Blackjack, 5 October 3064 The clanner in the Omnimech clearly hadn't gotten the memo about the 77th, or maybe they did, and didn't believe it.
Henrietta stepped under his missile launcher like he was standing still, and brought her 'mech's foot down on one of the legs, leveraging mass and velocity in a shin-stripping horse-kick you can't
do with digitigrade legs, while she brought her fist up across the beak-like forward cockpit assembly, smashing armor plate and leveraging the velocities to do
more damage.
The Falcon at least had the sense to see it coming, and ejected a moment before five tons of reinforced endosteel alloy wrapped in starslab occupied the space his or her command seat had once held.
"Every time I come back here, it's the same ****** thing…" she muttered. This time, at least, it wasn't in a training battalion's spare
Chameleon.Cyan lightning smashed past her, heating the sensors on her right side.
The Clanner in their black lanner raised both arms in a sort-of-salute.
"I am Georgy of the Hazens, who do I have the honor of defeating?"She almost stuttered. This one was pure traditionalist indeed, demanding to know their opponent.
"Ich Bin Lyraner, boy. Eject or leave, you won't be walking out." she replied to him.
His gunnery was good, but he was overconfident in it. Armor sheathed off in rainfalls from his weapons as she closed at a run, hopped on her remaining jump-jets, and delivered a flying kick to his birdlike 'mech's side torso.
Warnings and faults began showing in the armor plating on the leg and actuator. It was still functional for now but another stunt like that and she’d be hopping home on one leg.
He fired short-range missiles and they scored all over her 'mech as she twisted, ducked, and failed to dodge. She replied with a medium laser that was a lot more…centered, in this case, where the armor had already been compromised over his powerplant. Her second medium, drew a red line across the first hit, finishing the job where the upper and lower torso, by necessity, had the weakest plating. The reward was a jet of rapidly cooling plasma from his engine, venting out the side.
He took a step forward, and…wobbled, tilting crazily.
She stepped up, and shoved. The compromise had hit his gyro, clearly. He went over and ejected, unable to continue the fight.
The hill overlooking the athletic field of the Blackjack School of Conflict belonged to the 77th. "They're getting younger, and worse." she noted.
“Good for us. Still must feel good Colonel. Now you can invite your girlfriend back to the spot you two met.”
"Yeah, except Mark's off somewhere else." she groused, "I had the biggest crush on him when we were…cadets."
“You know I’m not talking about Mark. Oh well.”
"Natalie isn't my girl, she's my sister's minder…but your jokes are getting better Moshe. I almost laughed at that one. Tell our battery to set up on the lee side of the slope, Archer's people are somewhere east of us, and the Clanners won't turn around if we don't hit their rear with lots of falling frag."
“Jawhol Kolonel.” Moshe’s smile was almost audible. “One dose of unpleasant surprise coming up.”
"Scouts out first, Moshe, I want my shots landing on Clanners, not allies."
“Of course. I’m just keeping the channel clean. Higher ups are already going to have a field day with some of the transcripts.”
"****** 'em if they can't take a joke." she observed saltily, which made her XO laugh.
“Okay then one unscheduled proctology examination on the way for our Clan friends.”
The infantry were already bringing up their guns, mostly thumpers from Arluna's militia, the guns started slinging shell as Henrietta walked to the maintenance point.
“Shit. Now I’m thinking what kind of karma it’ll be if one of them actually does have bowel cancer by some chance…” Moshe groused.
"He won't for long."
“True.”
Blackgate Prison, Lyran CommonwealthThe cells here, on level 17, are single-occupancy. This is the level where 'special' prisoners-prisoners too valuable to execute outright, and too dangerous to be released, particularly too dangerous for whichever regime is running Tharkad, are kept.
In the centuries that the Lyran state has existed, from the Protectorate of Donegal, to the present, the number of men (or women) who've walked out of these cells
alive? can be counted on one hand.
With a finger left over.
