CnC Chpt 6

==Cat and Crescent - Chapter 6 -==
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===The unit continues to grow===
New Hedon
Herotitus, Rimward Periphery
Tuesday, September 21st, 3024 
By the time Sarah Cao interrupted Remihel's meeting, he was desperate for an excuse. The ComStar acolyte - one of the local auditors for the Mercenary Review Board - spoke in a slow drone that threatened to turn Remihel's midafternoon drowsiness into a full-blown nap. He'd never liked the toaster-worshippers, and this particular acolyte spent a half hour trying to preach the good news of the Blessed Blake.
 
Unfortunately, Remihel couldn't tell the acolyte where to stuff their opinion. ComStar possessed rather formidable power as the sole operator of interstellar communications. Along the way, their C-Bill became the primary currency for financial exchange. Their Mercenary Review Board served as the neutral broker for companies ranging from the illustrious Wolf's Dragoons to the Blue Crescent Rangers. As much as Remihel wanted to do otherwise, he needed to coddle the ComStar acolyte.
 
"Commander," Sarah said, sticking her head past the conference room door. "Your 17:00 appointment is waiting for you, sir."
 
My what? Remihel asked himself, and checked the time. "Thank you," he said. "Please put them in my office. I'll be along in two minutes, once I've finished here." He looked back to the ComStar acolyte, resisted the urge to teach them the joys of defenestration, and instead politely hinted, "We're finishing up, correct?"
 
"Oh, yes," the acolyte agreed, collecting their noteputer and papers. Remihel shepherded them toward the door, and watched them head out.
 
Sarah came up, a look of grim amusement on her face. "Was that fun, boss?"
 
"I'd rather do surgery on myself with a dull spoon," Remihel sighed. "Apparently, the Blessed Blake farts unicorns and rainbows."
 
"Hee!" Sarah chortled to herself. "You looked pretty bored in there."
 
"Nearly fell asleep twice," Remihel agreed. "Now… who did you stick in my office?"
 
"Oh, right!" Sarah said, and the glint of mischief rose in her eyes. "I'm not sure, but I think it's a call girl. Showed up in a nice two-seat car, Canopian perfume, has some pretty sparklies on her-"
 
"Pink hair?" Remihel interrupted.
 
"I was getting to that!" Sarah said, nodding. "I know this is Herotitus, but you could do better for your money, Remi."
 
"That's hopefully going to be our Griffin pilot," Remihel said, glaring at Sarah.
 
"Oh?" Sarah said, adopting a sweet voice of innocence and an expression to match. "I had no idea."
 
"If I was gullible enough to believe that, I'd be worshiping ComStar's toasters next week," Remihel said. "Oh... before I forget, fetch Chief Lottie and go over the conference room with her. In detail. Look for any electronic bugs our acolyte friend might've planted."
 
"Huh? Are you serious?" Sarah asked.
 
"Yes," Remihel snapped. "ComStar acolytes don't call on mercenary commanders. They send polite invitations for you to come around and await their convenience. Something smells to me."
 
"That's the odor of the Blessed Blake's rainbow unicorn fart," Sarah said.
 
"Ugh," Remihel muttered. He abandoned her and walked back toward his office, where Josie Wallace waited patiently.
 
Josie wore a pleated plaid skirt, sleeveless black top, little red boots and black stockings, ear-rings with bright amethysts, and a silver necklace. She'd rounded it out with a tartan sash worn over her left shoulder, though it hung heavy and - Remihel guessed - concealed a compact sidearm. Her sash and skirt matched - a red and black print that proclaimed her Highlander heritage. She'd let her hair out today, in pale pink curls that bounced down just short of her shoulders.
 
If she dressed to appeal to me, Remihel decided, she's already worked out the formula. That success, however, also put Remihel on edge. He spent a few moments analyzing her posture and facial expression. She concealed intense nervousness, gripping her clutch-style purse with white-knuckled fingers. Her smile looked lively, but did not carry as far as her eyes, which fixed him with a wary hundred-meter stare.
 
Before she could say anything, Remihel went on the offense. "Miss Wallace," he said, extending a hand. She took it, but instead of a handshake, he lifted it to his lips and placed a polite kiss on the back of her knuckles. "You're looking well today," he added.
 
Josie stiffened - just ever-so-slightly - then relaxed again. "Baron Greenbrier," she said, her voice somewhat bashful and a bit stilted. "You offered me dinner. Might I be so bold... that is...?"
 
