesitated. He cringed as a staccato series of explosions echoed across the ferrocrete. That seemed to decide things for him. “Out the way! We’re commandeering that DropShip!”

Khitai looked over his shoulder, at where the Penny Wise still sat on the ferrocrete landing pad. Glanced down at his timepiece. Well, their funeral. “Of course,” he said, with a smile and sweep of his arm. “She’s all y—oh frack.”

From the other side of the DropShip, three BattleMechs came lumbering from the shadows of the mouth of the gate tunnel.

[Dubble_g]

19. Dragon

60 Tons
300 Engine
10 Heat sinks
1xAC5 (2 tons ammo), 1xLRM10 (2t), 2xMedium Laser

Shinobu tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The enemy armor was completely out of position. They had all abandoned their prepared firing positions, and were rolling back towards one of the two great ramps that led to the subterranean hangars. The great blast doors at the bottom of both ramps stood open, and from them poured a flood of people. A split-second scan told him what his stomach already knew.

“Tai-i! Commander!” he called to Gore. “Minkanjin! Civilians! Hold your fire!”

Belatedly, the turrets of a dozen tanks were swinging towards them, heedless of the frantic crowds of people—panicking, running in every direction, some throwing themselves flat—that swarmed between the tanks and the BattleMechs. “Tell that to them!” Sebastian snarled.

[Dubble_g]

20. Banshee brackets Modified brackets

95 Tons
380 Engine
10 Heat sinks
1xSmall Laser, 22 tons cargo

Unity, the cockpit stank of smoke. Danica breathed through her mouth. Still felt the acrid taste. Unity. Probably getting buzzed herself off the week-old fumes. Zeke, that catastrophic jump failure. That lardy tub of Steiner boot polish. What a nightmare.

She was looking for her chance. Chances seemed reluctant to show, though. The Bandits had over a dozen tanks on the landing field, plus Khitai’s five: four Bulldogs, six Partisans, four LRM carriers. Enough to pulp even a Banshee, if she made a break for it. Think. Think. She needed a plan. She plodded along behind the five Harassers. Think.

Her battle computer began beeping frantically for her attention. Something behind her. The 360 view highlighted clouds of comet-tailed fireflies, that fell to earth in red blossoms of death. An attack. The tanks in around her stuttered to a confused, jumbled halt. And now people were pouring out onto the ferrocrete, a river, a flood, a rising tide, rushing straight towards her. Probably couldn’t run now without splattering half a neighborhood worth of them. She eased the Banshee to a stop.

“Danica, get to the DropShip, now,” Khitai barked. “Shift that throttle. Move, you whore, move!”

She was about to tell Khitai where he could stick his throttle, when her taccom chimed again. A different tone this time. For when the IFF tagged a friendly unit. An she saw the three BattleMechs rise from the ground, like spirits of the dead seeking vengeance.

“Zeke?” Sebastian’s voice filled her earphones.

She gave a shout of joy. She’d kill Seb for calling her Zeke later, for now there was only one hundred percent, pure, 24-carat gold relief. “Seb, it’s Danica, I’ve got Zeke’s ride. He’s on the DropShip. Come on, before the rebels try to board her!”

She backpedaled, away from the crowd, ignoring Khitai’s outraged screams, and swung towards the Penny Wise.

[Dubble_g]

21. The Penny Wise

Modified Seeker Class
3,900 tons
L/W/H: 90/90/89m
Safe/Max Thrust: 2.5/4g
Crew: 20 (+300 bay personnel as required)
Cargo: Transport bays & accommodations for 4 BattleMechs, 28 light vehicles, 3 platoons of infantry

“Hey Liu!”

The crew had been locked in their cabins, but Khitai had left her on the bridge, bound to the captain’s chair. A final act of petty humiliation, she’d thought, forcing her to watch on the external monitors as he slipped away with the gold. Leaving her here with her own dark thoughts, in silence.

Silence now broken.

A chubby, bearded face appeared on the communications panel. The man appeared to still be wearing his pajamas. “Hey Liu!” Zeke called again. “Where is everyone? Where’s Khitai? Just went down to cargo, and there’s nothing there but a stack of missiles.”

Liu was on the point of telling him where he could stick the missiles, then. Thought. Eyes flicking to the screen showing the hovertanks, idling at the foot of the DropShip. Khitai just now slipping into the cupola of the lead machine. Why leave the ammo? “Show me,” she barked. “Zeke, get your asphyxiated ass out the monitor so I can see behind you.”

Zeke pouted. “Jeez, friendly.” But slumped to one side, letting Liu see beyond him, into the cargo hold. And the rows upon rows of missiles, gleaming almost wetly, obscenely. Staring back at her like a thousand dead, accusing eyes. One warhead sat atop the pile, slightly askew, not sitting in lockstep with all its brothers and sisters.

“Unity…” Liu whispered to herself, then screamed. “Zeke!” she yelled, straining against her bonds with every fiber, every muscle, making her body a bow, taunt against her feet and wrists. “Zeke! You contractual small print. You unexpected jump error. You fuel surcharge. Get your fat, foggy-brained ass up here!”

She counted the seconds. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.” On the external monitors, she saw the column of hovertanks slow, as it met a flood of civilian cars, trucks, and people on foot coming streaming the other way, escorted by a handful of jeeps with pintle-mounted machineguns. Other screens showed explosions, the dull booms penetrated through the DropShip’s hull. As if that was a signal, the crowd parted to allow the hovertanks to pass, and then surged towards the Penny Wise.

“Oh no. Oh Unity no.”

Zeke fell head over flannelled heels through the doorway and into the bridge. He jerked up, looking around in panic. “Liu? What’s happening? Where is everybody? What’s going on?”

“Zeke,” Liu fought to keep her voice level and reasonable. No time to ask him to undo the restraints. Unity knew how long they had—every second mattered. “I’ve got a kilo of smoke for you, if you can just do me one favor.”

That brought his head around like a heat-seeking missile. “Yeah? Yeah! Anything!”

She nodded at the control panel in front of her. “There’s three toggle switches, right there, see them, all in a row. Just flip them all up. That’s right. Yes, yes, I know, don’t mind the red flashing lights. A kilo of smoke, Zeke. OK, now see that lever over there? One with the three bars? Right. That’s the one. Just slide that one up to the top of its range, would you? There’s a dear.”

Red light flooded the bridge, and a deafening siren began to wail. The ship began to shake, and a keening noise began, starting low, rising to a howl that drowned out even the blaring alarm.

“What? What? WHAT?” Zeke screamed, clapping his hands over his ears.

“Nothing dear, it’s—” Liu slumped against the couch. Now, all she could do was pray they’d been in time. “GOOD JOB, ZEKE. MIGHT WANT TO STRAP IN.”

“WHAT? WHY?”

And then there was a kick from below, like being hit in the ass by an Awesome.

[Dubble_g]

22. The Bomb

5 tons SRM6 ammunition (450 missiles)
Tick tock, tick tock

The Penny Wise’s engines roared to life, jerking it aloft almost reluctantly at first, belching storm clouds of vapor into the cooling pool under the launch pad. The howl of the thrusters drowned out the sound of combat, and the noise of it hit like physical force. Desperate refugees who had been running towards the ship now scrambled back in horror. It wobbled into the sky, then seemed to grow in power and confidence, hurtling higher and higher, riding its bright pillar of fire. Taking the bomb inside with it.

Bombs are simple things with simple desires. The timer wishes to count down the time. It wishes for three seconds to be followed by two, then one, and then zero. The detonator wishes to detonate. The timer sent it a signal, letting it know it was time to fulfill its purpose. The 450 stacked micro-missiles wished to explode. When the detonator went, they were only too happy to follow.

Even the lightest DropShip is well-armored, and their diamond-hard skins are very good at preventing bombs, or lasers or particle beams or shells for that matter, from penetrating from the outside. By that same token, they are also very good at ensuring that any explosion inside cannot easily escape outside, and instead expends all its energy on the cargo compartments, engine mountings, crew decks and bridge, and anyone unlucky to occupy them at the time.

Here is how it looked on the outside: The gargantuan thrusters guttered once, twice and then went out. A microsecond later, every gunport and ferroglass screen blew out in half a hundred jets of flame. One engine mount blew free, fired a nanosecond burst with the remaining fuel still sloshing in its feed lines, and flew erratically off on a nearly perpendicular course. A small cylinder leaped from the side of the ship. Glowing cracks criss-crossed its great hull. It began to lose altitude, spinning helplessly, tumbling end over end.

Then the fuel caught, and exploded. A new sun appeared in the sky over Ingress, annihilating the tiny ship caught in its center.

Thin gossamer clouds were visibly blown across the sky in a wide halo. Whatever windows had miraculously remained intact in Way City shattered. The blast was heard as far away as the town of Short, where grey-faced farmers looked at one another and wondered: What now? The bright glow was seen as far away as Anchor City and the HPG station, where a ComStar Adept shielded her eyes with a hand.