HIs grandfather was the last man who could claim that honor. His grandfather had broken four Interrogation specialists in five years on this level.
Patrick could do no less than his Grandfather.
They ran the lighting on a randomizer, and filtered in bursts of sound-never enough to do damage, just enough to confuse a normal time-sense, to interrupt sleep, and in between, there was a lack of auditory sensation.
This was interspersed with trips down the hall, to be questioned, 'interviewed' and once in a while, shoved into sensory deprivation chambers.
Nothing intended to leave a mark, the target, after all, is the willpower and sense of self.
Patrick had been prepared for this by his Grandfather, and by the simple demands of being Duke of a star system where a third of the population are spacers with their own traditions and folkways.
Ways he had to learn with his letters and numbers during the twelve years he spent fostered to his Grandfather's estate while his parents pursued active military careers.
The experience? Was still torture. No amount of Rockjack tricks to stave off boredom or maintain focus could make it less than an assault on his very
being.
An assault motivated by his refusal to support one side of an entirely unnecessary civil war in the middle of a foreign invasion.
It is the unfortunate fact of nearly every interstellar nation-the contrast between high sounding ideals, and the brutality of the necessary Administrative State-that it only takes a little bit for the guardians to become the predatory parasites, and worst yet, they will believe they are doing it to secure 'freedom', or 'maintain order' or preserve a 'rule of law' that they violate with impunity.
Blair Atholl Orbit, February, 3065…"We've got an accord with the Falcons, Ngo." General Steiner told her, "and…a contact…has identified where your brother is being held. We've got coordinates."
"I'm going." she said quietly. "Where
am I going, exactly?"
"First off, you're not going in alone, the file on the target says it's heavily defended, and your unit took heavy losses getting us this far."
The image on the Holostage lit, showing a system just rimward of Donegal, in an empty zone.
"The site is here-" the image 'zoomed' into first a ragged solar system around a dying red dwarf, then to a world-sized rock orbiting roughly one AU from the dying, dim star. "-the bunker complex is here…" the target lit on the planetoid and zoomed in further. "Loki maintains a heavy presence, including battlemechs, to secure the entry which my source says, is
here. It's vacuum ops until you've entered the complex, which is dug into the crust about half a kilometer."
"Hello, Blackgate Prison." Henrietta said quietly. "We breach it, they vent atmo, right?"
"That's the working theory, they'll exploit the fragility of the prisoners to cripple any rescue attempt." Adam said with a nod, "Which is why even people who've found out where it is, haven't been in a hurry to launch a rescue before-but they've got more than your Brother in there, they've got hostages from around fifty or so important families and factions inside the Commonwealth."
"We'll need to take the surface installations without breaching the envelope inside." she agreed, "Then take the interior and tunnel systems without giving them the chance to vent the atmosphere."
Academy for Advanced Placement
New Samarkand
11 November 3065One of the long standing traditions was that mechwarrior families with heirs that showed potential would often start training with their heir at ages as young as ten.
Since Yuko’s father had no potential for piloting a Battlemech she had no such advantage.
But that was what the Academy for Advanced Placement was for. For such students they could get fundamental training before being sent onward to Sun Zhang for proper, full fledged, mech training.
Yuko had been assigned a temperamental
Phoenix Hawk, a so-called ‘Davion’ variant that had been taken during the War of 3039.
Just keeping it moving in a straight line with all the quirks it had developed over the decades was a challenge. But today’s challenge was not about moving in straight lines.
She entered the course’s slalom section and she used the machine’s instinct to pull right to her advantage but cut hard back to the left using a light burst, not enough to go airborne, from two of her jump jets.
The next section was a series of hair pin turns. The sharpest ones would require her to turn left to stay on the course.
Yuko tapped commands into the computer. She found the power balancing subroutine for the actuators and quickly adjusted some settings on the fly.
She couldn’t completely remove the machine’s need to pull right, but it was far more manageable now.
Yuko feathered the throttle and shimmied the hips to help throw her mech into the first left turn of the section.
