TEFAC Chpt 1

Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
==Chapter 1 - Time Enough For A Cat - - Enter, Canopus -==
-----
====Glad to be Back====
Canopus, Magestracy of Canopus
3145?
"Come in, Canopus Actual, this is Leopard Echo Echo Two Six Seven Niner, coming in for landing on strip five," I spoke into the radio unit as our Leopard got ready to finally go wheels-down. It'd been a long, hard, really fucking annoying stint away from home: nearly twelve years, ever since my mother had signed me up to MIM when I was fourteen to help her with a deep cover mission. The Harvest Blades had been a small-time merc unit with a half-dozen bugmechs and a little armor to their name, and I'd gotten to grow up on the front end of a Canopian "research" mission.
 
Of course, that was a long time ago. Dad had bit the farm in '36 fighting pirates, and Mom had decided to get out of the cockpit and leave her Stinger to me when I turned eighteen and could do combat ops. I didn't keep it for long, though, after our, ah, Fun and Engaging Work on New Avalon. While we didn't raid NAIS per say during our stint with them in '38, we certainly did walk out with a lot of information we weren't supposed to. Our biggest find, though, was the Direct Neural Interface.
 
So: Back in the day, NAIS cooked up a direct, brain-to-battlemech system. They then had the nerd who came up with this throw a fit because he experimented on himself like a dumbass before fleeing to Solaris VII and getting killed there. It was the best shit since sliced bread, apparently, giving massive aid in piloting, except for the fact it drove the person with the brain implants mad in less than a decade.
 
Not idea. Fortunately, Mom was willing to hang up the Neurohelmet to start studying it, and we managed to get a hold of a Canopian medical mission slash spy ring that had dug into the Outback after getting pitched from the Draconis Combine. A few more years of pirate-hunting and a lot of what we'll call optimized unethical research later, and we had the bugs worked out.
 
Then came the raid on Woodbine, and I managed to somehow wrestle a Catapult down and punch its cockpit out. In a Stinger. Plus side, pristine salvage. Minus side, I ate a large laser burst to the face in a Stinger. I barely survived, and ended up getting some nasty flash burns that put me into reconstructive surgery. Mom, being the best MIM agent there ever was, promptly saw my dipshit ass on the operating table and decided it was time to play God and hook me up with the production version of the Direct Neural Interface, as well as some of the cosmetic mods they had laying around.
So yeah. Canopian mechwarrior with cat ears. That now drives a Catapult. Get the jokes out of the way now, please and thank you. Either way, we packed our holds full of salvage, and continued to hop around fucking about until our return signal came in. Forty jumps later, we were coming home with a Leopard full of goods, chips on our shoulders, and I'd finally be getting to see the home of my childhood.
 
As we rode the bow-shock of our friendly brick of a dropship into the atmosphere, I sighed happily as everything shook and rattled like a brick in a washing machine. I was coming home! Finally, home!
-----
====Mixed Home Welcoming====
Once we were on the tarmac, I was surprised to see a lance of Manticores staring us down. Hopping into my Catapult downstairs, I sighed as Mission Control started speaking.
thumb|Manitcore Main BattleTank
"Alright everyone, out by the numbers. MIM is being picky about our credentials- seems like someone's misplaced the codebooks we should be using on their end. Don't start shit, but keep your backs to the dropship- okay?"
"Roger that, Mission Control," I said, carefully walking out the ramp. As my mech's feet hit the tarmac, I practically felt two of the tanks' turrets twist toward me. Going over to an open channel, I put my best disarming voice on. "Ladies, as much as I love to see a nice rack of missiles, is there any reason they're pointed at me?"
 
"This is Lieutenant Charlie Beaurs to Catapult pilot. Your codebooks aren't checking out, and this is too fishy to let fly."
 
Damn. Had to be a guy leading the unit. "Do you want to talk to our handling officer? Colonel Rechamboul should still be floating around the capital somewhere, unless she kicked the bucket or retired."
 
"Colonel Rechamoul?" Charlie the Manticore Driver asked. "Never heard of her."
 
"Not surprised, she's a bit of a bookworm. Full name is Colonel Arachne Rechamboul, was about fifty-something when I left. Look for the only high-ranking officer with a Canopus Cluster award and the Ribbon of the Magestrix."
 