A thunderstorm was coming, but the first thing to fall on Way City was a rain of twisted and carbonized metal plates, and the microscopic remains of the crew. Nothing more than dust, falling like a fine and gentle rain.

[cklammer]

Wow, hard-core awesome.

Told you: unloading is a bad move  :)

re: the posting of stuff: sow wind, reap storm and all that. I'll be quiet now  ;D

[Dubble_g]

re: the posting of stuff: sow wind, reap storm and all that. I'll be quiet now  ;D

Naw, I'm laughing at myself up there. Go ahead, let me know when I screw up.

[Esskatze]

You never do. To this day, you haven't posted an actually bad story, neither here nor on your website. Keep 'em coming, and pls don't mistake any future silence for something other than breathless anticipation.

[Dubble_g]

Thanks Esskatze, very kind of you to say so. I'm happier with the way some turned out than others, with some aspects of my writing than others, but maybe every writer does? One thing's for sure though ... I need a ****** copy editor. Or new pair of eyes. Sigh.

***

23. The Mercenaries

“Xixi!” Danica screamed. “Xiao! Xiao!” She watched open-mouthed as fragments of the DropShip began to fall, like embers from an explosion of fireworks. “Xiao,” the scream fading to a whimper. Horror melting into grief. And then rage. “Khitai! Khitai you son of a turd! Seb, Khitai blew up the ship!”

There was an LRM carrier by the Banshee’s foot. She raised the foot, then brought it slamming down on the carrier, flattening the front third and mashing it right into the ferrocrete. The back two-thirds jutted up at a surprised angle.

She was hit from the front and back by laser beams. The Bulldog tanks, backing frantically away from her, scoring ugly lines of melted armor with their lasers and pumping out volleys of missiles. She ignored them, throwing the Mech forwards, charging right for the line of Harasser tanks.

Belatedly they realized the threat, their fans howled, rising up the scale to high-pitched wails, sluggishly moving them, then faster. Not fast enough. Danica pounced on the lead tank, grabbed it in both hands, one on either side of the tank, and lifted it high into the air, over the Banshee’s head. Then flung it straight down into the ground, Khitai screaming on the comms channel, as it hit, flattened, and burst into flames.

*

Sebastian saw the DropShip erupt. His DropShip. His crew.

He heard Danica’s screamed message, and saw her BattleMech become the center of a cyclone of laser and cannon fire. “Shinny, Atom, go for the tanks!” Three medium lasers and a flight of missiles turned the nearest LRM carrier into a column of enraged smoke and flame. The large laser savaged a Partisan, slagging sheets of armor. Not enough. He fired the shoulder autocannon, spending the long-hoarded shells, watched them tear through the Partisan and leave it a smoking wreck.

Laser fire blazed back in answer, but at least it gave Danica breathing room. “Fall back, Dani!” She was busy stamping a Harasser into its component atoms. “Fall back!”

Shinobu’s Dragon was beside him, hammering at a Partisan, forcing it to break off from the Banshee and face him instead.

Atom was—where the frack—Atom had fallen behind. The Shootist stood over a pack of fleeing civilians. It looked down at them, like a giant choosing a snack. 

*

Atom ignored all the screaming back and forth over the comms. The bright flash that filled the sky was a little bit like a solar heating diagram, but he didn’t have time for that. The ship didn’t factor in the plans, and its loss didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was Zlato, and he didn’t see her anywhere. He slid through sensor overlays to pierce the thick vapor still clinging to the launch pad from the DropShip’s engines. No BattleMechs, only irrelevant tanks and hundreds scurrying little people.

Zlato’s people. Atom smiled to himself, realizing what he had to do to draw her out.

He flicked the weapons selector, arming the two pulse lasers, and lowered the crosshairs. The Shootist bowed a little at the waist, as though in prayer. Atom fired.

Vivid green light pierced the grey, and scythed among the people on the ferrocrete. Bodies were instantly burned to black marks on the ground. “Opposite poles attract,” Atom said to himself. “Come meet your opposite, Zlato.”

He fired again into the fleeing backs of a dozen more people.

Something huge slammed into the side of the Shootist. The world tilted, then came rushing up to meet him. The impact flung him sideways in the restraints and nearly snapped his neck.

The cockpit fell into shadow. A Dragon loomed over Atom, blocking out the light, the pitiless cavern of its autocannon yawning in his face.

[Dubble_g]

24. Freedom for Ingress Alliance

Ivetta Zlato stretched her neck, first right then left, then grasped the control yokes, feeling the titanic power respond to her touch. The comms babbled nonsense—BattleMechs were inside the perimeter, armor falling back, abandoning their posts, DropShip shot down, armor engaging, BattleMechs slaughtering people, BattleMechs fighting each other—she eventually gave up trying to make sense of it and shut off everything but her team’s channel.

“Follow me, stick close. Keep the runways clear and protect the transports.” Already, the first commandeered DropShip was taxying from its berth. A Condor, once home to Arshad’s Avengers, now packed with over a thousand refugees. A pair of Fury DropShips ready to go after it. She’d seen her men dragging Colonel Barsegh’s bloodied corpse by its feet from his Triumph DropShip. That would be the last to go.

“Consider all mercenaries as hostile. Frack it, shoot anything that isn’t us. Let’s go!”

Before her, the monolithic hangar doors groaned open, as though carving apart the darkness to find the sky. The blue above them glittered with strobing lasers and lazy streams of tracers. Above all, the billowing cloudburst of the destroyed DropShip. Like the judging eye of a god. Zlato muttered a prayer, though she felt her continued existence was a strong argument against the existence of the divine. It was very, very hard for her to believe in heaven at that moment.

The other place, now, that she had no trouble believing in. It was right in front of her.

“Welcome to hell.” She palmed the throttle all the way forward, and moved forward with earth-shaking strides.

[Dubble_g]

25. The Capellan Confederation

“Sir, 2nd Division has launched an attack on the spaceport. One reinforced regiment, with armor and the BattleMechs.”

“What?” Mandrinn-Colonel Ghaukas Karayan, commander of the 3rd division, was livid. “That’s MY spaceport. If that frakker thinks I’m going to sit still while he grabs all the best real estate, he’s got another think coming. Get me Leyan!”

“Sir—” a white-faced comms tech shot to her feet at her desk. “Sir, the second’s headquarters, sir. They aren’t responding.”

Karayan’s eyes went viperous. “So that’s his game, eh?” He slammed a palm down on the map table in front of him. “Order the 33rd to attack the spaceport!”

*

The political commissar stood atop the spaceport walls, waving the Capellan battle flag over his head, urging on the men. “Forward brothers! To victory!”

He was elated, ecstatic. Generally, commissars were despised, hated for reporting their fellow soldiers to the Maskirovka, for sitting safely behind the lines while others fight and die. He’d begun to hate himself. It was true, all they said was true: he was useless, a coward, poison in the regiment. But. He’d seen the standard-bearer fall, and known his moment had come. Charged forward, taken up the standard, and led the men on. Not hating or cursing him now, but roaring their encouragement, cheering him on. Five thousand men yelling his name. “Onward! For the regiment! For Ingress!”

He was yelling so loud he did not hear the click of the vibramine at his feet.

*

The pilot smiled, kissed the photo of her father and tucked it back inside her flight suit. Her wing of Guardian fighters was over the Leyan Winter Palace now, wide artificial lake and long buildings clearly visible beneath the rim of her cockpit glass. It was the day she’d long waited and prepared for. It was time.

She eased off the throttle, dipped a wing and slid behind her Commander. Ignoring his waspish demand for her to get back in position. And his enraged shout when he realized her tracking system had locked onto his tailpipe. She fired a salvo of six micro-missiles, and his fighter blew apart in midair.

“Long live the FIA,” she whispered. “Freedom for Ingress.”

The other four fighters were reacting now, pulling up and curving around to get their noses on her, but it didn’t matter. She flipped inverted, pulled back on the stick, and went into a vertical dive. The winter palace filled her forward view. She had time to fire off one final salvo, not bothering to aim. A little pavilion by the water disintegrated. The roof of the servants’ quarters blew off, shedding tiles and shingles across the courtyard. One missile landed by the BattleMech still parked there, but did no damage.

And then her fighter plunged like an arrow into the ceiling of the winter palace, almost directly above the map room of the 2nd militia division.

There were no survivors.

*

The Subcommander was knocked to the ground by the blast when the standard-bearer stepped on the mine. He sprang to his feet again, saw the legless man stare stupidly down at the stumps of his legs, shattered pole of the banner still clutched in his hands, then the eyes glazed over and the head slumped down.

Behind him, a crew of four wheeled their 40mm field gun to the top of the spaceport wall. “Sir? Sir? Orders sir?”