As expected it wanted to drift right but Yuko again tapped only a pair of jump jets for a brief second to compensate.
This time though alarms sounded as the right hip froze completely.
Yuko couldn’t correct fast enough and the mech was face down and a bit more than her ego was bruised.
“Not bad Ryukan-san. You tried to modulate power to the faulty actuator. Not the first cadet who thought of that. I will have a packet for you to study for winter leave. I expect you to read it and know why your trick failed upon your return.” The instructor behind her in the jump seat broke his silence.
“Hai, sensei.”
Yurika’s Workshop
Daimyo’s Palace
Apriki
Draconis Combine
25 December 3065“Of all the ways…Maintenance mode? The configuration I entered combined with the triggering of the jump jets put the right hip actuator into maintenance mode.” Yurika was helping Yuko with her ‘homework’.
“I didn’t want to believe it either. But when the mech went into the dirt bank… Reading that made it make sense.”
“Then I got something to show you.” Yurika grabbed Yuko’s hand and dragged her to a new wing of the shop.
In the hangar was a Battlemech. A
Dragon to be precise. Assembled. But the arms were wrong.
“Remember all those scrap dad bought me to keep me busy? They’re not scraps anymore. It’s yours.” Yurika proclaimed.
“Thank you.” Yuko hugged her sister.
“There is a catch.”
Yuko didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late and she felt a prick in her neck and before her vision completely blacked out an injector in her sister’s hand.
When Yuko woke up she had a splitting headache.
“Don’t try to talk yet. Keep your eyes closed a bit longer. I know you want to open them but you’ll be very sensitive to the light just yet.” It was the voice of Doctor Greene.
“Your sister has done something to you. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what. But if it is what I think it is, you won’t be going back to the Academy or to Sun Zhang.” Doctor Greene continued.
Yuko had to open her eyes now.
The burning heat of pain of the light made her want to shut them again but she endured. On the back of her hands and up her arms were tattoos.
She wasn’t sure if it was because of her current condition or not but she could swear they were slightly glowing.
Hikkaru’s office“I made sure they will grow with her and won’t drive her insane.” Yurika said defiantly.
“I indulged you too much.” Hikkaru shook his head. “The DCMS will never believe your word and the only way to be sure with these kinds of implants is to wait and see. The Daimyo of Irurzun is turning over rulership to his heir. I am being summoned for the occasion. I am ordering your workshop sealed. We will talk about further punishment for what you did to your sister when I return.” Hikkaru shook his head.
Zaniah III
26 December , 3065…She could barely walk, but she managed to do it with something like
dignity. "Your Highness." she said, "The Commonwealth
needs you. The realm is invaded and our best are killing our best. Someone has to make it
stop."
Peter studied the young woman for a moment.
"Why me?"
"Nobody else
can do it." she asserted, "Victor
abdicated, Katherine
created this problem, y-y-your G-g-gre-..." she shuddered, and a blood vessel in the corner of her eye burst, "Nondi is making it worse. SOMEONE has to be in charge, someone that everyone either has no hate for, or trusts, someone who's been above it all and c--ca-cahhhh…" a whimper and she almost collapsed.
“MEDIC!” Peter cried out as he moved to Liz.
They managed to carry her away to the hospital, but one of the doctors looked grim.
"What is it?"
"She's dying and there's nothing we can do about it." Dr. Maslovski explained, "that girl should be resting comfortably, not traveling halfway across the realm to…I don't know, see you? Ask you for…"
“She shames me. She has more courage and conviction than I do.” Peter shook his head.
"She's asking about you, claims she hasn't finished her meeting, Sir."
“I will see her then. Please. Do what you can for her.”
***
Elizabeth Ngo, He'd found out, was Baroness Spider Moon, a noble whose landhold consisted of a bunch of moons, gas giants, asteroids, and rocks-none of them habitable by even the most extreme imaginings, and she owned one of the largest shipping concerns in the Commonwealth.