"Certainly, Miss Wallace," Remihel said. "I wondered if you remembered my offer."
 
"I remembered it," Josie said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I struggled with whether I wanted to accept it."
 
Interesting... Remihel thought to himself. "I'm glad you did. Before we go, do you wish to step out and see some mechs? I presume, of course, that you're still giving consideration to the Griffin. Perhaps you'd like to see it?"
 
"Aye... yes," Josie said. She looked at her red boots. "Though I'm not wearing the right shoes to go climbing around on a machine."
 
"I hope you'll have ample opportunity later," Remihel said. He gestured toward the door between the small front office and the warehouse. "Chief Lottie assigned one of her crews to paint it today, so even if you wore the right shoes, you shouldn't climb on it this evening."
 
Despite the late hour, many of the techs still worked in the area that passed for the Rangers' mech bay, conducting minor maintenance and upkeep. Remihel's Marauder and its three companions all stood at attention, waiting for their pilots to bring them to life.
 
Remihel knew - as none of the Rangers did - where the other three mechs actually came from. The PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk showed clear signs of being pieced together from battlefield salvage. The right arm and left leg, the torso and left arm, and the right leg all had their own distinct paint schemes, none of which matched. Taurian Military Intelligence found the wrecks in two different salvage yards on Taurus and Perdition, and matched it with a torso stolen and then recovered from a military depot several years prior. The astechs of the Blue Crescent Rangers already named it "Junkyard Dog."
The history of the STG-3R Stinger, a twenty-ton light scout in battered jungle camo, was both clearer and more murky. Eight months prior, the mech belonged to a pirate band that hit Taurian space, only to be ambushed by tipped-off defenders from the TDF - a bit of work Remihel felt particularly proud of, even though he could never talk about it. A defending TDF Locust melted the Stinger's knee actuator with its medium laser, and the pilot ejected and fled on foot. The defenders captured the intact mech. The serial numbers implied Steiner production, though some past pilot left a considerable amount of Sanskrit graffiti in the cockpit.
Of the quartet, the Griffin looked like the newest, courtesy of a coat of cactus green primer paint. Underneath its crisp exterior, however, dings and scuff marks on the surface of the armour showed the machine's true age. It was the oldest of the pack, only recently rediscovered after two centuries in a secret cache. Remihel felt a certain sense of ownership toward the Griffin, having recovered it personally and spent most of a week marching it across the desert to safety, pursued by angry cannibals in UrbanMechs. Another story he couldn't share, unfortunately.
"Well, there she is," Remihel said, gesturing to the Griffin. "A -1N model, as you can see. Armour's a little rough, but the movement's pretty smooth."
 
Josie looked up at the humanoid mech, and for a few moments, her eyes lost the wary unhappiness they contained. "I've only piloted one in a sim-pod," she admitted.
 
"For myself," Remihel said, "I always felt you could learn a lot in a good simulator. It's still important to practice in the real thing so you'll know when a component isn't working, but for tactical purposes..."
 
"We didn't have very good simulators in Lyreton," Josie said. She walked around the Griffin. "Until Volker put me in the pods he keeps for gladiator training, I didn't realize how poor our equipment was."
 
Remihel allowed her time to inspect the 55-tonner, observing her in turn. She knew what to look for in a mech, and paused to regard the Griffin's right foot actuator with suspicion. "This looks pretty worn," she observed, and quickly looked up. "Is this a test? It doesn't need to be changed out immediately, but I wouldn't depend on it in the field."
 
"It's not a test," Remihel said. "We're going to leave it on until we load up the dropship - then we'll swap it out in transit. More time to do the job."
 
"Oh, true..." Josie agreed, looking up at the surrounding warehouse. "No support structure to do the work, so you'd have to lay the mech down. I figure it'd be an... eighteen hour job for two techs?"
 
Remihel smiled. "Chief Lottie says sixteen."
 
"Maybe on the dropship, with the Griffin clamped into supports..." Josie mused. She looked up at the Griffin's cockpit, many meters above her. "Does it have a name?"
 
"Not yet."
 
Josie nodded, and stepped back from the Griffin. "It looks impressive," she said, signaling that she was ready to go.
 
"Yes," Remihel agreed. "If I didn't have my Marauder, I'd probably take one of these Griffins. Was happy to get my hands on it." He gestured and moved toward the doors. "I know a very good restaurant about ten minutes from here. The sort of place only the locals know about. Their burgers are on par with a Triple-F."
Josie nodded immediately. "Good enough for me. Would you like me to drive?"
 
