Outside Garden city limits, New Samarkand
Galedon Miltary District, Draconis Combine
3 July 3030
Busosenshi Denise Morimoto sighed inwardly as Chu-i Malloy, a common-born pilot, instructed the lance to spread out.
She responded crisply, as was expected of any graduate of the Sun Zhang MechWarrior Academy. But it was tiresome to obey the orders of someone inferior, even if they were officers.
The lance leader was still instructing them. Not ordering them. It grated on the reserves of her patience.
The other two in her lance were no better. The Quickdraw pilot came from a noble family, like her, but he was adopted into it purely because of his skills. There was no tradition there.
At least he has skills, she allowed, sparing a second to look at the salvaged and out-of-place Commando before following her chu-i's precise orders.
He rewarded them with a too-cheerful, "Well done!" as the lance came to rest.
It was a good formation, she admitted. If she was worried about 'Mechs, she may have used the same thing. But a patrol into the haikyo--the ruins of what were once the Draconis Combine's finest cities--meant encountering and eliminating roving bands of criminals. On foot.
At least, she always assumed they were criminals.
The thought troubled her for a moment and she almost missed her trainer's next orders; waypoints, delivered silently to see if she had been paying attention. She still reacted swifter than her two lancemates, her Grand Dragon stomping ahead, leading with its snout full of missiles.
The four blue-on-white 'Mechs spread out further, and Denise fell into a pattern of checking her various feeds to look for the criminals.
Since the 1st Sun Zhang Cadre's return to New Samarkand she'd had little else to do but hunt. The Davions had not stirred themselves despite the chaos in the Combine, and that meant that despite the diminished numbers of the DCMS, High Command had insisted on the latest graduates to finish their training in full.
Even the pirates had been silent, quelled by Warlord Galedon's rotation of troops to the clusters beyond the borders. Even that was preferable to the threat of more training.
Assignment to the 1st Sun Zhang was something she had competed for. There were few female samurai in the DCMS, fewer still would be given the honour of serving under Isoroku Kurita.
But the man had died along the way. Killed, Denise believed, by the unstable Theodore who knew of Isoroku's popularity and despised him for it.
There were two fronts where she could serve, right now. Yet the Bureau of Substitution had surely flagged her file; her attempts to join with Isoroku's force may have called her loyalty into question. And with it, her career and any chance of redemption
The patrol stomped through more broken boulevards, residual heat signatures meant that the people had heard them coming and scattered. Or waited in ambush.
None materialized.
By the end of the six hour patrol run she was tired, sweaty, and irritable. None of it showed as she stood ramrod straight at the foot of her 'Mech. The chu-i walked past, dismissing the other two after a few words.
"They are ready for the Regulars. Dieron, perhaps," the chu-i said to her.
Denise kept her face blank. Silence was always a reliable answer.
"Follow," the officer said after a moment.
"This is your second tour," the Alfredo said, closing the door to his office.
"Hai," Denise said flatly. The best MechWarriors didn't serve more than one tour before finding an immediate posting in the cadres. She tried to keep the resentment from her voice. If she hadn't been held back she could have easily become a regimental commander in five years, the way the DCMS goes through its officers. In fifteen, she could settle in as a brigade commander or even prefecture commander.
But she was denied that. And it showed on her face, and she knew it.
"Do you know why?"
"Do you?" she spat back, recovering enough of her vitriol at the last syllable to make it a question.
"I do," the officer said as he sat down.
Denise inhaled and exhaled ten times, as was proscribed, before answering. "My brother."
The officer surprised her with his bluntness. "Who else?" he asked, and poured two tall glasses of ice water and motioned for her to sit. "A planetary governor--even a co-governor--has plenty of influence."
"He stopped my transfer? Why--?"
"I suppose he didn't take too kindly to your assignment to the Legion of Vega. They may be Coordinator Theodore's pet regiments now, but a posting there would be embarrassing."
Denise sank into the chair, the water forgotten. To be assigned to the dregs of the DCMS as her first assignment out of the Sun Zhang was a career-killing move.
I would've... she sighed and sipped her glass. "So ka," she said eventually.
"But you are ready for independent duty, and command," the chu-i said, rising.
"The Warlord has need of capable warriors." A black datapad was in his hands. It was thinner than the robust pads used by the DCMS. The seal of Galedon glowed faintly on its screen.
Denise didn't hesitate and stood at full attention. "I'm ready."