DRASCTIS 1

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=Die Rettungsaktion - A Story of the Concertverse Inner Sphere - Chapter 1 -=
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=== Praise from Family ===
Free March Army Bivouac
Medzev, Arcadian Free March
31 December 3033
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Word was spreading that the 1st Free March Cavalry were heading off-world. A mercenary unit from some minor contractor was already burning in and due to deploy on the day after New Years, at which time Mark and his unit would already be embarked and ready to launch. He'd heard a dozen rumors about their next destination. Some said they were heading back to Rexburg, others thought the Marik border, and yet others claimed to have heard this or that plan to commence an operation against the Marians.
 
He knew his parents would be ashamed to know that he was hoping it was the latter. Not only did they need to be stopped, Mark hoped he'd get a chance to help do it. Another opportunity to show what he could do.
 
A Christmas message from his parents played. It was affectionate, and kind, and virtually the same thing they'd said to him last year when he was on McAffe, and the year before that when the Cavalry were posted on Hyde. He wondered if they realized how similar each message was. How it made him feel, as if he were just a chore and not their son…
Don't blame them, Mark. They love you. You know they do, he admonished himself. 
He switched to another message, a simple text one sent via Kitzingen from Melissa's ship.''
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Got the promotion, brother. Let me know when you get yours! - Melissa
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Mark had to smile. Melissa deserved it as much as he did. Life on a carrier was hard, given all the zero-G and the conditions. How she puts up with it...
 
There was a knock on the door of the prefab officers' barracks room. Since he was the only officer currently present, he turned. Major Mnyampala stood at the door. "Lieutenant," he said. "Have the layouts done?"
 
"I do, sir," he said. "It's similar to how we packed on Rexburg. We'll be able to combat deploy right away, wherever we go."
 
"Good."
 
Mark couldn't hold himself back. "Sir, the Promotion Board, have you heard back?"
 
"We did." Mnyampala's face remained blank and Mark's stomach twisted. "You were rejected, Lieutenant. I'm sorry."
 
Now his stomach burned. Mark felt his jaw clench involuntarily. "I… was rejected? Even after my engagements here on Medzev? Or the fighting on Rexburg? My work on our embarkations?"
 
"Yes. There were only so many Captaincy slots open, and the Board's reply was that there were more deserving personnel who'd put in their time at Lieutenant. They've agreed to reconsider you in three months' time."
 
A raw fury built up in Mark's heart that all of his discipline failed to restrain. "Right. Of course. I'm only twenty-four, I've still got time, right? There've got to be deserving officers older than I am." But not in the Aerospace Forces, I guess, he groused mentally.
 
"Something like that."
 
"My brother was twenty-four when he made Captain," Mark said. "My sister, my twin sister, she just made Squadron Captain. And here I am, still below them."
 
"A lot of deserving personnel revealed themselves, and we've been fortunate that casualties among the company commanders have been light over the year's campaigning. Keep heart, Lieutenant. You might yet make Captain before your twenty-fifth birthday." Sensing his young officer wanted to remain alone for the moment, Mnyampala departed the barracks.
 
Mark turned back to his desk. Melissa's message looked back at him. Taunted him. Of course. Isn't that how it always goes? Melissa always gets her way first. It was a bitter thought and he chastised it as unworthy.
 
But yet the frustration, the resentment, it festered. What did he have to do to get the recognition he deserved? To be seen as the scion of Sara Proctor's line that he was? Did he have to charge a dozen Marian BattleMechs? Survive a week in the wilderness in SERE conditions? Conquer a world by himself? What did he have to do to be equal to his damned siblings?!
 
"I'll make it," he assured himself. "I'll be just like grand-uncle Jacob. I'll make it to the top!"
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=== The Fatigue of Ambushes ===
Near Mumbai City
Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
18 January 3034
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“Contact.” Came the call from Legatus Dashel Avery’s Assassin. Drusa’s hands clenched over the control stick of her Stinger. Seven months of near constant action had done nothing to diminish the sheer terror of combat.
“Two demolishers northwest, infantry in support.” The Legatus clarified and Drusa relaxed a little. That area was the 2nd cohort’s problem, not hers. She shook as much of the tension out of her hands as she could manage and pushed her Stinger forward down the 15th concession. Boris, an older man from Illyria, swept his way down the 16th.
 
This had been farmland once. The concessions separated the farms centuries ago, back when this was the most productive farmland on Bolan. It was long gone now, carved up into subdivisions that were then ripped out and replaced with condos. Now, those condos were barren husks at best, and piles of rubble at worst. Maybe it was the circle of life, and they would return to feeding the people one day soon?
Drusa wasn’t optimistic. In her experience, broken things had a tendency to stay broken.
 
She focused back on her sensors. The swarms of VTOLs had long since been swatted out of the sky, but the city was still crawling with infantry and Battlemechs. The commanders told them they were winning, but they’d been winning for seven months, four of them in this very city. How was it possible to win and yet still not make any progress?
 
Hell, this was her fifth time fighting down this very street. Two of them going the other way. She hoped it would be the last. It very nearly was.
 
“Drusa, Boris, above you!” Cornelia called out. She heard a wave of missiles from behind slam into the building to her left. She slammed the throttle forward, but the sound of mag boots on metal clanked around her. She pitched right, turned a corner, and drove straight for Boris. “Jumpers! Spray me!” She shouted as he came into sight. She saw jump troopers crawling all over his 'mech too and instantly began to blow them off with her machine guns.
 
