...hold me tighter, I think I'm sinking down...

[jonen c]

That looks suspiciously like Welsh.

[edit]
At least, more p-celtic than q-celtic.

I wonder if the Clans can translate what's probably a very obscure language in the 31st century?

Google says welsh for only the guilty should pay for their crimes.

[Brother Jim]

Passive sensors Locked. Do not go active, it will alert the target.

[Sharpnel]

That looks suspiciously like Welsh.

[edit]
At least, more p-celtic than q-celtic.

I wonder if the Clans can translate what's probably a very obscure language in the 31st century?

According to Google Translate, it's Welsh

[Cannonshop]

Carmelita carefully folded her work clothes and slid them into the three-draw chest, her cubicle mates were going out to spend work-credits for a night out in the recreation area, and leaving her alone.

she carefully folded her socks, stood, and glanced at the mirror of her wall-locker.

Her reflection was dressed.  Get Dressed, it's time to leave.

time to leave.

Oh! of course.  one more name off the list, it's time to go.

she unfolded her small cache of non-uniform clothes, and slid into a pair of jeans, topping it with a blue shirt and a simple working jacket.

Then tied her hair back into a ponytail, tucking the stray strands into a simple hair-clip.

she checked reflections, mimicing what her mirror self did, until everything was arranged properly and normally.

It was time to go out.

Carmelita the Laborer was meek, confused and frightened.

the young woman who walked out, and walked right past the Watch surveillance team, was confident and  poised, dressed in fashions considered suitable for an off-duty technician of rank, the brief 'out of place' confusion missed in the hubub of an early summer evening on pay week, as a diversity of lower caste and off-duty warriors swarmed the streets in this part of town.

[Cannonshop]

• Jonah Ward
• Carlos (House Fetladral)
• Stephen (House Kerensky)
• Jerome Sender
• Robert (House Connors)
• Katya (House Carns)
• Dmitry (House Kerensky)
• Masha (House Nygren)
• Yuri (House Kerensky A)
• Timothy (House Mehta)
• Samuel (House Moran)
• Deanna (House Winson Jen)
• Nikolai (House Taylor)

"It took some doing, Katya."  Arlene said, carefully lacing her tone with sympathy, "But considering you are the next one on the list, a bit of cooperation would do well for you."

Katya looked at the images of dead comrades she  had not seen in fifteen years.

Uniformed Clan Watch are rare.  Having one visit her so shortly after being transferred to a new unit was not unexpected...having that interviewer bring up LV-5775?  could not have been anything but a sign indicating the end of her career.

"What did you find on LV-5775, Katya?"  Arlene asked, "Not what did you report, what did you find there?"

"We believed we had found a nest of the Not-Named." she answered coldly, "A malfunction of our medtechs and their equipment."

"Your star captain issued orders, quaff?"

"Aff, and we carried them out." Katya was cold, calm, and collected in her reply.

"Who ordered you to falsify your report?"

Katya looked away for the first time.  "Star Captain Jonah."

"And you did not report this, but instead obeyed.  Why?"

Katya snorted, "It would have been my word against the word of every warrior in my Trinary." she said, "Some because they wanted to obey him, others because they...because the admission would have tarnished their records further."

"Well, you made an enemy with powerful stealth technology."  Arlene stated, and laid the next flatrendering on the desk.  "Only the Guilty should be punished...I actually sympathize with the sentiment.  The executions on the other hand...this executioner is breaking any number of laws and must be stopped."

Katya stared at the cell in the holoflat.  "You have ten names from our Trinary, but I only see myself here."

"The others are not yet available." Arlene stated.  "I have colleagues in the Liberation zone interviewing them as we speak, but I will still ask them additional questions-assuming any of you are alive when you become available.  Now..." here, Arlene slid one last document across the table for Katya to examine. "...that is an order from the Khan himself, to cooperate and tell me everything.  Your future, and the future of your legacies, hinges on how much useful information you can give me about what happened on LV-5775."

"What defines 'useful' Star Captain?"

"any detail that can clue us in on how to catch, or at least stop this killer before there are no more survivors to tell me what happened there."