Below, it was chaos. Fumes from the DropShip launch still clung to the field, almost completely obscuring the view. People emerged from the smog, running in every direction, but the Subcommander had the presence of mind to realize they weren’t firing at anyone.

Above the drifting vapor, there was a long line of men crest the wall on the far side of the field. Armed men, with their own APCs, cannons and heavy weaponry. Reinforcements, but whose? Theirs, or the enemy’s? “Comms!” he snapped. “Get me the division! Are any other units attacking?”

The comms officer shook her head in disgust. “Can’t raise HQ at all.”

The Subcommander chewed his lip a second. Then pointed at the men. “There’s your target. Fire!”

*

It was a shame the Commander of the 3rd division wasn’t stupider, or a coward.

A coward might have panicked and run when fired on by friendly forces. A stupid one might have hesitated, paralyzed, and waited for instructions. But alas, the Commander was brave and bright. Bright enough to understand the rivalry between the Leyan and Karayan families, and to know that whoever held the city at the end of the fighting would likely be awarded control of it. Bright enough to know Leyan was currently unstable after the death of his daughter, perhaps not acting rationally. And bright enough to know she might be rewarded for protecting the Karayan family interests.

So when shells obviously fired from the 2nd division positions began to fall among her men, she did not panic. Nor wait for instructions. “Those traitors!” she yelled. “All guns, target the 2nd division positions. Fire!”

[Dubble_g]

26. Praise

“Shinny, what the frack are you doing?”

“He fired on the people—” began Shinobu, and then his view spun.

One moment the Dragon was standing over Atom, poised to shoot, then next it was reeling backwards, A gaping hole blown in its side. After-images flashed in Atom’s eyes, of something cannoning into the Dragon’s side with terrific force.

Despite everything he felt happy then, because he knew what that meant. Atom pushed the Shootist to one knee, then got it back on its feet.

A giant strode from the ramp leading down to the DropShip hangars. Three more followed in its wake, but Atom had eyes only for the leader. A squat head sat atop an angular torso bristling with weapons, over massive elephantine legs. The maw of a giant cannon jutted from the right arm. Atom’s BattleMech identified it immediately, of course. He felt a thrill. Like a boxer before the title fight, like a mountaineer catching sight of the summit.

Levato had promised him this time would come. Atom remembered her words to him, repeated them like a mantra. “You are the instrument of Blake’s will!” She would be so proud of him. He’d show her!

The new BattleMech pointed the cannon at the Banshee next, and fired. Whoomp. Crack. A blur of silver smacked into the Banshee’s left shoulder, punching through and out the other side, tearing the entire arm assembly free with a hideous crack. The Banshee was partly spun around, tottering, nearly losing its balance.

“What hit me?” yelled Danica.

“Unity knows,” said Sebastian. “What the frack is that?”

“It is called a Highlander,” Atom replied. They others had left their unit channel open, letting him overhead every word. “It is Zlato. I will deal with her.”

“Be my freaking guest,” Sebastian snarled back, as the other three BattleMechs fanned out: A Firestarter, a Shadow Hawk and a JagerMech. “She’s all yours bub.”

Zlato, however, had other ideas. A pillar of superheated air bloomed under her BattleMech, and vaulted it into the air. “What, where’d it go?” Danica called.

Sebastian tried to track it with his laser, beam slicing the air beneath the monster’s feet. “Move Dani, move!”

The Highlander came roaring down, plunging from the sky, to take the Banshee’s swollen, jury-rigged hump with both feet. The Banshee was rammed face-first to the ferrocrete, with a sound like the earth shattering. The hump was smashed open, spilling a landslide of half-melted gold, palladium, platinum and iridium across the ground.

The Highlander took a step back, as though suspected a trick.

A mistake. You hesitate, you die. Atom yelped with joy and threw his Shootist forward, firing everything he had. Pulse lasers stuttered and pock-marked the Highlander’s arm and leg armor, while the torso laser carved an ugly long glowing line across its chest. Then the autocannon was roaring, chopping away huge chunks out of its side.

He sang Levato’s mantra as he fought: “You are the shield against the unbelievers! You are the light that banishes darkness!” Proud, so very proud. “F brackets B minus F brackets A! V minus E plus F equals two!”

Zlato backpedaled, fired, and jumped again. The gauss slug whipped by, missing by meters, bouncing off the ferrocrete to go cannoning into one of the spaceport buildings, bringing down a wall. Laser and missile fire peppered his ’Mech, but it was nothing. Blake was with him. He tracked her, pulse lasers stabbing at the Highlander’s legs, melting away more armor. Then, when she hit the ground, in the moment before she recovered, he brought the autocannon into play again, shells cracking and tearing at the torso.

“You are the final word in Blake’s argument! You are the answer to heretics that doubt! You are a big strong boy!”

Zlato’s next slug hammered into the chest and rattled Atom in the cockpit, making him bite his tongue. He savored the iron taste of blood.

His endless mantra was drowned out as a Condor DropShip crested the edge of the landing ramp and ignited its main engines.

[cklammer]

Wow, dubble_g, you are really lighting both ends of many candles here - super!  ;D :thumbsup: 8)

[Dubble_g]

Wow, dubble_g, you are really lighting both ends of many candles here - super!  ;D :thumbsup: 8)

The idea was to have a kind of diamond format to the story--branching out from the start, and then having all those branches come together at the end: the A plot with Zlato, the B plot with the gold and the C background detail about noble squabbling & self-aggrandizing.

***
27. Glory

War wants only one thing. One way or another, it gets what it wants.

A two-man crew from the 2nd division heaved a heavy recoilless rifle onto its tripod, loaded and aimed and fired at one of the 3rd division’s APCs, punching a fist-sized hole in the turret. They cheered, then screamed as the Firestarter leaped on its jets, then came down almost on top of them, lashing the ground with long tongues of flame.

Danica Smallwood, pounded the inert controls in rage, frustration in fear. The Banshee was dead, its gyro crushed, its spine broken.

A Bulldog lined up an easy kill on the head of the downed BattleMech, when its forward viewport was filled with the barrel bulk of a JagerMech. Four streams of shells whipped into the tank, holing it in a dozen places. The crew tried to scramble out the hatches, but were cut down in bursts of deadly fire from the ’Mech’s waist lasers.

Sedbastian ran forward to cover Danica, shield her downed machine bodily with his own. The JagerMech ignored him, focusing on the kill. Sebastian swung the crosshairs over the back of the ’Mech, and squeezed every trigger. Four lasers hissed out, melting armor and causing to hang loose in leprous sheets, exposing the bones and muscle within. The autocannon vomited a stream of dual-purpose killers into the gaps, tearing out the heart of the BattleMech, finding the autocannon magazine. A vast jet of flame burst from the back of the ’Mech, followed by a huge detonation that obliterated the top half, leaving only the legs standing.

“Seb, behind you!” Danica’s instruments were out, but nothing was wrong with her eyes. Sebastian twisted the Mjolnir around, as the Firestarter behind him cut loose with lasers, machineguns and flamers. Fire lapped around the legs of the Mjolnir, across the armor of the supine Banshee, and the mountains of metal still piled there. Danica screamed as the flames crawled across her viewscreen, like demons looking for a way in.

Hearing that scream snapped something inside Sebastian. The Mjolnir lurched forward, scooped up the Banshee’s severed arm and, wielding it like a club, smashed it across the front of the Firestarter. It staggered back a step. He hit it again with the backswing, snapping the head unit around, driving it back another step. Its machineguns fired, like a gazelle kicking against a lion’s jaws. An overhead blow drove it to its knees. Sebastian’s lips were pulled back, nothing coherent coming from his lips. The Mjolnir raised its club high, and brought it whistling down, smashing the Firestarter’s head into a pulped mass of metal and blood.

Shinobu wrenched the Dragon back to its feet, searching for the BattleMech that had hit him, and for the murderer. Atom. The butcher. Spotted him, chasing after the unknown BattleMech, forcing it slowly backwards towards the DropShip hangar. Shinobu started forward when a proximity alarm began to wail at him. He stifled a curse, pulling the throttle desperately backwards. The Dragon backpedaled, just as a mighty Condor DropShip came hurtling past, slow but gathering momentum every second. It blew past, and the backwash of its engines threatened to knock the Dragon down again.

When it was past, Shinobu found himself face-to-face with the Shadow Hawk, standing on the other side of the runway. A worthy opponent, but a distraction. Where was Atom? He fired the autocannon, missing as the Shadow Hawk crouched, gritted his teeth as answering laser and cannon fire chipped at his armor. A warning light flashed on his control panel, cheerily informing him of damage to the comm system. His own lasers blazed, cut white-hot streaks in his enemy.

The Shadow Hawk pilot must have known his advantage would lie in pressing the attack, closing the range, where he could use his jets to work around the Dragon. He edged forward and Shinobu backed up, trying for a missile lock. Fired anyway, but over half the missiles simply shot past. The Shadow Hawk fired again. A lucky laser shot caught the Dragon’s weakened knee armor, and made Shinobu stagger.