"Got it. I'm calling this in."
 
It didn't answer any questions, but it did get Charlie to stop pointing his tank gun straight at me, so I'd count that as a win. About a half-hour later that I hadn't spent playing radio chess with Mersies later, word came back in to Charlie.
 
"We couldn't find Colonel Rechamboul, but you're in luck: the Magestrix herself was in the meeting room, and would like to get some dispositions on the matter. Can you provide details?"
 
"Over open comms? You're nuts," I snapped. "Secure hardline only, or closed rooms only. Those drug fiend Nova Cats might be listening in, or some assholes on the Wolfnet. Fucking Clanners."
 
"Fine. We'll escort you and a second to a secured area."
 
Nodding, I kicked over to internally secured channels. "Mersies, on me. We gotta talk to people in person."
 
Mersies was my lancemate, best friend, and occasional cabin buddy when things got slow. More importantly, after I'd gotten my DNI implants, she'd volunteered to go next and get the same cosmetics I did. Her ride was a pretty worn-out Centurion -AL that we'd spent a lot of hours fucking around with over the years, after she'd been promoted from what used to be my Stinger. There was nobody I trusted more at my back on the tarmac at this moment, and we both knew it.
 
Once we got to the designated dismount point and got out, a MIM major came up on one of the ubiquitous golf carts and took us to a fairly standard MAF tent. As we walked in, I blinked. That was… a child. In a MAF tent, in a spaceport, that there were both MAF soldiers guarding and a MIM major looking very, very constipated over.
 
"Hello!" she said, chipper. "Are you the oddballs?"
 
"I'd hardly call us oddballs," I said lightly. "We're a perfectly normal lance of Canopian mercenaries coming home for a little well-deserved rest and relaxation so we can liquidate some of our loot and think about expanding."
 
"You're a perfectly normal lance of mercenaries, and your two battlemechs are both… odd," the girl pointed out. "The Centurion has three PPCs of an odd make on one arm, and the Catapult has one in an under-cockpit centerline mount instead of two of the side mount lasers. Never mind heat, how do you get those mechs to carry that much?!"
 
At this point, one of the MIM officers stepped up. "A very good question, miss Elsa, but secondary to our point. Mister…"
 
"Tam Gallowglass, callsign Nyan."
 
"Mister Gallowglass, I'm sorry to tell you that Colonel Rechamboul is unreachable at this time, due to a medical procedure. Instead, you'll be debriefing with Colonel Louis, and myself: Major Palas."
 
"That's highly unusual," I mentioned with a frown. "You should be debriefing with Anne Gallowglass, my mother and nominal mission head."
 
"We're debriefing with her as we speak; this is parallel processing to make sure everything's happened faster. As Miss Elsa mentioned, your mechs gave us quite the shock."
 
I raised an eyebrow, noting they hadn't said anything about the fact I was still strapped with a pistol and knife in my chest rig. Whoever "Miss Elsa" was had a level of importance to get her here, but was not so important they'd get her out of the way of an armed mechwarrior. Interesting.
 
"It was a standard ten-year intelligence gathering operation. We spent most of it in the Federated Suns, and managed to get a mostly-legal dump of information out of NAIS, primarily based on their old prototype and research studies from the fifties. From there we picked up garrison contracts in the Outback, mostly fighting the Draconis Combine- that's where my Catapult and Mersies' Centurion come from. We got the rest through- well, that's probably not mission critical. What else do you need to know?"
 
"For the record, what day did you leave out?"
 
I snorted. "Bearing in mind I was twelve-ish? We departed Canopus on October 11, 3132."
 
"And when did you return?"
 
"Not counting the time we had to duck over into Liao space to send a copy of the NAIS list home, uh… Mersies, what day is it?"
 
"Should be January 22nd, 3145. That, or my Casio is wrong again."
 
"And you're three years late on a ten-year mission because of?" the colonel, Louis, asked. "Not that we're upset- you seem to have brought back more hardware than you started with- but we do need it for the books."
 
Major Palas shot the Colonel a look. I shrugged. MIM officers got a little carked in the head after a while. "Standard reasons, ma'am. Had to run out our contract and leave in good order, perils of scheduling jumpships, foisted some of the outside assets we had contracted as supporting elements with the Knights Defensor of the New Avalon Catholic Church so we wouldn't have any inconvenient tails past the Liao border… little crap that added up, basically."
 