[Cannonshop]

Katya sighed, "My unit proudly deployed for Operation:Revival.  There was some internal friction, which you get when your commanding officer is a Warden and your troops are all Crusaders...Jonah was unpopular with the men, but one of the best 'mechwarriors I have ever seen.  Challenging his leadership in the field was not only pointless, but prohibited without documented cause..."

***

The first thing we noticed on landing, was how miserable a place the planet was.  Plenty of water, right at the cold edge of the habitable zone, local gravity was 1.015 G's, just enough higher to be uncomfortable on landing.  the atmosphere was thinner than you normally find for an earthlike world as well.  the place is a miserable rock from pole to pole, but in the tropical zones, it was almost as temperate as the upper latitudes of Strana Mechty.

The locals survived mostly by fishing and growing a winter barley hybrid, potatoes, and some local vegetation wildlife.  They hid well, their settlements had camouflage netting or other means of camouflage, but there are signs you can not hide without advanced technologies, such as roads or fields.

They hid themselves at first, as well.  it took us three days to find someone to speak to, much less interrogate, though we knew where they had to be, based on carefully tended trails and a monument on one of the larger hills.

The monument was strange, a circle of multiton granite blocks, assembled like archways in a series of concentric circles.  the blocks had been shaped by technology that was no longer available on the planet, laser cut and inscribed with a sort of angular script, with a wider, lower block in the center.  Near to that, on another hill, was another circle of stones, but this one had a table made of stone-granite again, but with red staining and what looked like positions for restraints.

Jonah found this disturbing.  founder, so did I.. The day after we found the stone circles, we detected our first resident...

[Cannonshop]

He was a young man herding a group of pigs, and skittish as you might imagine someone confronted by battlemechs would be, but when he realized our command star had him surrounded, he tried a local greeting.

"dieithryn ddim i'w croesawu.  Cer o 'ma!"

Is that what he actually said?  Arlene asked idly.

"Aff. it is word for word, to the best of my recollection. I do not know what language it derives from."

What happened next?

"Robert lowered his 'mech and climbed out, hands open, and tried to speak to the pig-herder...he said, 'we are the return of the Star League Defense Force'."

sigh.  the boy's demeanour changed when he saw the daggerstar, and said, "Tŷ Cameron?"  and Robert, damn him, nodded yes.

"Do you speak English?" Robert asked.

"Yah I spek et som, sarrah."  the kid said it, and I studied our new intelligence source with my sensors.  the boy's heart rate was elevated, and he was intimidated-but what civilian would not be?

Robert convinced the boy to tell us where everyone was.  The boy commented that raiders have been through before, some even claiming Star League provenance, and that people were hiding from us.  There was enough lingual pollution that clear conversation required patience and care to extract, but we found out the nearest village was called 'Lugh', pronounced "Luff", that there was a militia that was probably mustering, and that there was little worth a bandit's time.  He was firm that the women and children would not be seen by us, not without some proof we were not just another band of slavers.

now contextualize that for us-we had heard of some of the degradation of the Inner Sphere, but civilians hiding from slavers? 

Jonah parked his Kit Fox and joined them, pressuring the boy to get a meeting with the representatives of their leaders.  I believe we all felt a burning sympathy for these people then-they lived in constant fear, with no real protectors, for centuries!

If there was ever an argument for the Crusade, for bringing back the light of civilization, it was right in front of us-or so we thought initially.

[Elmoth]

Google translator can do it. I am fairly sure a computer 1000 year sin the future has a widget that does that as well

[jonen c]

Though a computer translation would struggle to make sense of centuries of undocumented dialectal drift, local colloquialisms, slang and so on so forth.

The Clans do have the advantage that Star League English (and derivatives of it), out in the periphery at least, may hold something like a position of language of the learned, and a lingua franca for trade.

[Sir Chaos]

Stonehenge in the Periphery?

[JA Baker]

Stonehenge in the Periphery?

But, do the children play to the Pipes of Pan?

