TLR Chpt 3

frameless|right|300px|link=The Lucky Regiment
<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
==Chapter 3 - The Lucky Regiment1.3==
----
Coromodir VI, Aurigan Coalition - 1st November 302209:15 hrs - The VIP lounge of the Cordia City spaceport
Even now as an adult she was still awed by the sight of the dropships coming in. The great blast of fire from the fusion drive that slowed the descent was a reminder of the greatness that all humanity was once capable of. Now it was yet another technology the Reach could barely maintain let alone build more of.
 
As she stared out the window at the descending Union drop ship she recognised a familiar set of footsteps. She turned and smiled.
 
"Raju, what brings you here?"
 
"I'm collecting a new sparring partner for you and Kamea." She laughed gently, Raju was as good a tutor as could be found in these parts, and something of a father figure to her.
 
"I'm up for a challenge, variety is as they say the spice of life." Who knew he might even be good looking.
 
"He's an old student, I trained him as a teenager before I came back home." Raju was a true son of the Reach, after doing his time in the Royal Guards he had been a family tutor on one of the Federated Suns worlds. She was sure the pay had been better there, but when Kamea's father had asked him to come back to train Kamea and herself he had done so without hesitation. "He's bringing a Blackjack, it should keep you on your toes."
 
"Sounds like a crowded hull, I'm supervising the collection of a pair of Commandos and a Wasp for my father."
 
"Expensive"
 
"He says it's not as expensive as not having them, the piracy has been getting worse."
 
"I know, it's why I'm training you hard, things are building up to another pacification campaign." She knew the last big one had been costly, and that suspicions remained about where the pirates had really come from.
 
"Looking forwards to it." She was thoughtful for a moment. "Raju, if you don't mind, could you help me inspect the mechs, I'm pretty sure I can manage with my father's mech tech." She looked over at a sleeping figure in an armchair. "But an extra pair of eyes couldn't hurt."
 
"Of course, my Lady, I'd be delighted to."
----
Federated Suns - MIIO Black site, interrogation room 7June 11th, 3026 - 13:00hrs
"When did you meet Major Blackadder?" This wasn't the first time they'd asked about him, God knew why, he was clearly employed by them. Kamea may have been his current formal employer but she was sure Kamea wasn't where his ultimate loyalties lay. Loyal employees don't hide valuable prisoners in a store room and then ship them off to the MIIO on a supply run.
 
 "The Coromodir main spaceport, he signed on with one of the local mercenary companies, but since they were on an offworld job he and a colleague were subcontracted to Raju to act as Opfor for the training of Lady Arano and myself for six months."
 
 "The Colleague?"
"A Capellan called Dekker, somehow he had gained ownership over an old Spider, fairly good pilot." The officer scribbled a few notes and looked at others, it was something they had talked about before.
 
"Any idea on his background?"
 
"If you are asking if he was a spy, I don't know, if he was that knowledge is buried with him."
 
"Can you tell us about your relationship with Major Blackadder?"
 
"Is this relevant to anything?"
 
"Yes, I can tell you it is in your interests to answer truthfully."
 
"You have said that before, I can't say I have noticed any difference in my treatment." The barbed comment struck home, she recognized the awkward look her interrogator sometimes had when she embarrassed him.
 
"I'm not at liberty to give you details, but there have been some external changes to your circumstances." That didn't tell her much, the spectrum of outcomes ranged from her father being defeated to Kamea's rebellion being crushed. And even then given her location her fate was still uncertain in any of those cases.
 
"Well, he kidnapped me and hid me away on that antique ship guarded by his goons, then handed me over to you for what I assume was a financial consideration." That was possibly unfair as he had also ensured that Kamea didn't get her hands on her, he might very well have saved her life or at least prolonged it.
 
"Perhaps you could take us through how you met him, we'd like to understand your history a bit better." She looked at him carefully, trying to work out what their angle was this time. Her father had arranged many interrogations, it had to be said she was deeply grateful the Federated Suns were using different tactics. She'd seen the broken husks of childhood friends after his men had done their work, their minds just weren't quite there any more. It just wasn't possible to unsee such things, alcohol only did so much.
 
She looked at the lie detector and thought of the misery she had been through after her father's coup, especially the guilt about her childhood friends and others she had killed at her father's command.Those months before the coup really had been the best days of her life, if only there had been more of them. "Alright, we sparred together, we partied together and one thing led to another. I guess at first it was just a bit of rebellion against my parent's plan to arrange a dynastic marriage." Edmund despite being well born had no estates to his name, though she had to admit given his successes on the battlefield and her father's lack of them that imbalance might well reverse. "He was on the just the right side of unsuitable to properly annoy my parents, but I also came to love him, it was a bit unfortunate given later events." She didn't like to admit it but despite the fact he had captured her after personally disabling her mech, she still had feelings for him.
 
The Intelligence officer smiled, who knew what horrors lurked in his love life. "I see, do you think he minded when you shot at him?"
 
She suddenly felt weak, very bad memories flooding back. Perhaps he noticed her reaction on the lie detector. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to spark those memories."
 
"It's okay, I guess some things are meant to be a burden." Memories of the death of Raju, Dekker and what she thought at the time was demise of the man she loved still haunted her. She knew she had let down the handful of people down who had actually seen her as a friend and not a means of social advancement.
 
"I'll have the padre come see you afterwards."
 
"Thank you." She had wanted to say 'that won't be necessary', but in the absence of drinking and/or sleeping pills he was the next best thing. Incarceration had doubled up as rehab in her case,
 
"Are you fit to continue?" An easy answer would be no, but something about the fact he had seen fit to ask was adding to her suspicions that this wasn't a normal interrogation and something was at stake. She never knew who was listening behind the mirror, but she had a hunch she was being evaluated very differently today. It might not even be just about her father's false flag operation.
 