"I see," Colonel Louis said, marking something on her notepad. "Did you bring back any LosTech?"
 
"Ehhh… yes and no?" I said, blinking. "We were'nt really relic-hunting, and I deliberately got the one Royal Crab we had sold off to the Goliath Scorpions. Considering they paid us its weight in Clan-spec stuff, I think it was worth the swap. The good stuff all came from our library trip to NAIS."
 
The Major, the Colonel, and the Child all popped a vein. "You sold… a Royal Crab. A fully functioning Royal Crab," Colonel Louis said, starting to reach out like she wanted to strangle me.
 
"Well, no, a shot to shit Royal Crab," I clarified, raising my hands. "We got six Clan-spec Extended Range PPCs out of it though, a Clan-spec RAC/2, and six Clan-spec Extended Range medium lasers. I think it was worth it, honestly."
 
"Clan-spec? Unless that means fucking magic, you're going to be in front of a tribunal for incompetence!" the Colonel spat.
 
"Fortunately for me, it does in fact mean "fucking magic" and I'll be happy to demonstrate. Those ER-peepers hit out further than LRMs, and as hard as a full-up Gauss Rifle or Heavy PPC from the Lyrans," I explained quickly. What were these gals so worried about a museum piece mech for, anyway?
 
"Did the Lyrans discover a stash of Gauss Rifles, then?" the Major asked pointedly. "Or anyone else, for that matter?"
 
Mersies blinked. "A stash? Hell, they were making them on New Avalon while we were there! We even got to see a Heavy Gauss Rifle test-firing, and that was terrifying!"
 
"A what?!"
 
"Heavy Gauss Rifle," I clarified. "A gauss rifle the approximate weight of a Locust, firing nearly a quarter ton of tungsten dart in a ferro jacket hard enough to be a class-twenty autocannon till about medium range on a medium laser, before drag gets in the way."
 
"And it stops, right?"
 
"Well no, then it just starts slowing down to regular gauss rifle levels of damage, and then it peters out at about ack-ten punch past where an ack-five shell stops."
 
There was a lot of swearing at that- real colorful stuff too. It even got bad enough the kid winced, her facade of confidence cracking, as she looked up at the Colonel. "Mom?"
 
"Don't worry, Emma," the Colonel said, shooting a look over at us. "Mama just needs a minute to come up with a plan."
 
"We got specs on the regular Gauss rifles, though," Mersies said, one ear flicking. "No demos or examples, but uh, literally all the documentation on the Federated-Barret model."
 
"Again, Colonel, we basically raided the entire NAIS library," I pressed. "We know how to build everything. Pulse lasers, LBX guns, double-strength heat sinks, Artemis systems, extralight engines, endo steel- whatever you want, we have the data."
 
"We'll- we'll need to confirm this," the Major said, rallying to some ideal of professionalism. The Colonel, hugging her daughter, had no such illusions though.
 
"Do you have any LosTech with you right now, then?" she snapped. At this point, I was getting really tired of the panic: she was a colonel in the MIM, for fuck's sakes! This was a big haul, but it wasn't some Third Succession War regiment-out-your-ass trick like the Capellans did every month! Hell, we knew everything the Shit League had put together a long time ago, back in the sixties, and we'd been building better!
 
Well, the Inner Sphere had been building better, to put the boots to the Damn Clanners, but you get my point. With the whole Trinity Alliance thing, we technically counted. A little.
 
Still, this woman'd gotten my blood up. "LosTech? I'll do you one better. You know how Neurohelmets suck, right?"
 
"Yes? There's been degradation since the Star League-"
 
"Yeah, we got rid of those altogether," I said, shaking my head. "Someone came up with a direct brain-to-mech system. It sucked, we fixed it because they were idiots."
 
"Then can you-" the Major asked, before I turned around and pulled my hair out of the way. I wore it long, in a single braid, and now it was in front of me as I played at the nape of my neck to take off a giant patch of faux-skin and tissue. Behind it sat the nearly inch-wide datacable port that connected to my medulla and the rest of my brian.
 