[Cannonshop]

The Village of Lugh had internal plumbing and running water, at least.  Whoever set them up, was aware of basic sanitation and health requirements at lowered technology levels.

In other words, the place was a bit of a shithole.  I suppose the best way to describe it, is 'backwards several centuries'.

Jonah and Robert got them to relax a bit, and convinced one of the local elders that they had nothing we would steal...which gained us access to the village's pathetic armory.

SLDF issue Mauser 960s were racked at the back, because they could not recharge them.  Toward the front, were primitive projectile weapons, single shot and manual repeating rifles feeding Black powder cartridges made with a series hand-press, a single Mortar that only had a few, well-past-due-date mortar bombs, and a recoilless on a painted brass carriage...set up to be drawn by animals in harnesses.

The recoilless had maybe twenty rounds to defend the entire village, and the shells were also centuries past their best-used-by date.

Masha and Robert questioned people about their knowledge of the Star League, and the possibility of a base here.

Most of the oral histories were...creative.  More creative was something Jonah and I noticed.

every house had a horseshoe mounted over the door, every door was slightly too small for an adult person-even local person, to use comfortably and opened outward at an off-angle. 

Our second night investigating the site, I noted that most houses would put out a bit of bread, or small amount of milk in a low basin.  When I asked our translator, he told us 'offerings for the good folk in the hills.'  He said 'Good', but there was a defined anxiety that seized him as he told me.

possibly fear, or awe.

[Euphonium]

As Sir Terry said in Lords and Ladies, "Elves are terrific - they beget terror..."

[DarthMetool]

Now this is reminding me more and more of the Sidhe or Fae.  Grimm's original version.  Probably worse.

[Cannonshop]

"...it sounds like things were going well.  No visible resistance, cooperation with the locals, learning the local customs." Arlene was taking notes, "So, how did it go from them showing you their homes and welcoming  you-however reluctantly, to a massacre?"

Star Captain Jonah thought it would be a good idea to stay in the village on the second night, at the invitation of the elders.  They found bedding and quarters in those little shacks for each of us.

The food was simple-even by Clan standards, but filling, and high in calorie density which you would need in a colder temperate environment.

We found ourselves being treated as honored guests, I suppose-these people had almost nothing and they were willing to share it with us...but you are correct, it seems almost insane now, quiaff?  How did we go from guests to killers so easily?

On the fourth day, we ventured to the only other village our hosts knew about, past the hills with the monuments.  The one with the table, I was told, was called Brynn Llad.  He claimed it was rarely used, a meeting place for the villages and the handful of people in the hills.

The other village was Lle Alberth.  now, Lle Alberth was the first real sign that there had been an installation on this world.

"Let me stop you there, Robert claimed no sign was found of the Star League installation you were sent to investigate, you say this testimony is inaccurate?"

Aff.  He lied.  We found a lot of derelict equipment in Lle Alberth, including a ruined fusion field charging unit.  the village itself was a dead giveaway-it was laid out with long-houses in the same pattern we still use for base construction in Enclaves in the Kerensky Cluster.

The same superstitions were in evidence, but Lle Alberth also had something else...  a mock-up of a Guillotine class battlemech, made of wicker and wood, which they had assembled at some point between our landing on the planet, and our arrival-only a few days at most.  The 'skin' of it was made of some linen-like cloth bleached and dyed to resemble SLDF Parade colours for a generic Star League unit.

They had a second set of those stone circles too.  One with a single stone, the other with a stone table.

Masha spoke with one of the locals who was willing to speak and knew enough english.  the local insisted that the 'dues to the Good Folk' be rendered or they would lift their protection of the community.

We assumed it was a weird local religion, something for the follow-on waves to deal with eradicating.  The hills were where the lab we were looking for had to be.

at about the moment the command star was going to head up a stone path into the high country, a local girl suffered an accident.

Jonah saw this as a golden opportunity.  Our Medtechs had seen what passed for an infirmary, the hand made glass equipment and primitive tools, the collections of herbs and fungals...it was below medieval, they even had leeches.

The girl was unconscious and possibly suffering brain swelling from her fall. 

so we rendered help...savashri, we should not have done that.

