DMHT1

=Chapter 1=
==Dead Man's Hand: A Taste Of Ashes==
Bluebell, Sweet Water
Coventry Province
Federated Commonwealth
5th July, 3057
----
"Damn it!" Joker groaned, grabbing her pillow and holding it across her face to block the bright, dawn sunlight that was streaming in through the bedroom window.
She then yelped in surprise as the thin sheet covering her naked form was suddenly and unceremoniously pulled away.
"You gonna sleep all day?" a voice asked.
"After last night? That was the plan." Joker replied, her voice somewhat muffled, "Is there at least coffee?"
"There's coffee." the voice assured her, "I ain't that stupid: I know by now not to wake you without it."
Joker pulled the pillow down to protect the modesty she didn't have and smiled up at the man standing next to the bed with a steaming cup in either hand, wearing nothing but a smile.
"What did I do to deserve you?" she asked as she propped herself up on her elbows, "We really did celebrate last night, huh?"
"If I'd known our first anniversary would be like that, I would have asked you out sooner." the man sat down on the bed next to her and handed her one of the cups.
"You only asked me out to win a bet you had with your friends over whether or not I was a natural red-head." Joker took the cup and closed her eyes and she breathed in the rich, dark aroma, "Which you now know I am."
"That bet weren't nothing but an excuse to work up the courage to ask you to dance. You may not realize this, being a big-time Mercenary and all, but you can be kind of intimidating."
"Well, since we're being truthful, I had been trying to work up the courage to ask you to dance."
"Ain't we a perfect pair?" her lover asked, putting his free arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the top of her head.
Joker lent back against him, feeling the warmth of his body against her own and smiled contently as she sipped her coffee.
Alex Kobe, youngest son of a respectable local farming dynasty. A sergeant in the local Militia, and for the past year... someone she had grown to care for in a way she didn't exactly have the words for. Oh, sure, there was the obvious physical attraction. He was a year or so older than her, with a body forged from a lifetime of honest work, scruffy black hair and slate-grey eyes. And he had brains to go with his good looks, allowing him to quickly rise through the ranks of the militias support and maintenance staff having cut his teeth working on his families collection of IndustrialMechs. Even if Kelso hadn't been, in her words, bugging Joker to "do something before you go blind", she probably would have at least let him buy her a drink or two.
Truth was, Joker had little experience with the emotional side of physical relationships. She had realized, from a very young age that she had been blessed with a body that many men and women considered to be attractive. But this had brought with it a nagging voice in the back of her head, telling her that anyone who expressed an interest was only interested in sating their carnal desires. This in turn had led to a handful of brief, shallow and ultimately unfulfilling relationships, and certainly nothing lasting even remotely close to a standard year. Oh, sure a few had tried to take it further, but she'd always pulled away the moment it looked even remotely serious, less she risk getting hurt.
Somehow, Kobe had gotten past her defenses, and what she'd intended to be a brief fling to, well, scratch an itch, had ended with him giving her a key to his apparent, clearing out some space for her clothes in his wardrobe and dresser, and, most frightening of all... going to dinner with his parents.
Joker had faced the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of the Clan Invasion without so much as blinking, but for some reason had been scared shitless of sitting down to break bread with a farmer and his wife. There had certainly been some tension at first, given she was some off-world temptress, using her feminine wiles to entice their son into a tumultuous affair, when he should have been looking for a nice, local girl to settle down with and start pumping out the next generation of the family. Fortunately, they had picked up on just how genuinely nervous she'd been, and that had been enough for them to at least give her a chance. It had been, well, terrifying at first: having never been part of a family, Joker had zero experience to call upon when a large, close-knit family opened their home to her. She'd felt like she was exploring some alien culture, with so many people and their web of lives, relationships and experiences. It had been daunting, certainly, but the longer she spent there, the more comfortable she'd become.
But, hanging over it all, had always been a ticking clock. The contract Dead Man's Hand had signed to help train the local militia to deal with increasing pirate raids, now so many line and larger mercenary units had been moved to the Clan front, was somewhat open ended. They had taken it to give themselves some downtime between raids into the occupation zones, especially now that the Clans seemed to be getting wise to their tactics, making it just a little too hot for them to operate. But there was always the intention of returning to the front themselves, at some point.