"Mersies has one too. These aren't one-offs, and we can and have put production models on every mech we brought home. I won't say it makes us magically better, but I've only been piloting a Battlemech for six years and I'm already an above-average pilot. Mersies' been in the cockpit for four, and she's just as good as I am. This tech works, and if you want to see it in action I'll happily let you ride the rumble seat and watch!"
 
Stopping for a second, I took a breath in, while the Major and the Colonel shot each other a look. Finally, the Colonel stepped up. "Then let's go."
 
I nodded. "Mercies, you want the Major or the kid?"
 
"I'll take the kid, my ride's more stable. Besides," Mersies said, looking over the Colonel. "Something's tickling my memory."
 
"Then let's go."
----
====Meeting with the Magestrix====
Getting back to my Catapult, I just pointed to the ladder dangling out of the cockpit. "After you, ma'am," I said politely. Moments later, Col. Louis started climbing, and for sake of politeness I grabbed the bottom of the chain ladder. Totally not to stare at her pert ass climbing up, no sir. Mama'd try and belt me one for that.
 
Once Louis was in, I followed up quickly. When I actually got to the cockpit, I could see my passenger sitting behind the pilot's seat, hands going towards the mess of cables that I'd be jacking into momentarily.
 
"Don't touch, please," I said, before peeling off the mostly-decorative skin flap and grabbing the main connector. It wa a piece of cake to pull the cover-cap on, slap a little lube on it, and plug it in- all six centimeters of it. Don't ask to look at my MRIs, they're a special kind of horrifying. Once that was done, I got the backup jacks and datacables set, strung them on my auto–tensioner, and turned around to hand the spare helmet to Louis as I got mine set on.
 
"You should wear this-" I said, blinking. Had she undone a few buttons on her uniform? I thought so, that was a lot more neck and collarbone than she'd been showing earlier. "-helmet," I tried to finish.
 
"Thanks. I don't ride in 'mechs a lot."
 
I shrugged, mentally firing up the reactor as I pulled my own, specialized helmet on and laced my fingers behind it. For demos like this, it was best to very obviously demonstrate what I was doing. As my Catapult's legs started slowly chugging us forward under taxi power, I smirked. As the engine got up to temp and my myomers started warming up, I breathed out deeply. This was my mech, and it was an extension of my body. As my walk finally got up to full extension and the reactor hit operating ranges, I chuckled. "So, Colonel, what do you want to see?"
 
"A weapons test," she said immediately, "but I'll take a sprint down the runway, maybe some jumps if you feel confident."
 
My laughter rang throughout the cockpit. "Hold on then," I warned, and broke into a sprint. Right behind me, Mersies slammed on the gas too, until I jumped on the horn. "Jumping! Jumping! Jumping!"
 
"Jump aye!" Mersies shot back, getting out from my six and moving to around four-thirty: still on my tail, but now in more of an en-echelon where she wouldn't catch backblast. Throwing my jumpjets wide open, I felt my mech shudder as the partial wings caught air, and then we were flying. It wasn't a huge jump, but it was longer than a stock Catapult or Shadow Hawk, so I was happy- so happy, that the minute the engine pressure got high enough, I did it again.
 
With my fingers laced behind my helmet, smooth as silk, as Colonel Louis was audibly losing her shit behind me and calling up people. Laughing, I called out another simple parade order: "Formation, right wheel! At the run!"
 
With that, Mersies slowed down and let me overtake her, running the outside of the loop. As we paced back to the dropship, I decided I needed to do one more trick. Slowing down to a sedate walk, I turned around in my chair and looked over Louis.
 
"So, you believe me when I tell you what this can do yet?" I asked, smiling. Predictably, I got the same answer as when I showed Mom this trick.
 
"Shouldn't you be looking where you're going?"
 
"I am," I said, lying as easily as I breathed. "Remember, a standard Medium Laser can backfeed into an optical device, so I've got two eyes staring dead forwards."
 
True- for certain models of medium lasers. You needed a good fiber-optic design, not one of the janky emissions simulated ones the Dracs liked because they lived in the stone ages. Also false, because I wasn't paying attention to that: I'd basically just sent Mersies a garbled straight-pipe out of brain emotional memo that read "keep an eye on me I'm showing off now" and she'd send me a "look out" noise back if I was about to trip over a tank or something.
 