[Cannonshop]

"Tell me about this part, Robert testified that a false positive was triggered during the girl's examination, quiaff?"

Aff.  The girl was ten, or maybe eleven, dark haired and green eyes, she fell from a height and landed badly, damaging her skull with a severe concussion.  Our medtech, Patric, went to her aid immediately-almost before teh girl's parents could respond.  such a small thing, in the entire scheme...a child fallng from a roof, and it ended her community because of a bad piece of code in a Medical diagnosis scanner.

bad luck, quiaff? heh...our equipment is so refined, it is nearly fool-proof, a one in a billion mistake...I would like that drink now.

[Euphonium]

Make me wonder if the medtech's DNA scanner failed because it didn't know what to make of a Changling

[Sir Chaos]

"Tell me about this part, Robert testified that a false flag was triggered during the girl's examination, quiaff?"

Aff.  The girl was ten, or maybe eleven, dark haired and green eyes, she fell from a height and landed badly, damaging her skull with a severe concussion.  Our medtech, Patric, went to her aid immediately-almost before teh girl's parents could respond.  such a small thing, in the entire scheme...a child fallng from a roof, and it ended her community because of a bad piece of code in a Medical diagnosis scanner.

bad luck, quiaff? heh...our equipment is so refined, it is nearly fool-proof, a one in a billion mistake...I would like that drink now.

"False positive", not "false flag".

[Cannonshop]

***

"Do you hear that?"  Katya asked.

"Hear what?"

"I hear...never mind.  You will think me a fool."

"Katya that is without a doubt, but what do you hear?"

The old trueborn closed her eyes, "I hear...it is like a music-a tone, a song. growing closer.  it is nothing, perhaps my mind is going, I am very tired, Star Captain.  May we continue this in the morning?"

"Aff, we can continue this interview in the  morning."

***

Holding Cell 2...

The warriors on guard tonight included a female elemental sitting inside the holding cell.

"Is this truly necessary?" Katya asked.

"Star Captain Robert was killed in an isolation cell, he might not have been, had  he not been alone."  the Elemental Solahma guard stated.  "I am here to assure that does not happen tonight." 

"May I take a shower?"

"Not without escort."

"fine..."  the guard walked with her to the communal shower room, and stood impassively as Katya stripped and started the hot water.

steam billowed in the shower room, reducing visibility to only at best two meters.  an unusual amount of steam, and this time, Irena noted that frost formed on the mirrors and glass fittings, as if the local temperature had dropped precipitously.

Then, the steam moved.

Screams and a wet, thumping sound echoed, and Irena rushed to her charge.

to find Katya's skull broken open against the shower fitting

and a message drawn on the glass partition.

"gwestai gwael yn ymosod ar eu gwesteiwr.  Mae moesau drwg o'r fath yn deilwng o gosb."

Irena called it in as she checked Katya's vitals.

the 'mechwarrior was dead.

[Sir Chaos]

The way Google Translate phrases this, I can almost feel the whatever-it-is wagging its finger in an admonishing manner. "BAD guest! Off to hell with you!"

[nerd]

Ok, this is getting weird.

Anyone else getting "The Wicker Man" vibes here?

[Ajax_Wolf]

Ok, this is getting weird.

Anyone else getting "The Wicker Man" vibes here?

The locals may have been prepping for a wicker hoodown, but the Trianary broke Guest Rights, something CS takes seriously.

[Euphonium]

Ok, this is getting weird.

Anyone else getting "The Wicker Man" vibes here?

It got weird a little while back :) , and maybe we should we be calling it at "WickerMech" vibe?

[Cannonshop]

This time, there were enough sensors laid out to get something.

"watch.  this is visible light..." Technician Maurise was excited. 

the steam, the frost...the movement in the steam.  The water didn't distort much in how it fell in the shower.

"Stealth system, right? only I've never even heard of digital camo that can hide in a rainstorm...so let's shift things..."

Thermal showed very little deviation.

"and now...EM flux-this one nobody really uses, but..."