The Shadow Hawk rushed forward.

The bullet nose of a Fury DropShip powering up to escape velocity rammed into the Shadow Hawk, tearing it into metallic confetti and dismembered limbs. It simply was there one second, smeared across the DropShip’s nose the next. The Fury’s wingtip came a meter from cutting through the Dragon. It roared down the runway, still gathering speed, and lumbered into the air.

Shinobu stared at the spot it had occupied, open mouthed, until a rattle of small-arms fire against the armor shook him out of it. He saw, without much surprise, that it was his own side firing at him. Militiamen who couldn’t tell two BattleMechs apart had assumed he was the enemy. Shinobu fired a laser blast over their heads, throwing them cowering to the ground, then swept around, looking for the others. Lost groups of people were still huddled here and there on the field, largely ignored by the militiamen, who all seemed to be rushing towards the downed form of the Banshee, heedless of cover or formation or the flames still lapping the BattleMech, or of anything really, anything but that pot of gold at the end of a multicolored, metallic rainbow leaking from the Banshee’s innards.

Shinobu saw one man stop and aim his rifle at a family. A short spurt of laser fire disintegrated him.

Of Atom and his opponent there was no sign, but it was easy to guess where they had gone. Gore’s Mjolnir was thundering towards the hangar, too. In pursuit? Shinobu tried to follow after, but the Dragon’s weakened knee squealed in protest, moving only in spastic fits and starts. He tried to get a channel to Gore, but all he could get was a digeridoo rush of static.

Grimly, Shinobu limped after. It was time to end this.

[Dubble_g]

28. Justice

Atom’s best strategy was to stick close to the Highlander, grab it by the belt and rabbit punch with the autocannon and pulse lasers, while Zlato’s missiles and gauss rifle would have a harder time locking on. She kept backing up and he kept following, step by step, forcing her down the ramp, into the DropShip hangar. That was good, too. Low roof meant her jump jet advantage was cancelled out, too.

Zlato was caught like a … he couldn’t think of anything. The cockpit view bounced as Zlato landed a hit. Caught like a beam in a prism? His answering fire missed, tore a line like an earthquake fault in the hangar floor.

The hangar was empty now, just the two of them. It was an echoing steel cavern, with bays on either side for five DropShips, littered with hastily discarded boarding ramps, fuel storage tanks, cargo haulers and other detritus. The roof was supported by two rows of square, monolithic pillars, each almost as wide as a BattleMech.

Zlato sidestepped around a pillar. Trying to block his line of sight. Atom’s pulsing laser fire smacked into the column, slagging its surface in long lines. She must be hurting now, Atom smiled. He’d landed some solid hits with the autocannon, cracked off meters of armor plating at a time. Half the Highlander was now covered in runny, congealed metal from where his lasers had savaged her. Time to end this.

Atom threw the Shootist around the corner of the pillar. Blinked in surprise as a shovel-shaped fist came swinging straight towards the cockpit glass. He tried to jerk back, too slow, still got clipped on the side of the head, rocking the Shootist back a step.

He tried to swing the autocannon around but red lights began to flash, warning of overloaded actuators. The Highlander had a hand around the wrist of the Shootist’s right arm, slowly forcing it upwards by the sheer power of its greater mass. He fired anyway, uselessly, hitting the ceiling, bringing down a hail of man-sized metal shards.

Grunting, Atom tried to wrestle the arm away, alternately lurching forward then pulling back, trying to get the Highlander off-balance. But it was too big, full 20 tons heavier than his machine. Wouldn’t budge. Atom’s chest mounted laser kept firing, were burrowing through the gaps in the armor now, had to hit something vital sometime soon. Just a few more seconds.

He didn’t have seconds. Zlato brought her free arm down on the elbow of the Shootist’s imprisoned right arm, shearing through it, tearing off the end of the arm and the autocannon barrel, leaving a twitching mass of myomer snakes and shredded metal. The sudden release from the Highlander’s grasp caught Atom off-balance, and the Shootist fell crashing to its back.

Failed. He had failed. That was all he could think, as he watched the Highlander look at the severed arm, then carelessly throw it away. He’d failed Levato. But no, it wasn’t his fault. The Kuritan, Shinobu, had attacked him, weakened him before the fight. It was the Kuritan’s fault. Atom could have won, if not for him. Not his fault. Not fair.

He gritted his teeth, and waited for the end.

The Highlander, however, wasn’t looking at him. A new figure filled the hangar doorway, a black silhouette against the white light: Gore’s Mjolnir. It advanced slowly, deliberately. Fired four lasers that boiled into the Highlander. Zlato’s Mech staggered back. Gore fired again, forcing her back another step. Again, chopping into the shoulder, the knee, the hip.

Another step. Zlato fired back, her gauss shot crashing through the shoulder missile launcher, leaving it a broken ruin. Gore took another step, and fired. The Highlander bumped into the far wall of the hangar. Pinned there, nowhere left to go.

The gauss fired again, jerking the Mjolnir’s torso around with the force of impact, but Gore straightened, and came on again. Answering fire cut through the Highlander’s right arm, destroyed the gauss cannon with a final electric pop. Then hit the knee again, and the Highlander was falling, sprawled face-first on the ground.

The Mjolnir came to a halt beside the downed Shootist. “Now that’s done. You and I have a score to settle, Atom.”

Behind Gore, the head of the Highlander cracked open, and a figure jumped down to the ground. She sprinted for one of the tunnel exits. “Behind you, Gore!” Atom shouted. “The apostate is escaping!”

Gore cursed. Took a step forward, then turned back to Atom. “This ain’t over yet, big guy.” Then he also popped open his cockpit, slid down a ladder to the ground, and disappeared after Zlato.

[Dubble_g]

29. Redemption

It was over by the time Shinobu’s limping BattleMech entered the hangar. The Shootist lay on its back, right arm missing below the elbow. The Highlander lay by the far wall, face-down, its surface a mass of metal scar tissue. The Mjolnir stood nearby, silent and immobile. Shinobu tried the comms again. No luck. Aborigine punk rock static. He smacked the control panel in frustration, when movement caught his eye.

Down there, by the Highlander. Someone had just entered a tunnel near the BattleMech’s foot.

Shinobu grabbed his sword, popped the door to the cockpit, slid down to the ground and sprinted into the tunnel. Just up ahead he saw someone running around a corner. Someone who nearly filled the corridor. Atom. Shinobu drew his wakizashi, crouched and dashed after him.

A short hallway, no sign of him. But still the sound of running feet. Shinobu hurried after. A T-junction. He listened. Sprinted left. It was a twisting maze, his prey always tentatively out of reach. The sounds of Atom’s footfalls grew fainter and fainter. Desperately, Shinobu put on a last burst of speed.

Shinobu belted around the corner, and slid to a halt. Atom was waiting for him. Standing perhaps 10 meters away. Blazer rifle held easily at the hip, a holstered needler pistol at his waist.

Atom’s face was troubled. “Why?” he asked plaintively. “Why did you stop me? What did I ever do to you?”

“You killed those people.” Shinobu found, to his great relief, that he was not afraid. Once, he’d been ordered to murder innocents, and had refused. Out of respect for his family, he had been allowed the honor of killing himself, seppuku, rather than face the humiliation of hanging like a common criminal. Instead, he’d fled with the sword he was meant to kill himself with, and the family BattleMech. “Once, I thought that mercenaries were the worst people. I see now that was wrong.”

“You got in my way,” Atom said, angrily. He either hadn’t understood, or hadn’t listened to Shiinobu’s reply. “You got in my way and let her escape. After you promised to help. You promised.”

“I set foot on this road by breaking a promise,” Shinobu said. The distance was too far, the tunnel too narrow. This could end only one way. And that was fine. He was at peace. He had begun by breaking his oath of loyalty. “It’s only right that I end it by keeping another.” A promise to himself: Never again. He took the sword in both hands, raising it in formal kendo dueling position, hilt held at belly level, pointed towards his enemy.

“You promised.”

I did, Shinobu thought. It wasn’t fear or cowardice that had stopped him, last time. It wouldn’t this time, either. He jerked the sword up, over his head, and screamed a battle cry.

The tunnel was filled with light.

[Dubble_g]

30. Respect

Through remote sensors hastily erected at the edge of the spaceport, Abel Mutai watched the battlefield in horror. “What is happening?” he whispered to himself, though the answer was plain enough. The rebel and mercenary BattleMechs had annihilated each other, taking the tanks with them. Nobody had done anything to stop or even slow the series of DropShips that had roared from the port, taking Unity-knew-how-many members of the insurgents’ command cadre with them.

Now there were only scattered pockets of insurgents, but that had done nothing to ease the fighting, as the regiments of the 2nd and 3rd divisions were now at each other’s throats. What had started as misguided local loyalties had now dissolved into a free-for-all, once the soldiers had discovered there was a massive pile of gold and other metals sitting in the middle of the battlefield. Any semblance of order had gone the way of the mercenary’s DropShip.

