Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

               Kilrymont

               New St Andrews IV, The Periphery

               Rimward of the Circinus Federation

               19 April 3077    

 

               The next few days were busy ones for Marie.  Caradin had apparently been serious when she said Hussars liked to move.  All five of them worked fourteen-hour days repairing the damage from the fighting on Huntington, running diagnostics, and doing last-minute readjustments.  The Hussars were not a big enough unit to have a dedicated maintenance staff, so each pilot had to supervise repairs to his or her own ‘Mech, pulling in whatever technicians were available for extra hands, be it the Sirocco’s maintenance staff or the technicians from Meridian Manufacturing.  On top of that, the ‘Mech bay itself was Periphery grade quality all around, meaning the equipment was easily four or five decades old and any replacement parts were equally out of date.  The result was constant frustration, along with a lot of shouting around the ‘Mech bay whenever anyone’s machine was being worked on.  Marie still volunteered to help when she could, taking the chance to get to know the other ‘Mechs she would be riding alongside of. 

               From what she saw, her teammates’ ‘Mechs were a mishmash of different gear and designs.  Wolfgang’s Commando was a 3A model from the 3020’s, making it only slightly more advanced than the equipment they were working with around the spaceport.  Its paired short-range missile launchers promised trouble for anything it was pointed at, but its armor was thin, evidenced by the frightening amount of internal damage the ‘Mech had.  Even so the internals were surprisingly straightforward, making it relatively easy to repair the damage and swap out the broken parts.  Hoshino’s Katamari Charger was the polar opposite, an old machine with a maze of spaghetti wires and spliced-in replacement parts under its armored carapace.  According to Hoshino the Katamari had started as one of the notoriously useless 1A1 Chargers, with Hoshino’s great grandfather being the one to give the ‘Mech its name.  Over the decades the ‘Mech had been upgraded and modified into something resembling a more modern 3K variant, with an extralight fusion engine and a rack of LRMs in the chest.  Marie could tell the ‘Mech’s arms carried regular medium lasers instead of the pulse versions mounted in the torso, but that was about all she could make of the odd design.  She worked on the machine for a few days, trying to figure out what was wired into what before finally throwing up her hands.  Hoshino had laughed at that, saying many great technicians had been defeated by the Katamari before.

               Caradin’s ‘Mech was a completely different experience.  A generation newer than either of the other Hussar’s machines, the Raptor was made to be pulled open and reconfigured as needed.  Marie was barely needed for that ‘Mech, but she made a mental note of its loadout.  It was a custom configuration, with an array of lasers in the arms and chest, an SRM launcher, and surprisingly, a Beagle Active Probe nestled in the torso.  The Raptor was made to be a fast-strike ‘Mech, with almost half of its total mass reserved for weapons.  The Probe took up a fair amount of its pod space, but Caradin seemed especially protective of that part.

               “I salvaged that off my old Mongoose, along with the comms equipment,” Caradin explained one day while Marie was giving the ‘Mech a once-over.  “Trust me, that Probe is more valuable than any extra guns I could cram in there.”  Marie took that at face value; a Mongoose’s sensors and communications equipment made it a solid scout, so there was certainly nothing wrong with repurposing its parts.

               The Blossom was its own beast.  Marie was put in charge of repairs and maintenance on the ‘Mech, but she barely knew where to start.  She’d only worked on it for a day before taking it off of Huntington, and that had been just to replace one weapon.  Repairing the armor and giving it a full maintenance check was a completely different and far more complicated operation.  She’d had some time to go over the systems onboard the Sirocco, but everything been reconfigured when the machine changed modes.  Only now that she was in a mostly functioning ‘Mech bay could she really look at the Blossom’s internal workings to figure out what was what.

               On the upside, she had no shortage of help available: word of a transforming ‘Mech from the Star League had spread quickly, and it seemed like everyone who could handle a wrench was asking if they could have a look at it.  Marie suddenly understood why Jain had been so jealously protective of the machine; a clumsy tech who didn’t know what they were doing might just hammer away and end up breaking something that couldn’t be replaced.  More often than not Marie found herself turning volunteers away until she’d had a chance to look at the ‘Mech herself.