"No preference," Remihel said. "You can drive, if you wish."
 
A sporty red two-seater with oversized tires and raised suspension waited outside - an offroad runabout intended for people who still wanted a high degree of comfort. FedRat manufacture, Remihel noted as he got inside, and the license plates imply it's a leased vehicle. Josie drove it aggressively, demanding a lot of power from the onboard fuel cell and challenging the traction limits of the tires, but not recklessly.
 
"Take a right, this next road," Remihel instructed. "This place is pretty far outside the limits of New Hedon."
 
"Got it," Josie acknowledged. "So, uh... I did some research on you."
 
"And what did you learn?"
 
"You told me half of it a few days ago. Baron of Blackfoot. Attended the Ècole Militaire on Taurus. Four years active duty in the Taurian Defense Forces, with the final rank of Subaltern. You own a short railway on Girondas, and a brewery your grandfather started... a non-alcoholic brewery."
 
"That's not accurate," Remihel said. "We sell whiskey, bourbon and lager. It doesn't sell as well as the root beer and orange cream soda. A bit of irony in that. Grandpa bought it for the lager, and Grandma succeeded with everything else."
 
Josie giggled. "And what do you think? Is it any good?"
 
Remihel shrugged. "If I have to drink something alcoholic, the family recipe is good enough. But it's a local thing. We're never going to export it offworld. The root beer and cream soda gets a lot further afield." He shrugged. "Is that all you learned about me?"
 
She cornered the car aggressively, passed a slower-moving vehicle and kept accelerating. "Only what Volker said," she replied.
 
"I wouldn't trust anything Volker says about me," Remihel said, although he aimed his vocal inflection to turn the truth into a joke. "He doesn't even remember what planet I'm from!"
 
"He said that if he's Thor, then you are Loki," Josie said.
 
"Oh. That's perhaps halfway to the truth. It probably looks that way to him. My moral compass may not point due north, but it doesn't change directions every fifteen minutes like Volker's." Remihel sighed. "Take the next left - then it'll be five minutes out."
 
"Visitors don't usually go this far out of New Hedon," Josie observed. Despite her not-quite-reckless speed, she kept checking her mirrors.
 
"No. The tourists stick to the cities, where most of the entertainment can be found. And don't worry so much about people shadowing us."
 
She threw him a sharp glance. "I'm not worried."
 
"Me either," Remihel said.
 
She slowed down slightly. "How did you hear about this restaurant?"
 
"I know the owner," Remihel said. "I lived with his family for a few months and loaned him the money to buy this place."
 
Ewing's Grill sat in the middle of nowhere, in a three-story barn built decades before by some Hammondite Congregationalist farmer. It didn't look like a restaurant - not by a long shot - but there were many cars parked haphazardly around the well-lighted but unpaved lot. "Are you sure this is a restaurant?" Josie asked.
 
"Trust me, it's good. If I'm wrong, I'll pay for your meal."
 
She blinked. "Oh, I need to-"
 
"It's a joke," Remihel said. "They'll probably try to feed us for free. If not, I'm buying."
 
"Ach," Josie said, and laughed. It felt a little forced to Remihel. He tried to analyze her body-language, and instead got momentarily distracted by her skirt and the legs beneath it. Catching himself, he looked away and clenched his teeth. How does Volker remember that one time I admitted my preferences, yet can't remember I'm from Girondas, not Grossbach?
 
Cornelius Ewing himself stomped around on his one good leg, with a pitcher of ice-water clamped in his claw-like prosthetic left hand. "Evenin' there, folks, I'll be with you in a... wait, is that you, Remi?"
 
"I came back to see how you're doing, Uncle Corn," Remihel said.
 
"Hah!" Cornelius laughed, his deep voice sounding like a bellow. "Come in here, Remi," he said, throwing his arms wide. Remihel accepted the hug. Nobody turned down one of his hugs. "I didn't even know you returned to Herotitus!"
 
"I should have messaged you. Here for a bit of short-term work," Remihel said. "We're leaving again on Friday."
 
"Just try to stay out of trouble this time, eh?" Cornelius joked. He turned serious. "How are you doing? Your legs okay?"
 
"Not even a limp," Remihel declared, stamping one foot on the ground. "And I'm doing well. My step-sister got married a month ago. But otherwise - not much to report. How are you? How's Aunt Lise and the family?"
 