“Get me the 2nd division,” Mutai said, for perhaps the sixth time.

The comms officer shook his head again. “Still nothing.”

“Get me someone, anyone,” Mutai shrieked. “I don’t care if it’s the greenest, stupidest recruit in the division. I want someone, and I want them now!”

“Uh, got the Captain of the 21st, sir.” The comms officer held out the receiver and Mutai snatched it away.

“Captain, pull your men back!”

“They started it!”

“Tell that to the Maskirovka at your court martial! In the name of your Chancellor, I order you to withdraw!”

“I outrank you.”

“I am the liaison for the BattleMech forces and unless you retreat, I will order them to stomp your unit flat. Understood? Any man who refuses to pull back will be shot!”

A bluff, an utter bluff since Gore wasn’t answering any signals, and as far as Mutai could tell Gore and his men had all managed to get themselves killed.

But it worked. The Captain clicked off without answering, but there was an audible slackening in the volume of fire. Mutai checked the monitors and saw that yes, the men of the 21st were shuffling slowly backwards, slowly at first, but soon in a steady trickle, then a flood. The 3rd division was pulling back too, APCs and tanks reversing down the wall, out of view of the spaceport. Some men started running, throwing their guns and helmets aside, despite the pointed lack of pursuit.

“Very well.” The Captain came back on the channel, speaking stiffly. “I’ve ordered a tactical withdrawal to our start lines. I’m reporting this to Colonel Leyan though, Commander. I won’t be the only one talking to the Maskirovka soon, I can promise you that.”

Mutai handed the comm set back to his assistant without bothering to reply. He let out a long, slow breath. He could do with a drink. Or something stronger. Much, much stronger. “Look, er, you, have you, um.” He turned to the comms officer. “You know there’s this, um. Stuff that. Ah. Helps you, to, you know. Relax. This um, hazy stuff. You understand?”

The comms officer looked around to ensure nobody else was in hearing distance, then winked at Mutai. “Solid copy, Commander.” He reached into a breast pocket, and pulled out a short, stubby plastic pipe. “Just the thing for watching the world go up in smoke.”

[Esskatze]

It's too bad that the forum software doesn't offer any option to rate or "like" comments. I understand that the tech folk in charge don't want to risk the forum's stability by tinkering with the innards, but sometimes, this really sucks.

[cklammer]

Wow, just Wow!  :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I just hope there is more post-climax  ;D

[XaosGorilla]

It's too bad that the forum software doesn't offer any option to rate or "like" comments. I understand that the tech folk in charge don't want to risk the forum's stability by tinkering with the innards, but sometimes, this really sucks.

this

[DOC_Agren]

Love it
 :thumbsup:

[mikecj]

I was travelling and I'm glad I was since I didn't get cliffhanger'd as often.

This is great.  I love the way your characters are all distinct and have their one voices.

The Dragon’s T&T system refused to identify it, kept asking him to install something called the “Royal Regiment Appendix”.   ;D ;D ;D ;D

[snakespinner]

This lurker enjoyed story very much. Well done. :thumbsup:

[Dubble_g]

Some new friends and some familiar faces (avatars?) leaving comments lately. Eternally grateful to all of you for stopping by to leave a kind word. Not so full of myself (yet?) that I think everything I write automatically turns to gold.

Time to put this sucker in the ground. FYI chapters 31-33 are the final three, with the story ending at 33. Just in case you're not sure if it's done yet or not.

***

31. Righteousness

Zlato darted through dimly-lit halls, never still enough for Sebastian to get off a shot. He pounded after her, vaulting crates and boxes left scattered by the fleeing insurgents, splashing through puddles of foul-smelling liquid, ducking and sliding once under a half-raised forklift parked sideways in the tunnel.

Shaken, dazed survivors sat or wandered the tunnels, cringing away as they saw him come running, curling into balls or burying their heads in their hands. The faces of defeat, hopeless defeat. Nobody tried to stop him.

Sebastian saw Zlato duck into a side doorway, slowed and threw himself against the wall beside it. Crouching, pistol held before him, he risked a quick glance around the doorframe. No sign of Zlato, only row upon row of rust-pitted metal shelving. Old-fashioned printed books, their edges yellow with age. Data storage devices in dozens of different formats, everything from magnetic discs stacked in haphazard piles, to squat hard drives and rows of soft-glowing crystals placed like diamonds on soft velvet cushions. Whatever labeling the shelves had once borne was now mostly faded, outlines and ghost letters tantalizingly hinted:

GEN CA    MODI       ODS

HARMONIZING MI  ORGA  SMS

BASIC TERR  OR ING

Sebastian straightened, and padded into the room, pistol still held ready. He ducked around one shelf. Met only more musty, dusty stacks of information. Here and there were backpacks and canvas bags, stuffed with more data crystals and chips, like someone had been interrupted in the middle of moving house.

“Over here,” said a voice, sounding tired.

Sebastian turned another corner and saw her at the end of a long row of shelving. Zlato stood by a writing desk pushed against one wall. Above it was tacked a printed map of the planet, red X marks through a score of cities. A single light with a bare incandescent bulb swung gently overhead.

In Zlato’s hand was a grenade. A plain black pineapple, with the pin already pulled. “Deadman switch,” she said when she saw him. “Shoot me or come any closer and we both die.”

Sebastian walked slowly down the canyon between the shelves, stopped at the edge of the light, and lowered his pistol. “Then why are we both still alive?” He nodded at the grenade. “Could’ve tossed that thing the second you saw me.”

She did not look like a killer or prophet, murderer or messiah. More like someone’s middle-aged working mother, hair gone grey, tired eyes and red-raw hands from late nights on factory or farm. Someone who’d hide their aches and smile when you came in, and offer to make you some tea. “I just wanted to talk,” she said.

“Little late for that,” said Sebastian. “Could’ve saved yourself a whole mountain of bother if you’d done that instead of taking weapons from the Suns.”


“The Federated Suns?” Her smile was bitter. “We’ll get to them in a bit, I think. But no. However I might wish otherwise, no, the FIA has never been funded by the Federated Suns.”

Sebastian frowned. “Who then?”

“Haven’t you guessed? ComStar, of course.”

“That don’t make a whole lotta sense. What does a farming world like Ingress have that ComStar is willing to fund a rebellion for?”

“Look around you. Ever heard of Halstead Station?”

“You’re the second person that’s asked me that.”

“Let me guess, the other was Levato. No? Yes? Yes. ComStar funded the FIA because the FIA could pay. Not in gold, or whatever else you’ve stolen in that Banshee outside, but in the real treasure of this planet.” She gestured around the storeroom with her free hand, at the long metal shelves and their ancient, dusty cargo. “Books. Data crystals. Memory chips. Before it was the Citadel, this place was a university. One of the galaxy’s leading research centers in xenobotany, terraforming, a whole range of life sciences. The knowledge store here is worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions of C-Bills.”

“So ComStar gave you weapons in exchange for the data. What’s that to you?”

“I saw what ComStar was doing with the books and crystals and chips they’d bought from the FIA on Ingress.” There were tears in her eyes, marking silent, silver streaks down her cheeks in the dim light. “They were destroying them. Burning them, crushing them.” She shook her head. “It’s not the money, you see? This knowledge could mean life. Transform a hundred marginal worlds into gardens. End hunger. Reignite colonization so we’re no longer stuck, squabbling over the same small corner of the galaxy. Another Exodus. We could abolish scarcity. End war, when there’s enough room for all of us. End greed, when there is more than enough land and wealth for everyone.”

“So to save us all, you joined the revolution. How’d that turn out?”

“As you see.”

Sebastian hacked a short, ugly laugh. “What’d you expect?”

“Expect? I expected Hanse Davion. I expected that when the revolution had weakened the Confederation's hold on Ingress, then the victor of Halstead Station, the man who risked everything to recover a library, would come and rescue this planet too, and the knowledge it contained.” She was silent a moment, eyes no longer focused on Sebastian. Unconsciously biting her lip.

She blinked away her tears, refocused on Sebastian. “He didn’t come.”

“No, he didn’t,” Sebastian agreed. “Ever hear of the Warsaw Uprising? No? Uprising against an occupier, when potential liberators were sitting on their doorstep. Liberators didn’t lift a finger to help them. So much easier to stroll in once the hard work was already done for them, and any troublemakers with funny ideas about independence already dealt with. Ole Hansey will be here. Just give him a year or two.”

Zlato’s shoulders slumped. “He always seemed so much more … principled than that.”

“A man who already has more than almost any human in history, and who still wants more?” Sebastian laughed again. “More, more, always more: That’s the principles of a cancer cell.”