She was on direct-drip Morphine when he walked into her hospital room, with tablets on her lap and scattered around, working.
"Thank you for seeing me, Your Majesty, I'd stand but….doctors say no."
“From what I’ve been told you should be resting. But I see that is not your strong suit.”
"If I rest, I have less time to work, and my time's running out." she answered, "I was kind of out of it-being on unfiltered pain does that, the drugs keep me stable. We need you to assume your proper place, Your Majesty,for the realm. You need to take the seat on Tharkad, relieve Nondi before she kills everyone, and end this civil war-your people need YOU."
“I’ll have to go against her directly. Fighting family, it is no small thing.”
"Your grandmother felt the same, right on through after Alessandro sent a hit team and she had to go into hiding." she noted, "My Grandfather was in Blackgate keeping the secret of where she'd gone and where she was, until three years
after she'd removed her uncle. My brother is currently in Loki's hands for saying similar things-that this civil war is a mistake, that the invasion is happening, that Lyrans should not be killing Lyrans…and you came here, because you'd been manipulated, your comments…" she slid a padd, "Say you felt like you'd been a pawn. Know what happens when a Pawn stops being a Pawn?"
“They become something else.”
She nodded, "Yep, the most powerful piece on the board. I think we can do this, you can do this, and I think it strongly enough to abandon two childhood dreams and a lot of obligations to come here and try to convince you not to be anyone's pawn, ever again. MY doctors say I'm done in three years."
“Who else have you roped into this? I find it difficult to believe you’ve come this far on your own.”
"Maggie Doons. Rowe-McClaren, some of Bradford's relatives, and Morgan Kell sounded interested, he's the one who clued me in on where you were."
“I imagine Duke Kell would do more if he did not have his own issues at Arc Royal.”
“He is minding the store. Adam Steiner? Minding the store, but Nondi isn't. It's time you put the old…the sister of your grandmother, in a nice retirement home and take charge of your legacy while you still have a nation. I'd prefer to be alive when that happens."
“You do not negotiate fair. How can I deny you? How can anyone in their right mind deny this whole situation?”
"You can say no, you can send me home, keep laying low, and hope the Falcons get bored…or you can step up and be the man you should be-the
Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth that is your due, and make this problem end." she said evenly, "You DO have a choice, I'm just betting you're smart enough to make the right one for all of our sakes."
“It is a difficult choice to make but I’d rather be able to look at myself in the mirror after today without being filled with disgust at my cowardice.”
"Good, let's talk logistics, as you said, this is going to be rough, I've got data on units that will fall in line immediately, a frankly enormous number of jumpships I can call on, and you have allies if you want them, let's save the Commonwealth while there's a Commonwealth left to save."
Instead of the mirror it’ll be my reflection in whatever I still have a taste for when this is all done and it will not be my cowardice I will be disgusted at but she is right, this needs to be done. Peter nodded.
Daimyo’s palace
Apriki
8 January 3066Hikkaru strode around his home. He had returned as quickly as he could once he had heard about what happened.
The wreckage of furniture and decorations, blood stains that were still being cleaned up.
Hideki the Younger was kneeling in Hikkaru’s throne room, bandaged and ragged looking still. He had stayed behind with Clara and some other staff and guards.
“Forgive me Daimyo. I could not stop them from taking your daughter.” Hideki the Younger bowed. “If you ask, I will apologize to my ancestors in the garden.”
Hikkaru shook his head.
“No. I will decree your punishment to be something more difficult. To live. To become better. So that the next time your Lord is attacked you can slay ten times as many enemies.” Hikkaru declared.
“I understand my lord. I believe I have cleaning that needs done.”
“That can wait. Go visit your cousin in the hospital.” Hikkaru nodded.
“Yes my lord.”
Hikkaru looked at Hideki the Elder who had entered the throne room as his grandson left.
“I have many calls to make. Whoever took my daughter will pay. I cannot let our last conversation be a disagreement.”
Yurika’s workshopNatsu was going over the mech still.
Yuko was searching around the ground level.