               She did all the checks she could think of, but the Blossom’s systems were all new to her.  She did discover that the Blossom did not carry a separate reserve of reaction mass for her jump jets.  Instead, the ‘Mech burned small amounts of her stored aerospace fuel to jump.  On the one hand that meant the Blossom could jump far more often than a regular BattleMech, but on the other hand it meant the more she jumped the less she could fly, and vice versa.  That was just one of a dozen little quirks Marie discovered, but everything at least seemed to be in working order, with no blips on the ‘Mech’s internal diagnostics.  The actuators all seemed fine as well; apparently the ‘Mech’s slow ground speed was just part of the design. 

               In the end Marie had to mentally cross her fingers and hope that Jain had been good about keeping the ‘Mech on a decent service schedule.  BattleMechs were supposed to be durable beasts after all, able to go years or even decades in between major work.  She repaired the armor and had it painted to match the Hussars, and also gave the mode selection lever a shot of grease.  Now it moved smoothly between settings, without needing enough force to dislocate her arm.  Aside from that the only change Marie felt comfortable making was wiring an electrical socket into the cockpit, letting her plug in her legs when she piloted.  No sense in letting all the energy of that reactor go to waste, after all.

               In addition to getting the ‘Mechs ready, Marie spent her time doing the reading and researching the planet she was on.  Save for a handful of cities and a scattering of villages, New St. Andrews was a planet of untamed wilderness.  What wasn’t mountain or ocean was covered with trees and the occasional grassy plains.  The planet’s flora had adapted to the dim light from system’s star; the trees were hardy, evergreen affairs that sported needle-like leaves to draw in as much of the weak sunlight as they could.  The sprawling forests of those trees were the main problem, giving any pirates ample places to retreat to.

               Meridian had brought heavy industry to the planet.  Their three manufacturing plants had turned a planet of farmers into an actual production hub.  After a few years of setting up, they had an efficient system in place to put out their military hardware.  Plant Three brought in and refined raw materials.  Plant Two assembled components, and final assembly was done at Plant One before the new tanks and ‘Mechs were shipped to the spaceport for delivery to customers across the Periphery.

               Thomas kept them all busy, testing their knowledge of the planet.  Sometimes the tests were a standard question-answer format like they were in some kind of classroom.  Other times it was more of a practical exam: the Hussars would mount up in their BattleMechs and do patrols through the woods around Kilrymont.  With all the repairs and tweaks to their ‘Mechs, they had to do shakedown runs to make sure everything was in working order. 

               In between the tests Marie finally managed to talk to Caradin long enough to confirm she was grounded for the time being, under orders to keep the Broken Blossom in BattleMech form at all times.  Apparently Meridian Manufacturing was refusing any kind of support past the specific contract, which meant the Hussars would have to pay for every liter of aerospace fighter fuel the Blossom went through.  She couldn’t spend much time flying around or even jumping without burning through their whole budget.  Marie tried arguing that she needed a chance to fly so she could test the Blossom’s capabilities and get a real feel for the LAM, but Caradin nixed that.

               “No can do, McCloud,” the lieutenant had said.  “I wanted to warned you ahead of time I was grounding you, but Meridian wanted to talk to me right away and I didn’t get a chance to brief you.  I’m playing it safe for now while you get used to piloting my new ‘Mech.  Maybe in a little while you’ll get a chance to stretch your wings, but for now I need you to focus on ground operations alongside the rest of us.  After all, none of the other Hussars can fly, right?”

               Marie had accepted that explanation, even if she chafed at the restriction.  She grudgingly spent the next few days focusing on getting a feel for how the Blossom moved on the ground.

               Unfortunately after the first week, the novelty of piloting the Blossom was wearing off.  The shakedown runs all too often involved tearing through the woods at maximum speed, going through courses Thomas laid out on the maps.  Thomas rode along in the back of Wolfgang’s Commando, barking at all of them to keep up the pace.  The Blossom was tied with Hoshino’s Katamari for the slowest of the Hussars, and Marie was still adjusting to the ‘Mech and the neurohelmet.  The result was that more often than not she was left stumbling along far behind everyone else, with Thomas reaming her out over how slow she was moving.

               Marie was left sweating and dizzy from the runs, collapsing into her bed only to wake up too early to do it all over again.  The only consolation she really got was the headaches from her neurohelmet were slowly dying down.  After the first week, piloting the Blossom only left her with a dull, persistent throbbing in her temples.  She took it as progress and threw herself into learning to pilot the ‘Mech, pushing the Blossom through every obstacle the Hussars could throw at her.  It didn’t seem to make much difference to Thomas, who seemed unimpressed with her at all times, constantly sending her on another run or testing her on the landscape of the planet.  Marie kept up as best she could, mostly because her persistence seemed to infuriate him.