The hand holding the grenade drooped, and for a heart-stopping moment Sebastian thought she had let it go. But no, she clutched it to her chest, like a child. “Well, I won’t make that mistake—” A noise behind Sebastian made her stop. She looked past his shoulder, her face hardening. “Atom. I was wondering who Levato would send.”

Sebastian turned slowly. Atom filled the space at the end of the two shelves like a mountain. His face and features were lost in the gloom. He began to shuffle forward slowly, the geography of his bull neck and shoulders emerging first, then his arms. The right hand held a small needler pistol, a tiny toy in his hand. The left arm ended in a stump at the wrist, a crude tourniquet wrapped around the forearm. A long slash of blood welled across his belly on the same side.

Unseen by either of them, Zlato put her arms behind her back, the grenade nestled against her backbone.

“Please move, Sebastian,” the giant said. His face was pale, almost grey with blood loss, but the needler in his hand was steady. “It will be easier.”

Sebastian did not move immediately. He looked at Atom’s injuries, thinking. “Shinobu?” he asked.

“He was in the way,” Atom shrugged, then shifted his aim fractionally so his gun pointed at Sebastian. “Do I have to kill you too? I don’t want to, but I will. Please. She’s a bad person. Flow away. Like a current. Follow the path of least resistance.”

All the fight seemed to leak out of Sebastian. A needler was a weapon of limited uses, those uses being against unarmored opponents in small, enclosed spaces. This qualified on all three counts. He would be dead the moment Atom’s trigger finger so much as twitched. And for what? The gold was gone, melted to slag, Shinny, Liu, Zeke and probably Dani dead. For what?

The path of least resistance. He slumped against the shelf and did not look up as Atom approached.

Atom brushed past Sebastian and walked slowly forward until he towered over Zlato. He raised his pistol, aiming at the forehead right between the eyes. She screwed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth. Felt cold satisfaction knowing he would die, too, when the grenade went off.

There was a gunshot.

That was wrong. Needlers didn’t sound like that. They were quiet, sounded like someone ripping open a zipper at high speed. But that shot had hit like thunder. Her ears were ringing and there was a taste like gunpowder on her teeth.

Zlato opened her eyes. Atom still stood above her, but now a neat circle of nothing had appeared over his right eye. The hand that had held the needler to her head went slack, letting it clatter to the floor. Atom toppled backwards. Landed hard enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling.

Sebastian stood, looking down at the corpse. Python held loosely, forgotten in his hand.

“Why?” Zlato asked.

“Oh, you know,” Sebastian said. “Ah don’t have big reasons like you. Revenge for mah friend, that he killed. Or you mean, why shoot him in the back? You wanna live long in the merc business, you learn never to fight fair. Ah’d shoot you too, Zlato. For Dani. But Ah think you’re already planning your own exit.”

Zlato looked at the grenade, still clutched in her hand, and back at him. “If Levato and the others think I’m still alive, they will hunt for this data. If I die, if this room is destroyed, they’ll think the job is done. Take it, take as much as you can. Data crystals, they’re smaller, lighter, hold more. Most of the other media are unusable, rotted with age. But take the crystals, sell them mercenary, secretly, spread them across the Sphere, set this knowledge free.” She laughed bitterly. “Let your greed succeed where my principles have failed.”

Sebastian nodded slowly, backing up from Zlato. “If that’s the way you want it,” he said. He grabbed a handful of crystals, crammed them into his short pockets. Scooped up a rucksack from the floor, dumping whole shelves into its mouth. When he looked back, Zlato was still standing there. Smiling tiredly. She waved once, and then Sebastian turned a corner and she was lost to his sight.

He was halfway down the corridor when he heard the distant, muffled crump of an explosion. He stiffened a moment, paused and looked back, shook his head then set off again.

[Dubble_g]

32. Companionship

Above the spaceport, it was raining. Raining so hard it looked like the water wasn’t moving at all, just steady solid streams of it, falling eternally. Raining like it really meant it, like the weather had something to prove. You want rain? Yeah, watch this. Distant thunder boomed, the real stuff, not man-made.

The landing field stood deserted under the steady lashing, but for the residue of war, the tailings from its mining into human misery: Burned out shells of tanks, scattered bodies, shell casings, shards of BattleMech armor, all smeared into forgotten anonymity by the downpour.

The Mjolnir emerged from the sky-suspended sheets like an iceberg before a cruise liner, dark, misshapen and deadly. It paused before the wreck of the Banshee, and Sebastian Gore climbed down with slow, deliberate steps.

The gold, platinum and palladium bricks were gone, disappeared into the pockets and rucksacks of a few thousand infantrymen, rebels and Way City refugees, leaving only the hardening pools of melted metal, swirled and congealed together like exotic ice cream. A figure sat on the Banshee’s leering, skull-faced head, her knees drawn up to her chest.

“Did we win?” asked Danica.

Sebastian laughed, maybe cried a little too, though in the rain even he wasn’t sure. “Oh yeah,” he agreed. “A great victory. One for the record books.”

“Gold’s gone. And the DropShip. Xixi. Shinobu?”

Sebastian wearily shook his head. “Just you and me.”

“How disgustingly romantic.”

“If Ah’d known this is what turned you on, Ah’d’ve fracked everything up much sooner.” Sebastian sighed, tried to push wet hair out of his face. The downpour would have none of it though, kept plastering it down again, turning the simply gesture into a Sisyphean task.

“Danica! Sebastian!”

They both turned in the direction of the voice. There, hobbling from the rain, stood a battered but beaming Zeke Fallon, wearing what appeared to be a sodden pair of flannel pajamas.

“Hey guys! I’m alive,” Zeke said brightly. “Got into an escape pod before the ship blew.”

Sebastian regarded him for a moment. “Of course you did,” he said.

“I must be the luckiest man in the galaxy!”

“We live in a world of miracles.”

“Xiao?” Danica asked, but Zeke’s face darkened, and he shook his head.

“They had her tied up,” he said. “Wasn’t time.”

“I oughta,” snarled Danica, then clamped her mouth shut and looked away. Took a deep breath and looked at Sebastian. “No ship. No contract. No gold. What now?”

“Here,” said Sebastian, and threw a canvas bag up to her. She snagged it one-handed by the strap. It rattled and tinkled when she caught it, and the sides were full of hard edges.

“What’s this?”

“Worth more than gold,” he explained. “Take my ’Mech, pick up yours from the palace, hide out until the Feddies get here. They will, just a matter of time. Get them to take you back. Sell those, buy whatever you want. A trip to the Magistracy, enough smoke to knock out a Tigress Tectonic Leviathan, whatever.”

Danica opened the bag and looked inside, and saw the packed and glowing surfaces gleaming back at her, a bag full of tiny little ghosts. It took a moment for her brain to catch up to what Sebastian had just said. “You’re not coming?”

“Naw,” Sebastian said. “Got business Ah gotta finish here.” He waved to the Mjolnir. “Go on now, go. Before the Cappies get their heads together and come back to investigate. Go. Please, pretty please Dani. Just go.”

Danica slowly stood up, slid down from the Banshee’s head. Landed right in front of Sebastian, just a breath and a touch away.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she did not move to touch him.

“I saw your record, Seb.” She blurted suddenly, watching his eyes carefully. “Your real one. The 3rd Marik Militia. Anton's rebellion: The Berenson Burner, the Bastard of Bernardo. You do what they say you did?”

“What, that I did young and stupid things when I was young and stupid? Guilty. Fresh out of the academy, in a unit commanded by the Captain-General’s own son, a unit previously commanded by the C-G’s brother? That was everything I’d ever wanted out of life.” Sebastian smiled sadly. “Wanted nothing more than to fight for a cause with my brothers at my side.

"Careful what you wish for, huh?”

“I wish—” Danica stood frozen for a long moment.

The rain filled the silence between them.

Zeke shifted his feet uncomfortably, shivering, clapping his arms to his sides (“Hey, we going guys or what?”).

They ignored him.

[Dubble_g]

33. Revenge

HPG Compound, Anchor City
Ingress, Capellan Confederation
27 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)/5724 (Capellan Calendar)

Adept Levato strolled out onto the stone balcony, a drink in her hand. The HPG facility compound was by the seaside, and the balcony looked out over what the natives had—with their usual monosyllabic panache—descriptively named the Wet Ocean. There was a wide railing in aged and carved stone, clinging vine plants wrapped around its pillars. A couple of deck chairs. A cool ocean breeze, bringing the sounds of the restless surf slowly, ever so slowly, wearing away at the beach below. Fat wet-navy freighters clung to the horizon, almost immobile with distance, so that you had to look away to notice they’d moved.

The sun was setting, its golden light breaking and dissolving into smears of orange and red that spanned the horizon.

“Lovely, isn’t it?”

Levato stiffened but did not turn immediately. She swirled the drink in her hand, admiring the way the copper liquid caught and trapped the light, and transformed its own shimmering surface into gold. “Don’t you mean, ‘Lovely ain’t it’ Commander Gordon?” She did turn then, and saw him sprawled loosely in one of her deck chairs, one leg thrown carelessly over a knee, a pistol resting on his lap. “Your accent is slipping.”