"Oh, doing well, doing well," Cornelius said. "You're leaving on Friday? Remi, you need to come by the house. We finished building the new barn last year. Janyce has a young fellow coming around now, and Matthias - well, he's nearly as tall as you."
 
"No," Remihel said. "That can't be right. He's still only..."
 
"He's eighteen, Remi. You ought to see it."
 
"All right, I'll come out. Noon tomorrow?"
 
"That'll work!" A grin blazed on Cornelius's dark face. "Now, we need to get you a table, don't we?" he said.
 
"Yes, please," Remihel said.
 
"Right away. Follow me - I'll be your server tonight. It's not the busiest night, but I'm short-staffed."
 
He led them to a table not far from the small bar. Nearby, four oversized displays projected a mix of local news and sports. Remihel noted that one screen showed highlights from the Battlemech leagues, reiterating the results from the weekend tournament. Josie ignored it, even when a short clip of her face appeared on screen.
 
Once they'd ordered drinks and Cornelius clomped off, Josie opened the menu. "As good as the Triple-F burger, you say?"
 
"That's right."
 
"These are all named for famous mercenary companies," Josie noted. "The Wolf's Dragoons, the White Witch, Team Banzai, the Kell Hounds...?"
 
"That's got Uncle Corn's bourbon barbecue sauce," Remihel said. "But I have to try the Eridani Light Horse."
 
Josie searched for it on the menu. "Molasses maple bacon on a steak burger stuffed with mango pepper cheese. What does that have to do with the Eridani Light Horse?"
 
"I honestly have no idea," Remihel chuckled. "But it sounds tasty."
 
"Hm." Josie stared at the menu for a few moments. "As much as I want the Black Widow just for the name, I'm not a fan of lighting my mouth on fire."
 
"But if you finish the entire thing, it's free."
 
"I'm pretty sure I'd need hospitalization before I actually finished it. And look at the prices - it's already the closest thing to free that you can get." She mused for a few moments until Cornelius returned, notepad in hand. "I think I'll go with the Snord's Irregular."
 
"Good choice," Cornelius said. He scribbled down the two orders and grinned. "We'll have it out in ten minutes."
 
"Thanks, Uncle Corn," Remihel said. He waited a few moments as Cornelius walked away, and then turned back to Josie. "You said you struggled whether to accept my dinner invitation."
 
"I..." Josie said, hesitating long enough to take a quick sip of her drink. "I... had to think about it," she said. "All that stuff you said - about having a creed, and how you intend to protect the innocent? That was how my dad talked. He tried to teach it to me, too. And..." Josie averted her eyes, choking up. "I forgot about it until the other night. Something in what you said, and the way you said it, reminded me of my dad…"
 
She paused in indecision. "Continue?" Remihel prompted.
 
"There's a part of me that didn't want to be reminded," Josie admitted, and then bit down on her lower lip. "I've ignored so much of what he taught me. If he saw me now, he'd be so…" Disappointed remained unspoken, but the word hung in the air even as Josie skipped past it. "I didn't want to remember that. There. I said it."
 
Remihel sat back in his seat. "Would you tell me about your father?" he finally asked.
 
Josie didn't reply for a few moments. When she finally spoke, her voice remained came out quiet and vulnerable . "My dad was born on Northwind. He wanted to join the Northwind Highlanders. But never made the cut and ended up with a shady crew called the Sacrificial Lambs. He got an old STG-3R Stinger from them. He never said, but I get the impression it was a pretty shady deal. My parents settled down on Lyreton before I was born, and my dad served as one of the Mandrinn's mechwarriors. Uh... this was under Marlon Crivoi. He wasn't too bad, but died when I was ten. Jairo inherited the title."
 
Remihel nodded. "Go on?"
 
"Dad never got along with Jairo," Josie continued. "Lots of little stuff. Some of Moab's mandrinns are good folk, but most don't have any real check on their powers. Old Marlon wasn't too bad, but Jairo? He's a rat in human skin, and that's an insult to rats. After Mom died, we discussed leaving Moab. In the end, Dad decided to depose him. I turned twenty-one, and Dad brought me into the plot. We planned for everything we could think about. We even got a bit of support from the Shanna. It went exactly as we planned... right up until de Souza's Reavers dropped right on our heads. It was my first real battle. We knew the moment we saw the dropship that we'd lost. Some of our people fled before they even touched down. Everything went to hell, and we decided to run for it."
 