Incidentally, telepathy transmitted by mech radio wave- something all four of us who had the Direct Neural Interfaces had privately agreed to never, ever, ever tell anyone who didn't have the DNI installed. That was the privilege of people who had to go through the surgery, and not the pikers who handled us.
 
Still- back to my passenger. "So while I've got you to myself," I said, smiling. "What happened to Colonel Rechamboul?"
 
"Excuse me?"
 
"What happened to Colonel Rechamboul? You've been hiding it," I said calmly, "and you're in my mech, where you can't hide it behind the Major being better at this than you. Did the Magestrix get pissed at her or something?"
 
"What? No, she's never heard of Colonel Rechamboul- and that's the problem!" Colonel Louis said, glaring at me a little. "I haven't heard of her, she's not on the books, the Magestrix doesn't know about her- that's the problem!"
 
Something twinged the back of my head, as Mersies sort-of hummed at me that we needed to stop next to the Leopard. Following her lead, we got into a decent spot and I stared grilling the Colonel harder. "That's a load of slop, the Magestrix's Ribbon needs the big lady herself to sign off on it. If you actually called the Magestrix, she'd be able to confirm it."
 
Biting her lip, Louis shook her head. "I hate it when field agents are smart enough to need a bump in their pay rates," she muttered. "Let me get back to Elsa, and we'll talk."
 
Raising an eyebrow, I visibly kicked over my com to record words, and piped the sound to the cockpit loudspeaker. "Mersies, how's little Elsa doing?"
 
"She found my stash of Takis and is regretting several life decisions, such as "trying to eat foods covered in spicy powder in a running mech," and "stealing a mechwarrior's food when you can't read the packaging" among many others."
 
Louis' face went white. "Is she okay?"
 
"I washed her eye out, she's fine."
 
"So, let's get you reunited with your daughter-" a definite hit there, score one for Nyan "-and then we'll talk. Debriefings go both ways."
 
"Yes, let's," Louis said, with a slightly melancholy smile.
 
Once we were on the ground again, "Elsa" went up to give "Louis" a big hug, her shirt still damp from the splatter of water. Mersies hadn't been lying, then. Getting back together with my right hand, I started expressively flicking my ears in a very abbreviated (and annoying) semaphore code.
 
"Kid okay?"
 
"Kid curious. Too clever."
 
"Ok"
 
With that done, I just looked over to Major Palas, who'd gotten Mom and Doctor Szeny out of the dropship- the two actual leadership-like people whom MIM had actually contracted the real work to, instead of the mechwarriors who existed to help sell a cover story. Mom's face was starting to pinken, a sign of both embarrassment and unhappiness- she never turned properly red, being too dark for it. Actually, now that I looked at Mom next to Colonel Louis, I blinked with surprise. Was that a bit of a family resemblance?
 
As the MIM officers talked to my officers, I got over to Mersies and elbowed her gently enough to get her attention. "Does the Colonel look familiar?" I asked, squinting.
 
"Not really? I mean, sure, she's hot and has the same hair as your mom, but that's a lot of people."
 
"No, like one of my aunts, or great-aunts."
 
"Yeah, but you didn't have any great-aunts in MIM. The highest up was… uh…"
 
"I mean if you want to be technical, we've got a direct bloodline link to the Centrellas somewhere," I mused, "and everyone knows that the blood of the Great Houses runs thicker than the rest."
 
"Okay, but can you remember any Centrellas serving with MIM of all places?"
 
"No…" I muttered. "Especially not any of the Liao-Centrellas."
 
That earned a twitch from the Colonel. Good.
 
"So we've got a hot woman who might be tangentially related to your aunt, and no other way to figure out what the fuck is up," Mersies muttered. "Fuck this, and fuck the bitches that don't want to explain."
 
Another twitch out of the Colonel, and an angry glare out of the kid. Weird.
 
"I think we should lay off on that," I muttered back. "She's probably married."
 
"Has that stopped us before?"
 
"Yes!"
 
That definitely made the kid happy, even if it was stained by a melancholy twist of her mouth. Good to know.
 
"So, sex aside," Mersies asked, "can you recognize her?"
 
"If I had my history book…" I muttered- and then it hit me. History book. "Hey, Elsa," I asked, pitching my voice to carry. "You're a smart girl, right?"
 