His program blacked out the environment, but there were clearly two individuals in the shower.

the attacker was smaller than the victim, except when it wasn't.

"It is even better on acoustic."  the Tech's grin was wider.  "I am still parsing down the ambient noise, but there's at least twelve distinct voices speaking.  Do you know what this means, Star Captain?"

"that you are confusing the hell out of me?"

"No! this is..." he reined himself in, "Okay, we were only able to detect it using a discredited technology-that is a ghost...ghosts maybe, maybe psychic phenomena, but...I had to use methods from a so-called 'science' that has been discredited as a hoax for the last thousand years.  the only solid detections we've gotten on this thing, came from trying gear that was last used to look for ghosts and aliens."

Arlene's frown deepened, "I did not approve 'ghost hunting'." she said, "So..."

"We could not get solid results using standard methodologies, ovKhan, I...i took a chance."

"Keep taking chances, but I want them documented...and I guess I need to ask the Clan for a scientist familiar with 'pseudoscience' and fringe phenomena...joy."  her lip curled.  "You knew about these techniques-why?"

He kind of shrank into himself, "it is a...hobby?  a few of us get together and visit 'haunted' sites on-world looking for-"

"So you inserted your 'hobby' into a serious investigation...and got results, quiaff?"

"Aff?"

"right, everything you have on...lore? every crazy supposition or superstition you know of that might tangentially connect to what has been happening, I want reports, Technician, I want hypotheticals, I want possibilities.  Make it as clear and logical as you can using your hobbies and research.  you are now assigned directly to supporting this investigation."

"What is the objective, Ma'am?"

"We knock away everything it can not be until we are left with what it must be."  she told him firmly.  "If this is real, you will be famous, if it is someone using technology to make it look like something from superstition, we can work out the counter and neutralize it before it is used against the Clan on a wider scale."

[Cannonshop]

It took three weeks before a scientist from off-world was in Arlene's office.

"The language is an old earth one." Dr. Genevra Hoffspatzer had been a mythology professor before Tamar was conquered, she had tested into the Scientist Caste's sociology planning group, a collection point for people whose scientific skills weren't immediately useful, but were too valuable (and valued) to be completely done away with. "it is Welsh, with some interesting lingual drift.  One of the pre-languages to English, and from the same socioethnic roots."

"So what does it say?"  Arlene asked.

"A poor guest attacks their host, such behaviors merit punishment. It's a common enough saying among Sol-Belter, Kowloonese Rockjack, and Galax spacer subcultures." she explained, "People who observe something called 'guestrite', some of them take it quite seriously.  The concept of attacking your host after breaking bread with them meriting death is not unusual in cultures from the northern indo-european groups, including notably celtic and germanic derived societies pre-spaceflight, especially among ethnicities from the British Isles and Scandinavian areas...such as the Welsh."

"Would such an insult merit a long, drawn out campaign of revenge?"

"The mythology of ancient European society is loaded with stories of vicious vengeance taken after a violation of Guestrite." the former professor asserted, "there are even stories of beings, such as the Greek Furies, Celtic Bane-Sidhe or 'Banshee'..."

"A ninety ton 'mech?"

"No, the spirit of a murdered woman, hunting down her killers and murdering them in return..."  the Professor stated, "Sometimes not a spirit at all, but a member of the Fae court, particularly the court of Winter.  Why?"

"Maurise, play the Katya interview for this scientist."  Arlene stated, "I would like to know what someone is trying to imitate to frighten us."

[Cannonshop]

Carmelita smiled at the night crew, and waved.  The AsTech for the 'mech unit waved back,  "See you tomorrow, Morgan!"

"I'll be there!" she answered cheerfully.

Her prey was in the operations shack, being briefed on the next day's exercises.  Dmitry's record was a good one, and his current CO had threatened a trial of refusal over the transfer orders.

It made getting to him easier, in retrospect.  'Carmelita Morgan' was a freebirth test-in, Technical specialist signals and sensors.  the local Watch had already pulled  her in for questioning, as part of winning the job of doing maintenance for a second line unit in the Touman, they put a lot of work into the background check, and the interview.