"And then?" Remihel asked. The rough account McQueen supplied him of Wallace's abortive coup against Mandrinn Crivoi didn't provide many details of the actual battle.
 
"The Reavers coursed us down," Josie said. "Dad was in his Stinger and probably could have gotten away. But I was in an UrbanMech, and I couldn't outrun the Reavers. We pulled out of the city and tried to set up an ambush, but the Reavers just had too much weight of metal. I punched out and crawled off into the jungle. Dad drew them off further east and bought me enough time to hide. The Reavers brought him down about an hour later. De Souza's Hunchback stepped on his Stinger's head."
 
Remihel exhaled. "I'm sorry."
 
"Yeah, well." Through her story, Josie remained dry and emotionless; but now she finally swiped at a corner of her eyes. "After I ejected from my Urbie, I fled Lyreton. I came here - it was the furthest my money could get me. I told myself I wouldn't stay on Herotitus - just long enough to get another mech under me, and then... I never thought much further than that, I guess."
 
"Are you happy here?" Remihel asked.
 
"No," Josie said, and her voice cracked. "Only when I'm drinking. And I'm... losing that battle. Blake's Teeth, why am I telling you this...?"
 
Remihel considered this for a few moments, and one answer rose in his mind. "Because something I said reminded you of your dad. And these are things you'd want to tell him."
 
Josie flinched. "Oh." She sat for a few moments. "You're right. Not really fair to dump that on you, is it...? We barely even know each other."
 
"I've suffered worse."
 
"For the last year, I pretended to be happy. The money… even as a pit girl for the Valkyries, I made more than I ever thought possible. I found some friends, moved in with a successful guy, got back into a mech…"
 
Their meals arrived, interrupting any further conversation. "Oh..." Josie sighed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "That smells good."
 
"What's on that burger?" Remihel asked. "Mushrooms?"
 
"Deep-fried Bugyal mushrooms," Josie said. "We ate a lot of 'shrooms growing up in Lyreton. The Bugyal shrooms are the closest thing I've found on Herotitus. Match them with creole seasonings, and... mm-mmm!"
 
They ate in silence for a few moments before Remihel, with half his burger already eaten, restarted the conversation. "Have you thought about the Griffin?"
 
"A lot," Josie admitted. "I've thought about it a lot."
 
"Anything you wish to discuss? Any questions I can answer?"
 
Josie set down her burger and cleaned her hands. "I... I want the Griffin," she said. "But I want to negotiate some terms."
 
"Oh?" Remihel raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead then, I'm listening."
 
Josie wrung her hands together, and struggled to meet Remihel's eyes, barely managing it for a half-second before she looked down at her plate again. "I want to buy in," she said. "I mentioned earlier that when I got to Herotitus, I started saving up to buy a new battlemech. I want to buy the Griffin. Well... as much of it as I can."
 
Remihel sat back in his chair and frowned. He couldn't reveal the truth, but the Griffin didn't belong to him - technically, it belonged to Taurian Military Intelligence. This may require some careful finesse... "You want to buy the Griffin..." he said. "How much?"
 
"Not enough," she admitted. "I have just a bit shy of 2.5 million C-Bills. I know a Griffin costs about five million." She leaned forward, still nervous but now fully committed. "I want to write up an agreement that I'll pay you a certain amount of my paycheck every month toward paying off the rest of the mech."
 
"You have 2.5 million?" Remihel asked, stunned that she had so much money.
 
"I don't have it in ready cash," Josie admitted. "When I added the numbers up this morning - all the stuff I can turn into C-Bills - I found two million, four hundred and eighty thousand."
 
"Did you subtract the fifty thousand you'd need to break the contract with the Valkyries?" Remihel asked. "Or do you want to negotiate that as well?"
 
Josie hesitated. "I'd prefer to deal with it myself. So with that taken into account, my buy-in would be 2.43 million."
 
"Hm." Remihel leaned back in his chair. "Considering the current pay scale for the Blue Crescent Rangers, you're going to be paying off that debt for a very long time."
 
"I'm willing to do that," Josie said. "You don't seem thrilled by the idea."
 
How do I phrase this delicately…? "I got the Griffin on some restrictive terms. I'm not able to sell it right away. I'll… need to do some research and get back to you."
 
"Oh." Josie's expression fell.
 