“I’m surprised they left it.” Yuko said as the area didn’t show the same signs of recent combat.
“When one is in a hurry, the heavy becomes a burden.” Natsu climbed down off the mech.
The two continued walking around the hangar until they found a crate.
Another present-Love Yurika was stenciled on the front.
Yuko opened it.
Inside was a suit. One unlike any Yuko had ever seen before.
It was lined with circuitry.
She carefully put it back.
“You are conflicted.”
“She ruined my chances with any professional military. Even most mercs wouldn’t accept me now. I am no longer desirable for dynastic marriages.”
“Family.”
“Yeah. If for nothing else I have to help find her so I can give her a piece of my mind.” Yuko declared.
Blackgate…"You're being released." It had been pulled enough times, that Patrick didn't believe it.
The guards led him to a lift, and never once lowered
their guard, but it was a different direction than the usual path.
The ride upward took minutes, and the doors opened into a habitat area.
"New stunt? New method?" he asked aloud.
"You're being released." the guard told him. They unlocked his cuffs.
"Patrick?"
oh shit, did they get Lizzie too? "What did they
do to you?" she was glassy eyed and alarmed all at once.
He recognized the man standing just to the side, surrounded by other prisoners who were also looking…confused.
"Liz? How did-"
"Because there's a new Archon in the Commonwealth." she told him, "Come here…let me see you." His vision blurred, and she was
real. "Don't cry…" she said, "not where they can see you."
It was her. "What did it cost?"
"Three years of my life." she told him. "Many of my Dreams, ambitions…but you're coming home."
She led him to the throng around Peter Steiner-Davion.
"Your Majesty…" Elizabeth awkwardly took a knee.
"Get up, Liz, I need my advisors standing." Peter said uneasily, "not bowing, for christ's sakes, You're
Lyrans!"
"What now?" Patrick asked.
"Now, Duke Ngo, if you're up to it, we're going to remove a problem occupant from my house on Tharkad, and god help us all."
’Passenger’ cabin
Word of Blake Dropship flying the cover identity of Tokyo Maru
Enroute to Solaris 7“Hello.” A soft male voice announced as Yurika’s vision cleared as she woke up.
“Who are you?” Yurika asked.
“I’m no one you need to worry about. I will not hurt you.”
“But I’m clearly your prisoner.”
“I hope to convince you this is much more of an extraordinary opportunity. I mean after all your father locking you out of your own workshop like that? The people I represent want to give you the freedom to create whatever you want. But first, rest. This has been a trying experience and you’ve been through a lot. I’ll have a meal brought to you later.”
“Where are we going?” Yurika asked.
“I see no harm in telling you. We’re going to Solaris. There are all sorts of new and interesting technologies for you to work with waiting there.” The man stood and exited.
As he walked to a communication terminal he smiled.
Adept Perseus reporting mission success Precentor Cadmus. We are enroute. The short, simple letter would be sent via HPG. No one would know as the computer applied the encryption and built a fake message about financial exchanges and information brokerage around it.
Tharkad, Day 2 of the battle…Lyrans, killing Lyrans. Henrietta had tried like hell to avoid this. Elizabeth's indirect method got Pat back, but the war had to happen anyway.
Old Nondi might've been starving the border garrisons, but she'd spent lavishly on her own defense. The 1st Royal Guards were backed up with Jaegers units equipped with the finest new hardware Coventry Metal Works and Defiance Hesperus were turning out, including new technologies, more than a few of which would've been damned useful during the counter-attack that ended the Falcon incursion.
Irrelevant to that, now. "Spread out pattern
Rassenficke Drei, they've got another one of those big gauss carriers."
Her job was to keep the riff-raff off the Archon-because for some insane reason known only to god or Royalty, he insisted on being in the front lines instead of usefully in a headquarters vehicle.
Then again, he was using Pat for that.
Natalie engaged the heavy-gauss platform-this one was at least based on a Quad, so it didn't try to fall over when the pilot shot the main gun.