"Fit enough"
 
She recognized a slight look of relief. "I'll phrase it differently, how did you react when you had to fight your boyfriend?"It wasn't really a fair question, as it certainly hadn't been planned that way, if anything she had done her best to ensure he was out of harm's way.
 
"Badly, I had managed to sabotage several of the mechs in Kamea's entourage, but he and Raju had fancy inner sphere anti tampering systems." That and Edmund and Dekker were not supposed to be there as escorts anyway. "Honestly I'd emptied the contents of my stomach before the ambush, and was terrified. Raju was my role model and Kamea a friend, but you know how it is, you saddle up and do your duty, and pay the price later." He saw a sad nod, and not play acting to build a rapport either. "Anyway like most battles it went to s*** straight away, Dekker and Edmund were sent on a flanking move after Raju got suspicious along the road. We had to fire at both when they stumbled on top of our position, but whilst the others hit Dekker's Spider hard, I just couldn't do it. I torched a bunch of trees with my salvo and my wingman didn't have the range to do much." It wasn't her best shooting, she'd hesitated with the shock at seeing him and then fired as he jumped. She really hadn't expected Edmund or Decker be there, both had been invited to the Espinosa box to see the procession, and because she wasn't there either she hadn't known to worry about their true location.
 
She looked into the corner of the room for a while, trying to suppress the worst of the memories. "I was able to remotely shut down two of her escorts, but Kamea, Raju and Edmund were still operational and quickly knocked out both tank platoons." She paused and had a sip of water. "It got a bit messy after that, you see Kamea's boyfriend managed to redirect a drop ship towards her."
 
"I see"
 
"After that we had to rush them, Raju died holding us off whilst Edmund and Kamea made it to the DropShip. My father's fighters picked off the DropShip in the air." And in doing so destroyed one of the precious handful owned directly by Aurigan Reach, so much for strengthening the Reach. "At least that's what we thought at the time." She left out the ungentlemanly crippling of the legs of her mech by Edmund, it really didn't reflect well on her that he had managed to do it to her twice. Memo to self, stay away from Edmund when he was in a Blackjack or a Rifleman, and don't get in a mech with a hangover.
 
"So what happened?"
 
"A few hours later when things when things were a bit calmer we found the 'mech tracks leading to where Markham's Marauders had their Leopard hidden, Raju had organized it through Edmund. That one and a number of merchant Dropships all fled together, we just didn't realize in time." She shrugged, as if to say mistakes happened in war.
 
"Was your father disappointed?"
 
"I think he had calmed down by the time I sobered up the next morning, but he didn't take my refusal on the Perdition business well." Life had gone south pretty fast after that, her father noticeably shifted his trust to her younger brother and after the mopping up operations she was sent to Anvelt to manage the import of weapons from Taurian Concordat. She still wondered if her father ever really understood what he had tried to turn her into.
 
"Why did you refuse his instructions?"
 
She knew she should have said the Ares Conventions or the obvious immorality of targeting civilians of a neutral power. Text book reasons in either case. "After the death of my boyfriend, Raju and all the others at my hands, he just acted like nothing had happened, as though none of it mattered." She found she had balled hands into fists without thinking and tried to relax. "My mother and father even started talking about who I should marry to 'secure the peace', so when he asked me to perform that special task I had the mother of all temper tantrums." The MIIO padre had said her reaction was nothing to be ashamed of, sometimes you did what you had to do to avoid becoming even more of a mass murderer. It was some consolation, but it wasn't easy knowing you would probably never talk to your family again even if you got released. "I'm sorry, if it's all right I'd like that break now."
 
"I understand, I'll get some food arranged in your quarters, we can resume in a few hours."
----
In the observation area on the other side of the two way mirror
"Well, Gentlemen?" Lady Alexandria was looking at the two Taurian intelligence officers with a fair degree of curiosity.
 
"She's damaged goods, but it's putting things in a new light. I look forwards to the next session."
 
"It's taken a lot of work to bring her back to this state, she only started opening up quite recently. I don't want to promise anything we can't deliver."
 
"You did well, and on a personal level I respect the good treatment, not all of the Inner Sphere would have behaved this way." That was perhaps the understatement of the year.
 
"She appears not to have committed any crimes in our territory, it's awkward we are even holding her." She got a chuckle out of that.
 
"Her father will need to face justice at some point, but we'll need more evidence."
 
"We only really have her testimony for now, the rest isn't concrete enough for much. Still I'm authorized to give you a redacted copy of our case file on the incident on Perdition." She knew much was removed that could identify any MIIO assets, the Taurians would understand but the utility value dropped significantly once those segments were removed.
 
"That would be appreciated, who knows it might fill in some gaps at our end." The man looked thoughtful as he watched the prisoner being quietly escorted out of the interrogation room. "Could we speak with her, Padre?"
 
"Yes, but I believe he is required to not disclose his pastoral conversations with her to us or yourselves."
 
"Understood, we'll settle for his views on her credibility." The officer looked pensive. "The Protector will be interested in your long term plans for her."
 
"I anticipate some form of witness protection, I don't believe she would be available for a trial, but it is possible you would be able to ask her further questions if the security or diplomatic situation warrants it." She got an understanding look, the pair had clearly been chosen as they were pragmatic.
 
"I'll brief him his window for follow up questions is narrow, he'd probably rather a public testimony, but I think he will accept that her mental state would make that too risky."
 
"Please do, she really isn't in a condition to be a credible witness in a public trial, she can decline quite fast with the wrong topics."
----
<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
3