"It may be better for you to buy an owner's share of the Rangers," Remihel hinted. "For full disclosure, I bought fourteen of the seventeen shares for 9.6 million C-Bills. When we revalue the company in December, the value of each share should be substantially higher. By then I might have an answer on the Griffin."
 
"How much per share?" Josie asked.
 
Remihel tried to do the math in his head, then gave up and used his wristcomp to calculate the numbers. "I'd sell you three shares for 2.1 million C-Bills. You'd become the second-largest shareholder, aside from myself. I'd still keep eleven shares. You'd have three. Skinner, de Vries, and Diao own the remaining three shares."
 
"Hm." Josie frowned. "I'm surprised the MRB values the Rangers so low. The estimates I've found in my research..."
 
"The previous commander of the Rangers set up a nice case of fraud, then he got himself, all four of the unit's mechs, and most of his mechwarriors killed in a fight with another mercenary unit," Remihel pointed out. "The MRB agreed to hold off re-rating the unit for another two months. I hope the Rangers might manage to keep their current rating, but we'll need to prove ourselves. So our present value is artificially deflated. I expect the assessed value to climb back up to somewhere in the fifty million range inside the next year. Particularly if I can bring it up to company size, rather than a single lance."
 
"You mean," Josie said, looking quite thoughtful, "you'd sell me three shares for 2.1 million. But if you held onto them another year, you'd expect the value to quadruple. So I have to ask... what's in this deal for you?"
 
Remihel felt a bit of warmth under his collar. I didn't know she had enough money to buy in, and I didn't know she knew how to negotiate so well! "You're sharp. I'd get 2.1 million in cash to reinvest elsewhere," he answered. "To help make sure the value does indeed rise. I get a capable pilot for the second-largest mech in the company. And finally, I get someone with an insider's view of my first battleground."
 
"I see." Josie picked up her burger again. She still suppressed a strong nervous fidget, and took several more bites. "This presumes you beat the Reavers - and House Crivoi's other mercs and House troops - without major losses. If I run the numbers, you're going in with four mechs against ten - a hundred ninety-five tons against... Crivoi's got about three-fifty at the moment."
 
"You're well-informed," Remihel said.
 
Her eyes dropped. "I try to be. We're on Herotitus. If I don't stay informed, I get exploited. Don't think I need to tell you where I'd end up..."
 
"Breaking all Momma's Rules," Remihel agreed.
 
"That's right." Josie finished off her burger and scraped a fallen mushroom off her plate. She lowered her eyes again. "Though Momma broke most of her own rules. That's what got her killed."
 
"Eh? I thought your mother died from a medical condition," Remihel said.
 
"No." Josie hesitated. "Well... not exactly. She overdosed on recreational drugs after a night partying with Mandrinn Crivoi. He covered it up to keep Dad from learning about it. Didn't work." Josie looked up again. "That's why we decided to overthrow him, you know. We waited three years for the opportunity, and then... well, you know how that went."
 
Remihel shook his head. "I don't really know what to say to that."
 
"I understand," Josie sighed. "I... it's weird, actually. I don't randomly tell people this stuff." She bit her lip. "It feels like you're actually listening to me - and it's been so long since I've had someone do that." She blushed, grabbed her drink, and waited nervously for his response.
 
"You're welcome," Remihel said. "Now, ah... I didn't actually answer your earlier question, did I?"
 
"Mm? Oh! About beating the Reavers...?"
 
"That's the one. I have to admit, I'd prefer to drop with a three-to-one numeric advantage over the Reavers, but I don't have enough mechs for that. Even if I did, my rented dropship only carries six." He shrugged. "So I intend to cheat."
 
"You can't cheat in real life."
 
"Ehm, I disagree." Remihel smiled at her. "I'm Loki, remember? The trickster?"
 
"...what do you have up your sleeve?"
 
"Shan't tell you now. Wait until we've dusted off Herotitus. I don't want anyone to talk and spoil the surprise."
 
"I guess I understand that," Josie nodded. "I'll take your advice and buy those three shares of the Rangers. Though... um... can I ask for one more condition?"
 
"Let's hear it," Remihel said.
 
"I want to name the Griffin," she said. "Carrousel Cavalier. That was the name of my dad's mech, and I want to reuse it, even if the Griffin's not technically mine."
 
"Agreed." Remihel said. He reached his hand across the table, and Josie shook it. "Welcome to the Blue Crescent Rangers."
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