               In contrast to her sergeant, Caradin openly approved of Marie’s performance, and encouraged Marie to get out and keep moving even when Thomas was giving her a hard time.  Marie suspected Caradin’s encouragement was not entirely altruistic.  She was sure the lieutenant was enjoying the notoriety the Blossom was bringing her unit.  Not that Marie minded being famous, of course.

               Bower and Coghill watched the Hussars closely through their shakedown runs.  Usually they sat in an observation post in the spaceport, coming to meet with Caradin after every run.  During these conversations Caradin looked like she was tolerating the two of them, nodding along as they went through a list of notes on the unit’s performance so far.  From the annoyed looks the other Hussars had on whenever the two men were around, Marie guessed this was how working with client liasons usually went.

               Outside of watching the Hussars, Bower kept a busy schedule around the spaceport.  Over and over again Marie caught him with a camera crew doing interviews, ranting about the capabilities of the Arbiter.  One day he was doing one in the ‘Mech bay.  Marie had the Blossom’s chest armor open after the latest shakedown run and was trying to make sense of the labyrinthine internal parts when she heard his accented voice carrying over the usual ambient din of the bay.  She looked up to see Bower up on the catwalk going between the ‘Mech hangars, standing proudly in front of a holocamera.  Marie didn’t recognize him at first; the man had changed into a wide-sleeved shirt and a tartan kilt, capped off by a matching bonnet hat on his head.  On most people it would have looked ridiculous, but on the square-jawed, broad-shouldered Bower it somehow worked.  He was thrusting out his chest, talking about how the Meridian security was “rea’y ter bash some pirate skoolls.” 

               Marie saw one of the holocameras aimed in her direction, and she waved halfheartedly.  Suddenly self-conscious about she was covered in grease and sweat from work, she took the personnel lift back up to the catwalk.  She went over to where Wolfgang and Hoshino were leaning on the catwalk railing, taking a short breather from ‘Mech work. 

               “I’m not sure he’s Scottish enough, how about you guys?” Marie asked mock-innocently.  Hoshino chuckled at that.  In all the reading they’d been assigned they’d seen New St. Andrews was founded in pre-spaceflight Scottish culture.  Meridian had very clearly decided to capitalize on that.

               As Bower ranted and posed, Coghill stood behind the camera crew, tapping on a datapad.  His expression looked slightly less constipated than usual.  After a few minutes he walked up to Marie and the others. 

               “Good, you’re all here.  The marketing team needs a sound bite from you,” Coghill said to them.  Without waiting for their reaction he gestured at the crew.  A reporter in the lead headed over to them, followed by a cameraman.

               “Now we get to meet the latest addition to the planetary defense force, the contractors who will be deployed alongside our own Angus Bower,” the reporter was saying, walking backwards towards them while he faced the camera.  He turned back around as he got up to Marie and the others.  “Hi, good afternoon,” he said cheerfully.  “What do you think of being deployed alongside the crown jewel of Meridian Manufacturing?” the man asked, thrusting a microphone into Marie’s face.

               “Uhh…” she stammered, her eyes flickering to the holo-lens behind the reporter.

               “Mr. Bower is a joy to work with,” Hoshino said.  He grinned as the camera turned towards him.  “I am sure his talent will be a huge asset in the field.”

               “Great,” the reporter said.  “But what do you think about the Arbiter?  New St. Andrews’ own homegrown BattleMech?”

               The camera turned back towards Marie, who shrugged helplessly.  “I mean…we haven’t seen it yet.  It was supposed to be coming in today, right?”

               “Just say something positive, they’ll edit it in later,” Coghill muttered, giving her an annoyed stare.

               “Uh…it’s an impressive machine, I guess,” Marie said uncertainly.  “Those pirates had better watch out.”

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               “Great, thanks!” the reporter said.  He glanced back at the cameraman, who flashed him a thumbs-up.  “All right, now we just need to shoot some B-roll and we’ll be all set here,” he said to Coghill.  “When are the units coming in?”

               “The Arbiters should arrive from the factory later today,” Coghill said, checking his watch.  “Where do you need to set up?”