Only thing was, Joker was starting to feel... conflicted.
Sweet Water had, for the most part, been able to sit out the chaos of the Succession Wars, with only the threat of pirates to guard against. A largely self sufficient word, while it had suffered the same general decline in technology and knowledge, leading to a number of massive arcologies to be abandoned and stripped for parts. But, despite all this, the world had managed to find a happy equilibrium, avoiding the total decline into near substance level agricultural that so many worlds on the edge of the Inner Sphere had descended into. It was no paradise, and the people had to work hard to maintain what they had, but they were happy.
So, when Kobe had casually broached the topic of Joker moving into his apparent on a more permanent basis...she had almost run for the proverbial hills. While she wasn't experienced with long-term romantic relationships, she was aware that they generally followed the same basic formula: meet, hook-up, become exclusive, move in together, get married, have kids, grow old and die.
Suddenly, rushing back to the Clan front and picking a fight had seemed like a brilliant idea!
What had stopped her was, well, she'd found herself strangely happy in a way she'd never felt before. Sure, she was close to her team, trusted them with her life and even loved them in a way, but she wasn't in love with them. Not in the same way she had found herself feeling for Kobe. Somehow, the idea of staying on Sweet Water, actually finding a home that wasn't a metal walled cabin on a DropShip, or tent in the field... hell, she was sorely tempted to tell him the name they had given her back at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Life no longer had to be one battlefield after another, until eventually her luck ran out. Life could be about actually living, and experiencing some of what she had missed out on.
Damn it, there she was, getting all emotional again.
"What are your plans for the day?" she asked, finishing her coffee.
"Well, some manic went and arranged for the Militia to receive a shipment of field upgrade kits for our 'Mechs and tanks." Kobe responded playfully, "So I have to go review a stack of technical manuals to work out what goes where. What about you?"
"Got a staff meeting with the others later." Joker looked at the alarm clock beside the bed, "Should probably hit the shower first."
Putting her coffee cup now, she reluctantly freed herself from his embrace and stood stretching to loosen up. She padded barefoot across the room, deliberately swaying her hips the way he liked before stopping in the doorway. Striking a provocative pose, she looked back over one shoulder.
"Care to join me?"
----
JumpShip Primae Noctis
Uninhabited System
Coventry Province
Lyran Commonwealth
5 July 3057
"Okay, scum, listen up!" 'Baron' James Doolally looked at his assembled crew, "We just got word that the militia on Sweet Water have gotten a shipment of now toys: ultra autocannons, ER-PPC's, pulse lasers, double heat sinks, the works. Leaving aside the danger of letting them keep these for themselves, just think of all the fun we could have with them in our hands!"
There was a rumble in laughter from the pirates.
"Now, our local contact says there's just a single lance of Mercs on-planet right now, but they're running with Clan tech. Which they got the hard way." Doolally continued, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't particularly want to rumble with someone who found a way to take on the Clans and chalk up a win, so we're gonna be all sneaky like."
He produced a crude map and placed it on the table before him.
"The militia and the Mercs are based here, in Bluebell." he circled part of the map, "They have secondary bases here in West Rock, and here in Spanish Fork." he added two more marks to the map, "Now, we know that the kits are still in the warehouse at the spaceport, so we need to draw them out of Bluebell so we can go in an grab them. So, Kiki, you'll take your company and land here, north of this river." he indicated a large, open area on the map, "I want you to slash and burn your way through the farms up there, make it look like we're going for their crops. Cause as much death and destruction as you like, but make sure someone lives long enough to get the word out. Once the they're on the move, the rest of us will hit the spaceport, grab the weapons and anything else we like the look of, then we all boost for orbit, leaving them chasing their own tails. Then, once we've refitted with all the new shiny, we come back and smash the Mercs flat and take all their Clan tech too."
"Like the plan, boss." Kiki DeWalt smiled, almost shaking with anticipation, "Gonna make those farms burn good!"
----
Ngo Megaverse Reference Page - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter
Category:Dead Man's Hand: A Taste Of Ashes Chapters
Category:Works by JA Baker