“Is it? Can hardly tell anymore. Lie to yourself for long enough, it gets so you can barely remember who you are.” He cocked his head at her. “Ain’t that raht, Adept Levato?”

He didn’t threaten her or tell her not to scream, and Levato appreciated that. Let them end this like adults. She leaned against the railing behind her, putting the sea and its bottomless, endless sunset at her back and setting down her drink. “You spoke with Zlato?”

Sebastian picked up the pistol from his lap, extracted the magazine and inspected it, then snicked it back into place. “Mmhmm,” he said, punctuating his reply with the metallic click of the pistol’s safety.

“You should know we have our reasons. If you’d just—”

Sebastian sighed and pointed the pistol at her, still held carelessly in his lap. “I don’t care,” he said. “We’ve all got reasons, all got things we want. Can’t all get them. That’s what war is: deciding who gets to get what they want, who has to do without.”

“And what do you want?”

He smiled tightly. “I want to get to decide what I want.”

“Only that? So small a thing for the unsung hero of Ingress. You know, I have a better idea, of a more fitting reward. All it will take is one message from me.”

Sebastian chuckled. “I think by now we’ve established how little I care about money. And you, m’dear, have sent your last HPG message.”

“I have?” And she smiled. That smile he’d seen, the first day he met her. The wolf’s smile. “There’s a message in my pocket now, to be sent with this evening’s transmission. You might find it interesting. If I may?” She moved her hand slowly towards the pocket in her robe. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, but he did not fire, nor tell her to stop. Levato withdrew a square of printout paper, neatly folded, creases sharp enough to cut.

The paper crackled in the silence as Levato unfolded it. She cleared her throat.

“To: Duncan Marik, Commander, Marik Militia, From: ComStar Truth and Reconciliation Committee into Anton’s Rebellion, Re: Pardon for Civil War Officer. It is the finding of the committee that Sebastian Gordon, Lieutenant Junior Grade, formerly of the 3rd Marik Militia is innocent of all charges made against him. Accordingly, it is our recommendation that his dishonorable discharge should be stricken from his record, and he should be immediately reinstated to his former rank, with back pay owing. Yours, etcetera, Olivia Levato, Adept.”

Levato watched the man carefully, but he seemed carved from the same stone as the parapet. She stretched out one arm, lazy as a cat, and dangled the paper over the edge of the balcony. “Well?”

Sebastian snapped back to the present, blinked at her. “Well? Well, well, well.” He smiled, a mocking smile, but the mockery was aimed at himself. “I think this is where I’m supposed to say I don’t care and pull the trigger anyhow, but.”

He clicked the safety back on the pistol, and returned it to a shoulder holster under his armpit.

“We all got things we want.” A thought occurred, and he nodded to himself, the slow light of understanding dawning across his features. “You had that message all along. Back when we first met, at the bank. You had no way to know we’d pull a stunt like that, but you’d arranged to come to meet us anyway. And I was stupid enough to hand you the perfect blackmail material.”

Levato said nothing, but took three fingers from the paper, so that it fluttered in the breeze between just her index finger and thumb.

“Deal. So. I go back to the League, and in return I keep my mouth shut about Ingress.”

Levato withdrew the paper from the edge of the balcony. “Precisely.” Folded it again, each edge ruler straight. “We did not get everything we hoped, but then, nobody did, I think. You can’t always get everything you want. We are realists, Commander … or should I say Lieutenant Gordon? We will keep our side of the bargain. I hope we can trust you to keep your word.”

“Aw now Levato, that hurts mah pride,” Sebastian stretched, then placed his hands on the arms of the chair and thrust himself to his feet. Fished a pair of sepia sunglasses from a pocket and slipped them on.

He grinned, and his distorted reflection in Levato’s dark eyes grinned back. “Mah word is good as gold.”

THE END

[mikecj]

Great ending.  Thanks for sharing.  Can you post a link to a PDF?  I want this for my archive.

[snakespinner]

Unexpected but very interesting ending. :beer:

[DOC_Agren]

Interesting ending and not what I saw coming
 :thumbsup:

[cklammer]

It has been a pleasure, Sir.  :thumbsup:

[Dubble_g]

Great ending.  Thanks for sharing.  Can you post a link to a PDF?  I want this for my archive.

Yeah, I've banged together a cover image (amateur hour on Adobe Illustrator, sorry guys) and put it up on my Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7jrhl7o50dpg2e/Gold.pdf

The ending is meant to tie back to the overall theme of the story, about greed, the different types of greed that exist, on the danger of letting your wants/desires control you. Each of the main and secondary characters wants something (Danica & Mutai: respect, Shinobu: honor/redemption, Zeke: drugs, Atom: praise, Zlato: to do good/be right, Mikayel: to be a hero/a martyr, Leyan: wealth, Khitai: control, Liu: companionship, etc.), and things get screwed up when they get what they think they want. At the end, I'm trying to show Seb is in control of his desires, rather than being controlled-he's consciously picking & choosing what he wants rather than being driven by it.

[Sir Chaos]

Yeah, I've banged together a cover image (amateur hour on Adobe Illustrator, sorry guys) and put it up on my Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7jrhl7o50dpg2e/Gold.pdf

The ending is meant to tie back to the overall theme of the story, about greed, the different types of greed that exist, on the danger of letting your wants/desires control you. Each of the main and secondary characters wants something (Danica & Mutai: respect, Shinobu: honor/redemption, Zeke: drugs, Atom: praise, Zlato: to do good/be right, Mikayel: to be a hero/a martyr, Leyan: wealth, Khitai: control, Liu: companionship, etc.), and things get screwed up when they get what they think they want. At the end, I'm trying to show Seb is in control of his desires, rather than being controlled-he's consciously picking & choosing what he wants rather than being driven by it.

You could argue, though, that Shinobu also got a "good" ending - or at least the best ending he could get in his situation - by picking and choosing: He decided to try and do the right thing, even if it costs his life, rather than continue to associate with people like Seb.

You could even consider his final encounter with Atom as a form of sepukku - he couldn´t kill himself with the sword any more, so he used his sword to force Atom to do that for him.

[cklammer]

Thank you for the PDF  :D

Again: a really nice and well-written tale!  :thumbsup:

Are you planning a sequel or a prequel: Sebastian Gordon certainly has possibilities there ...

[Esskatze]

I second that. You could make a prequel detailing Sebastian's misfortunes interesting to read. Or give us an entirely different story. I don't really care, just don't make us wait as long as last time.

[Dubble_g]

You could argue, though, that Shinobu also got a "good" ending - or at least the best ending he could get in his situation

You're right. By his own standards, at least, he gets a good ending.

Are you planning a sequel or a prequel: Sebastian Gordon certainly has possibilities there ...

Thanks to both you and Esskatze for the encouragement. Asking me right after I finish a story is probably the wrong time though. After I do one of these I always feel weirdly down and drained, like I'm never sure if I'm ever going to have the energy or inspiration to write anything again... Mind you, I thought I was done with BT fanfiction for good a couple of months ago, and then ended up scribbling this over the holidays. So you never know.

BTW I've finally gotten organized enough to post this one to my archive: https://one-way-mirror.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

In other shamelessly self-promotional news I see Blaine Pardoe has a new book coming about Clan Smoke Jaguar (https://blainepardoe.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/forever-faithful-is-available-for-pre-order/)  ... to put yourself in the mood, why not read this absolutely free fanfiction about the post-annihilation Smoke Jaguars by an eager, dynamic, fresh-faced new writer who is actually none of those things but NEVER MIND here's the damn link:

http://one-way-mirror.blogspot.com/p/climb.html

[Motsognir]

Just got finished catching up on your great story Dubble_g. Thank you, your work is always very entertaining!

[cklammer]

No pressure, no worries: Seb Gordon has a lot of potential as a character: i am seeing another Dmitri Dyubichev ... just saying  :)

[mikecj]

Thank you!  This story is definitely one I'll re-read again.  :thumbsup:

[Tegyrius]

As always, I need a cigarette and a shot of whiskey after finishing that, and I neither smoke nor drink.

[Dubble_g]

As always, I need a cigarette and a shot of whiskey after finishing that, and I neither smoke nor drink.

I can think of no higher praise for my writing than "It drove me to drink"  :P

Thanks also to Mike & Motsognir.

Working on a non-BT thing now... Rapierpunk, sort of Coen Brothers or Richard Morgan take on the Three Musketeers, about a pair of assassins in Renaissance Europe.

[Esskatze]

Regardless of the setting, I know it will be good. Just as some people can't write a good story even if their life depended on it (yes, I'm looking at you, Stackpole with your cardboard characters), others always manage to write at least a decent story, even if they choose an unfamiliar setting/genre.