Her story held up, because it hit every expected note-a war orphan with time as an able spacer on commercial routes, looking to increase privileges and such by working into the Touman's support staff.

The tech-testing had been relatively easy for her, the broken rig had practically told her how to make the repairs...and it helped that her mirror self laid over the exact diagram in her vision needed to make the repair.

This stalk had required more care than the double kill at the Militia barracks on her last world, in part because her target was popular and well-liked among his comrades and therefore, rarely alone.

Only the guilty should pay for the crimes.

so, she had to be patient.  She had been patient for twelve years before finding a way to pursue her prey...a few more days more or less would be nothing.

Besides, he was being stalked by someone else.  Two hunters going at the same prey usually end up getting each other.

[Cannonshop]

"...description certainly sounds like some examples of remnant pagan ritualism, but this could also be elements of stage-dressing.  Sort of like how Comstar used pseudo-religious ritual to conceal basic technological activity, I'd have to examine the site-which would also be necessary for the war-crime investigation."  Professor Hoffspatzer set her cup down.  "how far away from here is this supposed site?"

"The catalog number points to being roughly one jump."  Arlene noted, "the planet is considered uninhabited, but...if this is derived from that, we should take a look.  our killer takes their time, and I doubt this assassin can simply walk through interstellar space.  Maurise?"

"Yes Star Captain?"

"Gather your 'scoobies', I will file the necessary excuse papers for their regular duties, we are going on a 'field trip'."

[JA Baker]

We're going to need a medium blue Broadsword with a horizontal green stripe around the middle.

[Sir Chaos]

We're going to need a medium blue Broadsword with a horizontal green stripe around the middle.

I´m leaning more in the direction of a set of proton packs and an extra-strong ghost trap.

Or maybe an Aqueduct load´s worth of holy water.

[Cannonshop]

22 LY rimward, inside the Wolf occupation zone...

Dimitry pulled his Neurohelmet on, and began running system checks on Roadrunner.  Roadrunner is a Locust IIC assigned to second-line duty, and Dmitry is a second-line 'mechwarrior now with a good reputation, but not good enough to keep his front line position.

the machine had served for over a century, and was likely, after the most recent updates, to outlive its pilot-assuming it was not destroyed in combat.  Dmitry had a certain affection for the old light 'mech.

the hangar doors opened on a beautiful, sun-kissed morning, and he walked it smoothly out into daylight.  Newer 'mechs, even omnimechs, didn't have the sheer smoothness a 'mech that had gotten every bug and failure worked out of it does, he did an experimental skip, the 25 ton machine 'hopping' on the power of its legs alone, then brought it up to a jog.

and that's when he heard the barking.  The baying of a pack of hounds.

"Tower, is there interference on the comm channel on your end?" He asked.

"neg, Roadrunner, your comm shows clear on this end.  can you describe the problem?"

"I think I am picking up overlap from a civilian broadcast, let me see if I can lock down the source from in here, Over."  He brought up the 'mech's sensors and tuned for radio direction finding, running through the onboard bands.

a direction pip showed on his screen.  "Tower, I am going to investigate an anomalous radio transmission, do you see it on yours, Over?"

"Roadrunner, we see your scope, ahm...registering no signal on this end, could be a software glitch, Over."

a glitch..?  he felt certain he had it on his screen.  "Alright, I am going to modify my patrol routing, and do some manuever testing, over."

"Logging your course change, Roadrunner, have fun, Tower out."

he brought the 'mech up to a full jog, and headed out along the service road northwest, in minutes passing a cargo VTOL and crossing into a cross-country course.  as he crested one of the rolling hills covered in greenbelt trees, (his skill leaving the trees rocking, but unbroken), he could see with his eyes something on the far hill.

he flicked the cameras to enhanced mode, and stopped his 'mech mid-step.

no...it can't be.  his heart triphammered in his chest, as he looked at the face on his screen.

"no..."  fifteen years to forget, gone in an instant, and his body froze like ice, as the cockpit's windows grew frost.

ni allwch redeg o'r hyn yr ydych wedi'i wneud.