Wandering away from her mother, Elsa came over, with Louis only looking us over with one eye. "Listen," I asked quietly, "I've got some questions, and if you answer 'em right I'll share some of the new books we picked up in the Federated Suns for you, okay?"
 
"This is bribery," Elsa said with a raised eyebrow. "Huh. Nobody's tried to bribe me before."
 
"First time for everything, and you're gonna want to get used to it if your mother's in the MIM," I said lightly. "Anyway, just some history stuff. What mechs do they make at Detroit Consolidated Mechworks?"
 
"Detroit doesn't have a mechworks, though."
 
Strike one: Detroit was where most of the Trinity Alliance's mechs got made at. Kid could just be bad at geography, though.
 
"Speak any Mandarin?'
 
"No."
 
Strike two: anyone who was anyone could at least barge their way through a tea ceremony. I was actually fairly fluent in it myself, mostly because Merseies had agreed that I'd handle that and she'd learn Japanese. This kid's mom was a Colonel, she had a lot of very good reasons to learn it right there.
 
"Last question: who's the First Prince of the Federated Suns?"
 
"Hanse Davion. Has been since I was born."
 
Right, that tears it. Pitching my voice up, I glared at Louis. "Hey, colonel!"
 
"Yes? We're busy, Mechwarrior."
 
"What's the date? My chrono's fucked."
 
"October 22nd, why?"
 
"What year, though?" I pressed, "Since mine says it's 3145, and that ain't jiving."
 
"Tam, shut up," Mom hissed.
 
"Nah, see, there's a thing here Ma," I said casually. "It's 3145 for us. Clans came in, Devlin Stone fucked around Terra and broke Comstar so bad the HPG network stopped working, the fucking Clans came and kicked his ass to set up their Wolf Empire whatchamacalit, and we've been figuring out how to stab the Liaos just right to get out of the Trinity Alliance since forever. All common knowledge, of course. Any kid could tell you about it- except this one."
 
That's when the shoe dropped.
 
"So. Colonel Louis," I asked, "what year is it?"
 
Stone cold silence, that Mersies wasn't feeling any more tolerable of than I was. "Doc, you're chasing farts up your own ass again," she snapped at Szeny. "The kid told us Hanse Davion was on the throne in New Avalon. That means we're before 3050."
 
"And she doesn't speak a lick of Mandarin," I hissed in that language. "So we're before the Trinity Alliance."
 
"You're seriously jumping to time travel as a possible explanation of all this?" Major Palas asked, incredulous.
 
"It's the only thing that fits," I shrugged. "Otherwise, you'd be perfectly happy with trading a Shit League relic for Clantech- you know, the crazy bastards made up of the kids from Krensky's Exit Stage Left? Who somehow made better tech than even the SLDF?"
 
"The Exodus actually survived?" Major Palas said, shocked and horrified.
 
Mersies laughed. "Survived, thrived, and came back later to kick everyone's asses for not worshiping their damn spirit animal bullshit. And you don't know about them."
 
Sighing, Palas turned to Louis. "I warned you: field agents aren't to be underestimated, ma'am. Even the grunts."
 
"Especially the grunts," Szeny muttered, putting her head in her hands. "Ti Anne, I love you honey, but that's a terrible way to test a hypothesis."
 
Mersies, who liked her real name about as much as she liked being called late to dinner, just threw a rude Drac gesture at her mother.
 
"Listen, Colonel, we're all Canopians here, temporal displacement or not," I said, papering over the situation quickly. "Just tell us when we landed, and we'll shoot straight with you. While I can't speak to the eggheads, I am in charge of the combat compliment, and that's my loot in the dropper. The LosTech is all yours, we just gotta decide how to dole it out and with what warnings- and more importantly, the future history. An open book on who's who in the Inner Sphere: all yours, if you want it."
 
"And what makes you think we can't take it if we want to?" Colonel Louis asked, grinning.
 
"The scuttling charges," I said with a shrug. At the shocked and horrified look on their faces I groaned. "Fuck's sakes, we're spies! Of course the loot is rigged to blow! Even I learned that, and I never went to spy school!"
 
"Fine," Louis said, groaning. "It's 3022."
 
I blinked. "Well, fuck. That's… a century and change. Gone."
 