But it was clear that whoever handled training for the Royal Guards regiment on Tharkad, they didn't study much feedback from the field.
Nat's machine-a capture from the Falcons, laid accurate fire at long range instead of the massive, blunderbuss-bombard-like 'accuracy' of the heavy weapon. In this case, she pinked the thing's main gun right down that huge bore.
The explosion was…impressive.
Or at least, it would've been, if Henrietta didn't have other things to focus on instead.
Even Moshe was strangely quiet. He was usually much more talkative.
A wheeled tank with a big cannon came around the corner, and Henrietta upped to a jog from the flank, while his turret tried to track Nat or Moshe.
Henrietta applied a kick to the thing's turret, and the impact shed armor, as the turret lifted and tumbled into the facing of a shop along the street.
"Showoff."
"Ammo."
She said it, right before she had to use the antipersonnel weapons on an infantry unit that had been shadowing beside and behind the tank. A couple of Quads, these heavy weapons carriers, Fenrir armors, tried to engage her.
She popped them with the PPC. One, Two, Three…four ran back up the alley.
“Bad dogs!” Moshe finally broke his silence.
Up ahead, the Archon had found the Regent, and they were fighting a duel, because why not? Nondi Steiner was, at least, a competent 'mechwarrior…
Just that age and treachery might be advantages, but you have to be smart and aware for that to BE an advantage.
Henrietta crossed a street and caught a Royal Guards Zeus in the flank, close enough that she didn't bother with weapons, instead using hand actuators and legs to make the take-down before the larger, heavier machine had time to set its feet. Leverage and being just more
prepared meant sweeping the legs out from under the Zeus mid-step, while clotheslining it across the windscreen/cockpit assembly, feet go up, 'mech comes down. The stomp she delivered finished the takedown. Ugly, but necessary.
Nondi's move to have help, was stopped because Peter had acquiesced to having his own.
The Regent's
Hauptmann omnimech went down under Peter's guns, and Henrietta noted in passing that it was, at least, a merciful ending-as much as any ending like that can be merciful.
Patient Room 601
Osaka Teaching Hospital
Apriki
Draconis Combine
10 January 3066Hideki the Younger watched his cousin like a hawk for any signs that she would come out of her coma.
“I should be there instead of you. If I had just been more capable…”
Clara’s right hand twitched.
“DOCTOR GREENE!” Hideki the Younger yelled.
Doctor Greene came rushing in with some orderlies.
“What is it?”
“Her hand… It moved!” Hideki the Younger pointed at Clara’s right hand.
Doctor Greene began checking Clara and the readings from the machines.
“She did. It’ll be a bit before she’s back with us fully but she’s coming back.” Doctor Greene declared.
Hideki the Younger began to cry as Doctor Greene began to rattle off instructions to her nurses and orderlies.
Two days laterClara still couldn’t talk from the tube being removed. It was a painful experience but as it meant she was going to live and recover, one she was grateful for anyway.
Clara had never learned a gesture based language but there was a memory burning in her mind that she did not want to forget but knew she might despite her best efforts in her current condition and it was proving difficult to get anyone to understand she wanted something to write with and something to write on.
After about half an hour it was Doctor Greene that figured it out.
One of them mentioned they needed to hurry, to get to the Tokyo Maru, before they missed the extraction window. That must be the ship that took them and Yurika off world.It took only a mere moment before that information was in Hikkaru’s hands.
Hikkaru’s officeHikkaru smiled.
Clara had given them a vital early clue.
He had the Dropship.
With that it was a simple matter for him to find the Jumpship. At least the first one.
Someone as bold as this would not be so foolish as to use just one.
Proserpina Express. It was the only entry on the approved Jumpship schedule.
It was a ship known quite well to him. It was the main merchant vessel for this region.
The next stop was Irurzun. The former Daimyo was no fan of his and the current one, while certainly polite, indicated he was not a fan of Hikkaru either during his recent visit.
Still I must beg him for his help.
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