               “Lighting’s best at the front, so let’s set the incoming units up here,” the reporter said, waving at the front four ‘Mech hangars.  “We’ll get some shots of an Arbiter standing in front of the bay, with the others standing behind it.  It’ll be a very powerful image.”

               “Great, I love it.  We’ll get the hangars cleared out then,” Coghill said.

               “What?” Marie asked.  Over the past week the Hussars had taken to storing their ‘Mechs in the front four hangars, to save time as they entered and exited on the daily shakedowns.

               “You heard me.  Meridian needs the front ‘Mech hangars.  Get your equipment out of there.”

               Wolfgang responded by silently crossing his arms and staring the man down.

               “Moving our BattleMechs requires approval from our commanding officer,” Hoshino said placatingly.  “But I am sure she would be willing to hear your request…”

               “Don’t encourage him,” Wolfgang grumbled.

               Coghill barely seemed fazed.  “Great, just get it done asap,” he said quickly, snapping his fingers.

               “I’m still putting the chest back together, I can’t just flick a switch and move her,” Marie protested, gesturing at the Blossom.  Out the corner of her eye she saw the camera crew swing their holocameras towards the ‘Mech.

               “That’s not my problem.  Do I need to remind you that you work for us?” Coghill snapped.  “Just get it done!”

               Marie blinked and stammered, trying to find the words to respond.  Before she could say anything a new set of footsteps approached.

               “How about we keep the ‘Mechs right where they are and your holo crew actually does their job and finds a way to work around them?” Caradin asked, coming up alongside Marie.

               The reporter shook his head.  “No can do.  The light – ”

               “Get some damn flashlights if you have to,” Caradin interrupted.  “And I have a hard time believing you want our ‘Mechs out of here.  You’re getting enough shots of my machines while we’re sitting around wasting time on this.”  She turned her attention to Coghill.  “As for you, any requests for Hussar machines should come through me.  Do not bother my people when they’re working, and definitely don’t try to move the metal, unless you’re ready to get behind them and push.”

               Coghill’s face darkened.  “Did you forget who’s paying your bills?  We are the ones who – ”

               “’We’ just contacted me and gave me different orders, Mr. Coghill,” Caradin interrupted.  “The good news is, my people will be moving out of your damn bay in the next twelve hours.  Bad news is your Arbiters will not be arriving today.  Your unwelcome guests just decided to hit one of your factories.”

               Coghill stammered a moment, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly for a few seconds before his eyes flickered to the reporter, standing just arm’s length from him and holding his microphone towards them all.  He hissed at the man to back off, shooing him off to the camera crew further away on the catwalk before turning back to Caradin.  “What are you talking about?” he snapped.  “I hadn’t heard anything about an attack!” Behind him Bower perked up, a flash of fear showing on his face before he recovered.

               “Maybe because you were too busy marketing a machine that isn’t even here,” Caradin said coldly.  “Your board of directors just contacted me directly to call the Hussars in.  We’re shipping off to Manufacturing Plant One in twelve hours,” she said, her eyes flickering over to Marie, Hoshino, and Wolfgang.

               Coghill stammered a few more seconds before shaking his head.  “This is preposterous.  I need to call my manager,” he muttered, stepping away from Caradin and backing down from her steely gaze.

               Hoshino, Wolfgang, and Marie all looked at Caradin appreciatively, but she waved them off.  “Get back to work, you three.  I’m not paying you to watch this dog-and-pony show,” she said with a wave at the camera crew.  “You lot better get my machines ready to move, and quick.  Meridian’s just found out the hard way its security team isn’t up to the task.  Time to show them someone is.”

               Hoshino nodded at her and headed back over to the ‘Mechs, with Wolfgang in tow.  “Thanks for that, sir,” Marie said to Caradin as she turned to follow them.

               “I expect better than that, McCloud,” Caradin warned.  “I can’t have you freezing up just because some jackass thinks he’s in charge.”  She pointed a thumb at her own chest.  “My orders are the only ones you should listen to.  Now get back down there and get my damn ‘Mech back together again.  We roll out in twelve hours, whether you’re ready or not.”

               Marie nodded again.  “Yes, sir.  Thank you.” 

               She thought she saw a hint of a smile on Caradin’s lips as the woman turned away from her. 

 

*End of Chapter 7*

 

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