[snakespinner]

Will that non bt story your writing be on your BlogSpot or will you leave a link here. :beer:

[misterpants]

Is this in the same continuity as "A Snake in the Glass"?

[Dubble_g]

Will that non bt story your writing be on your BlogSpot or will you leave a link here. :beer:

Well, being the brilliant writer that I am I'll probably spend several months fruitlessly sending it to various publications (assuming I don't just abandon it partway through), receiving lots of format rejection letters before finally giving up AND THEN publishing it on my blog.

So yeah. In a bit.

Is this in the same continuity as "A Snake in the Glass"?

I think I mentioned in the first post it's a reuse of the characters, but not necessarily a prequel. Don't know how I'd get from this to Snake in the Glass ... anyway it was clear to me Snake should be about Natasha and Constance Kurita rather than a bunch of Mercs.

Cklammer and Esskatze have inspired me to try writing a prequel to this one, set in Anton's rebellion. Coming along slowly.... I should pitch it to John Helfers. One more rejection letter to add to my collection!  :P

[mikecj]

If rejection letters keep spawning stories like this... send me your address and I'll churn them out by the gross.

[cklammer]

Hoi Dubble_g,
 reuse and recycle: rejection letters can be used to start the fire for the barbecue grill or rolling cigarettes and also for other purposes if the paper is soft and and soaks up well  ;D

 ... and thus you may still derive a certain satisfaction by disposing of them in the aforementioned  ways  :thumbsup:

Best Regards,
Christian

[Dubble_g]

Just a quick update and a question... The prequel set in the Marik Civil War idea has turned into a mini novel (45,000 words and counting, not finished yet). I'm having fun stretching to see if I can carry the idea through to novel length (50,000+) but kind of wondering how to share it...

1) Put up a chapter a day as I have in the past?
- Chapters are a little long this time, so I'm worried that might be too wall of text
2) Put the whole thing as a PDF on Dropbox?
- The thread would get bumped down pretty quickly, and I'd like as many people as possible to read (and hopefully enjoy) it
3) Mix of 1 and 2: put up a chapter a day as a PDF link?

What do people think? Any preference or alternative suggestions?

Either way at the end I want to do it as a professional-looking format, with title page etc. etc.

[Kidd]

I'm only at about post 9, I'll leave a more detailed review later.

1) Put up a chapter a day as I have in the past?
- Chapters are a little long this time, so I'm worried that might be too wall of text
2) Put the whole thing as a PDF on Dropbox?
- The thread would get bumped down pretty quickly, and I'd like as many people as possible to read (and hopefully enjoy) it

IMO put up a chapter at a time, then drop the whole PDF at the end.

[Daryk]

If possible, I recommend breaking up the posts in to something smaller than full chapters (say a few thousand words per day at most).  That will keep the thread "on top" longer, and mitigate the "wall of text" you're worried about.

[cklammer]

Moin,

 My 0.02€: (1) and after that (2).

 Don't do (3) as it is neither here or there.

Best Regards,
Christian

[DOC_Agren]

I would say 1
and if your chapters are "too long"  maybe split over a couple days

then at the end pdf it all

[snakespinner]

A chapter a day so no 1, that will keep us lurkers happy. :thumbsup:

[shadowdancer]

I agree. A chapter a day to keep us coming back.

[Dubble_g]

Okay, everyone seems pretty happy with the chapter-a-day style.
I think as Daryk suggested I'll try to split the longer ones up into multiple posts to reduce eyestrain.

EDIT: Deleted the old title page.

[Daryk]

I think a by line like "A Fan Novel by" right above your name would do the trick...  :thumbsup:

[Kidd]

IMO, "Unofficial Fan Fiction" underneath the Battletech word at the top

[Dubble_g]

I think a by line like "A Fan Novel by" right above your name would do the trick...  :thumbsup:

Like this?
- Sorry Kidd, already changed it before I saw your post. But thanks for the idea!

At 55K now, so I've hit my goal. Just working out the endgame now, so it may clock in at around 60K, which is a little short for a novel but still about 2/3x what I've done before.

[Daryk]

I think it looks good, personally...  :thumbsup:

[cklammer]

Hello Double_g,

 you have always put your real real name on the title pages of finished books and tales IIRC ... just saying; don't mind me too much.

 Beautiful title page, really!

Best Regards,
Christian

[Dubble_g]

you have always put your real real name on the title pages of finished books and tales IIRC

Yeah, thought that came across as taking myself too seriously. Like, it's hard to explain, but I want it to be good, like "as good as an official published novel" good, but hell, it's just fan fiction, just a way to amuse myself & hopefully a couple more people.

Speaking of which, it's pretty much done--although no doubt so riddled with spelling errors Daryk will be rolling his eyes--but I'm away a few days this week so I'll start posting it when I get back.

I'll start a separate thread when I do, but as a teaser here's the prologue.

***

PROLOGUE
Park Place, June 3015

The patient showed an aversion to open flames, and to bodies of water. The first was understandable. The doctors had worked valiantly and saved the arm. He would retain full use of both the arm and the hand, as well as the fingers, though they would remain scarred, a mottled pink and purple burn like the tattoo of a snake, coiled about the left arm.

The fear of water was more mystifying, but perhaps a lesser worry, compared to other cases in the hospital.

There had been a distressing number of suicides. The nature of the war had cut at something vulnerable inside many people. Paranoia was common, often a persecution complex, the belief everyone was out to get you. Another patient had described it as being sure everyone around you was an actor, every building a two-dimensional backdrop, a thin layer over the Real world beneath.

Next to that, the desire to stay away from lakes, rivers or fountains seemed almost harmless.

The patient himself offered no explanation. Like many of the wounded, he was withdrawn and uncommunicative, and although not catatonic like some of the worse cases, he spoke only when necessary, and even then in monosyllables.
He’d been brought in without identification on the night of the final battle, just over five months ago. That suggested he had been a soldier, though on which side was anybody’s guess. He might just as easily have been a fireman, a policeman, even an athlete. He gave no name, never talked about himself or his past. There were no signs of cranial trauma, so the doctors ruled out amnesia. Maybe, he simply wished to forget.

Well, no hurry, said the doctors. The war was over now, and the authorities would slowly work their way through the war’s orphans, walking wounded and lost souls. They would get to the patient in time.

Once they’d moved him out of the room facing the courtyard fountain, he’d been perfectly calm and cooperative. He spent the days helping about the grounds, planting flowers, raking leaves, sawing branches, or else exercising. In his free time, he sat on the small balcony of his second-floor room, overlooking the gardens he helped tend, and spent the evenings reading.

He never smiled, but never grew angry, either. He ignored the Treason Trials now being broadcast in the common room. He’d watched impassively as Gerald Marik, the Captain General’s second son, had been condemned to death. They’d only seen him cry, once, during a cheesy military holodrama. Silent tears, quickly knuckled away. The nurses and orderlies whispered nervously. They’d been worried he was having a breakdown—the silent ones sometimes did, some odd trigger would unleash all the bottled up emotion in a sudden storm—but he was back to usual the next day.

Someone did get to the patient, in time. A woman appeared at the reception, dressed in a long dark blue coat popular among Regulan nobles, asking for a man who matched his description. She’d had a holo, too, of the patient beside Joshua Wolf, a tentative smile on his face.

The doctor led her to the elevator, down the silent, slightly antiseptic cream and beige corridor, and had been about to knock on his door. She reached out and touched two fingers to his wrist, and put a finger to her lips. Then waved her fingertips up and down, in a mini-goodbye. The doctor took the hint, bowed in respect to her title, and padded off down the hallway.

Once she was sure he was gone, she silently cracked open the door.

The patient was sitting out on the balcony, his back to the door. Dressed in a simple, loose white linen shirt, the right sleeve rolled up to the elbow, the left one hanging down to his wrist. There were two chairs, simple canvas slung across wooden frames, a small round table, an old-fashioned printed book trapped under a cup of coffee.

Sunset was just gathering speed, the orange-yellow glow accelerating towards the horizon, eagerly throwing itself off the edge of the world. A flight of honking birds arrowed across the sun in elegant, effortless silhouettes.

She lowered herself into the seat beside his, and only then did he look up. And froze. They held each other’s eyes a stretching, eternal moment. She reached out for his left hand. He flinched. She pulled her hand back.

‘Peaceful here,’ she said quietly. ‘Almost unreal. Like a dream.’

He nodded, slowly. Sighed. ‘Time to wake up?’ His voice was hoarse from disuse.

She reached out again, for his cheek this time, cupped it gently and he closed his eyes. ‘Time to wake up,’ she echoed.

[Daryk]

I'm travelling this week, and have spotty connectivity at best.  The prologue looks good at first glance... :)

[cklammer]

Hello dubble_g,

A perfectly good prologue. 8)

I for myself did not notice any typos whatsoever.  :thumbsup:

Looking forward to the new thread  ;D

Best Regards,
Christian