"Yep," Mersies said. "Which means we report to… uh… Magestrix Kyalla, or if it's before The Spat, then maybe her daughter Emma."
 
"It's '22, Emma'd be a kid," I argued. "That being said, Kyalla was a pretty savvy political operator, liked to have her hand on the pulse of the court and all the important things."
 
Now Louis and Elsa were looking at each other, like they were as telepathic as Mersies and I in the cockpit. That's when I had a realization.
 
"Mersies," I said, racking my brains as fast as possible. "Check my math."
 
"Certainly, Nyan."
 
"Emma was born in, I think it was '08-ish. It's '22. That means she's about to start Mechwarrior training, right?"
 
"Oh, absolutely."
 
"And we said we had mechs for sale or trade, didn't we, when we put out the open broadcast before we flashed our MIM codes."
 
"We did, in fact, say we had mechs to sell or trade."
 
"And it would be rather logical, if one was learning the Fine Art of Being an Important Heiress, to learn from your mother how to bargain for things, yes?"
 
"Naturally," Mersies said, looking at Louis and Elsa with flinty stares. "Why, I'd say it would be a wonderful exercise to bring a child, or even a teenager, to learn how one would make a large capital investment like a Battlemech."
 
"And we already determined that Colonel Louis is in fact related to the House of Centrella."
 
"We did indeed, Nyan."
 
"Alright, alright, you can cut the Watson and Holmes routine," Elsa said, rolling her eyes as the years piled onto her. When she wasn't putting on the kiddy act, it was remarkable how fast she turned into a young teenager- and putting her best foot forward, transformed into the princess we'd suspected her of being. "Mom, may I?"
 
"Well, our cover is blown, and you do need to work on your dramatic entrances," 'Louis' said. "Blow me away."
 
"In which case, the gig's up. Say hello to your beloved Magestrix, Kyalla Centrella, who is hopefully not going to seduce you two into the court and that nest of vipers, and myself: Emma Centrella, heiress of House Centrella and prospective mechwarrior."
 
"No promises, dear."
 
"Fuck you, Mom."
 
I shared a long-suffering look with Emma, as Kyalla lightly cuffed her daughter on the back of the head for the blatant lese-majesty. Parents. They did in fact suck.
 
"Well then, now that we've gotten the elephant in the room handled," I said, sliding towards the Leopard, "do y'all mind if I get to work on the Battlemech sales bit?"
 
"Yes, sure. Just, Tam, come here for a second please?" my mother asked, sharing a pained look with Kyalla. Shrugging, I came over, before she furiously grabbed my ear and twisted, pulling me down to eye level with her. "If you ever even think of making me loose face like this again," she hissed in Mandarin, "I will unfreeze your father's sperm, and continue the bloodline correctly this time! I put those fluffy ears on your dumbass head, and I will tear them off with my bare hands if I need to!"
 
"Yes Mom, Christ, ow, can you please let go?"
 
"Will you fucking behave?"
 
"Yes!"
 
"Like it's a tea ceremony in Tikhonov?"
 
"This humble son of the house of Gallowglass would like to apologize for any perceived wrongdoings, and humbly request his mistress' leave to entertain the guests!" I squeaked out, missing more than a few pitches from the pain.
 
"Good enough. Now, go sell off that Phoenix Hawk that Jakov bought. Useless thing that it is, we'll just replace it with a locally-made one."
 
"Yes, mother," I grumbled in Mandarin, before switching back to English. "Mersies, get the fancy tea set out please. Miss Emma, you are welcome to board the dropship so we may begin negotiations- with the good Madam Centrella's permission, of course."
 
"Naturally. You are dismissed, Nyan; and you too Emma. I'll be in a bit to review the deal and cut the check."
 
"As you wish, ma'am."
 
With that, I scuttled into the Leopard, Mersies and Emma right behind me. Once we were inside, I panted, making sure to get out of sight of the hatches before flagging someone down to tell them to set up the fancy tea set in the ship's tiny office.
 
"So," Emma said, smirking at me slightly. "Sell me a mech, Mr. Big Fancy Future Mechwarrior."
 
"I have a Locust in the back and I will try and foist it off on your mother if you give me too much shit," I threatened, before rubbing my ear. "But that's not for you. How'd you like the Centurion?"
 
"I want something faster," she said, smirking. "Can't kill what you can't hit, and I saw your and Mersies' tricks. I want that."
 
"It means getting cat-ears," I warned.
 
"I've been the perfect heir for too long, a little 'teenage rebellion' won't hurt."
 
"The comedown from the brain surgery is a bitch," Mersies warned.
 
"Oh and you think talking nine doctors around to get a change to your contraceptive implant isn't?"
 
"It hurts like a cast iron bitch in the cold," I warned.
 
"Both this planet and Luxen are low-snow planets. I can handle it."
 
I shrugged at Mersies. Mersies shrugged at me. Then we took her over to the Phoenix Hawk.
 
Standing tall and proud, the prongs of her shoulders nearly scraped the top of the hanger. On each arm was a laser blister and a long, pistol-like housing that was an easy attach or detach: PPC mounts, in this case Light PPCs. A Large Pulse laser filled the right arm's blister, while two ER Medium lasers loaded up the left. Meanwhile, in the center, was the beating heart of the mech: an extra-light engine, wrapped in an Endosteel frame, paired up with an Angel ECM. It was, in other words, the perfect scout mech- it never stopped shooting, it never stopped running, and you'd have a devil of a time killing it. That, plus the Interface Cockpit? She was a dream machine.
 
As I rattled all the stats off, Emma beamed at it. "I'm gonna drive it until they shoot it out from under me," she said, smirking.
 
"Good, because you don't get a choice," I warned. "If you're serious about this, you need to know something we didn't find out until recently: you bond to your mech."
 
"What?"
 
"The mech's computers get used to you, they work with you, and your brain grows used to it," I explained carefully. "Trying to switch is like putting on a glove missing the fingers. If you ever want to change rides, we'd have to custom-rebuild the cockpit."
 
"How'd you find out?"
 
"It's how we lost Tybalt," I admitted. "Went from the Locust to the Lao Hu we've been working on. Lasted about twenty minutes before he started bleeding from the face, and then he blew his own brains out. If we want to transfer someone, we need to salvage as much of the old DNI cockpit as we can."
 
"And it still hurts like a bitch," Mersies added. "It took me two months to get my Centurion more than just walking around drunkenly."
 
"That's a risk I'll have to take," Emma said seriously, before grinning at us. "Although, I'll need teachers to help with the new system. And it is traditional for the heiress to be made Duchess of Luxen, and I don't have a retinue yet…"
 
"This smells like politics." Mersies groused.
 
"Honey, welcome to the Magistry. It's always politics, and we're all mad here," Emma said, sighing. As one of the Actual Professional Spies brought you all a round of teas (and a pair of hastily-disguised shots of baiju for you and Mersies) Emma sighed. Grabbing the baiju, she dumped it in equal parts to all three tin mugs, and grabbed one at random. "To a long and fruitful time not being my mother, and to fucking over the first person we find that wants to mess with Canopus!" she said in toast. Laughing, Mersies offered another.
 
"To letting the Carrion Lords rot off their corpse-ridden thrones!"
 
"Would we count as that?"
 
"Nah, we're fine, that's only for people who want to conquer Terra."
 
"Phew."
 
Laughing, I raised my drink to seal it off. "To taking this second chance in time by the hands, and making sure those pisshats in Sian never get a chance to screw us over again!"
 
As our mugs clinked together, we all pulled at the hot black tea from the same planet I was cursing. Laughing at me, Emma grinned. "Alright, you'll have to explain that one to me."
 
"Why? We got books on it."
 
"Because," Emma grinned, "Everyone will have the books once the Magestrix gets her hands on 'em. I want the details they won't have."
 
"Oh hell, this is gonna be a story." Mersies muttered.
 
"Alright, so this whole shitshow starts when… uh… Clans?" I asked my lancemate.
 
"Nah nah nah, we start at the beginning of the beginning. Andurien Succession or bust."
 
I groaned. "This is gonna take all day."
 
"I've got time," Emma said, her smile growing wider as she ducked down behind the foot of her new mech. "Because I just saw the Magestrix and your people going up to the command area."
 
"Then we got time," I chuckled, sitting down. "So it all begins when Good Prince Hanse decides he wants to give his new wifey- who's your age ish, I think- the biggest wedding present in the Inner Sphere…"
 
----
Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
1