Boris leveled his guns at her, then the back of his head exploded. The explosion tipped his Stinger forward and it collapsed in front of her. Drusa dropped her medium laser and grasped around, grabbing for the jump troopers. She grabbed one with her left hand and crushed the life out of it, then another with her right. Then, a wave of heat as the remaining jump troopers leapt away. She retrieved her and admired her captive for a moment. She’d been just gentle enough that the trooper was still alive, but they seemed to be writing in pain regardless.
 
Drusa stood there, staring at Boris’ mech until Cornelia’s Wasp caught up to them. “I’m sorry, then only came up on my sensors at the last second.”
 
“It’s ok, I mean, Boris and I missed them too.”
 
“Drusa….there’s something on the back of your head.”
 
Drusa froze and pulled her hands back from the controls. “Is it a breaching charge?”
 
“Uh, yeah, it looks like it. It’s smoking too. Centurion Reyes, check this out.”
 
“On my way. Patel, get up and high and act as lookout.” The Centurion responded.
Reyes’ Centurion approached from behind. Cornelia’s voice was cracking as words tumbled from her mouth. “What do we do? Should she bail? Can we get a bomb squad? Do we even have a b-”
 
Reyes reached forward, ripped the charge off and threw it. “Get on with it. Clodia, take Ivanov’s position, scout with Flavia.”
 
They did as they were told. Cornelia switched to a private channel. “That was fucking crazy! He could’ve killed you!”
 
“I...I….just, keep going.”
 
“But-”
 
“No, please, just, let’s go. Talk about it later.”
 
They continued deeper into the city. They’d been this deep once too, two weeks ago. It had been right in the heart of enemy territory. But it was just empty now. Something wasn’t right. It was too defensible, the heart of the government district, where they’d had plenty of time to prepare defenses. Drusa squeezed through a gap in the wall and paused to scan the area.
“This isn’t right.” Drusa said as she twisted her mech through the full range of motion. Something caught the corner of her eye. What looked like wreckage at first seemed far too solid to be abandoned. “Cornelia! Jump back now!” She turned on her own jets and landed just in time to hear a robotic woman’s voice chime with “BattleMech power-up detected.”
 
A pair of battered Wyverns followed them over the wall, which a Hunchback barreled right through. “Contact! Two Wyverns and a Hunchback.”
“HBK-2 or HBK-4P?” The Centurion responded.
“I didn’t see!”
“It’s a big fucking difference, Legionnaire! It’s also your job. Find out.”
 
An autocannon blasted a car-sized hole through the office building Drusa was hiding behind. “HBK-2!” She called as she took off down a side street.
 
“Right. Patel, we’re taking them head on. Clodia, Flavia, get behind them and pray to the Imperator for victory.” The Centurion charged into a hail of Bolanese fire. Drusa lost sight of him in the smokey rubble, but played her part, picking the heavier machines to pieces from the sides.
 
The close in fighting was brutal. The Bolanese were outfitted for city fighting, but their mechs hadn’t worked right even before the war. The heavier 'mechs exhausted themselves battering each other to pieces. When the shooting stopped, only Drusa and Cornelia’s mechs were still standing. Drusa broadcast their victory on the cohort-wide frequency, but no one responded. No response from the battalion frequency either. “Fuck these Bolan machines.”
 
“What do we do?” Cornelia asked.
 
“I’ve had enough for today. We go back to base.”
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They worked their way through the rubble, more carefully than they’d done so with a Centurion barking at them. It was quiet now, as expected, but the Bolanese were tricky. It wouldn’t be the first time they were ambushed by forces they’d bypassed on their way deeper into the city. Hell, it wouldn’t even be the first time today.
 
Drusa began to get complacent as the stadium they’d been using as their temporary mech bay and prisoner processing center came into view. It was still kilometers out, but the sight of what counted for home eased her mind.
 
That slip led her face to face with a one armed Commando as she turned a corner without waiting for Cornelia’s signal. Drusa snapped back to reality immediately and trained her laser on the Commando. Her eyes darted quickly around the scene. It should have been an awful matchup at short range, but a quick glance showed the 'mech was out of missiles and had deep laser burns across the torso. The Commando froze, it’s lone working weapon trained on her. Neither of them fired.
 
What had looked at first like a platoon of infantry were on second glance mostly unarmed. A small handful wore Bolanese uniform, but most wore the white tunics and collars of Marian slaves.
 
Drusa held her hands over the triggers that could end the lives of all of them. She and her Bolanese pilot stood there, looked in a standoff for what felt like an eternity before Cornelia’s Wasp landed on a lowrise behind them. “Drusa! What are you doing?”
 
“I can’t do it.” She whispered. “No, I’m not doing it.” She said, more firmly.
 
Cornelia sat in silence with them. The slaves began to hurry down an alley. The Commando turned and disappeared into the field of lowrise tenements.
 
“What the fuck was that?” Cornelia said after they had all gone.
 
“That would have been murder.”
 
“Do you know how much bounty we could have earned from bringing them in?”
 
“Yeah.”
 
“Ok, just making sure.” Cornelia was silent for a long time after that. “Drusa, I get it. You know I’ve always got your back. Just, please, don’t tell anyone. Let’s go home.”
 
They turned and headed back towards the stadium. The makeshift fortress was patrolled by an entire cohort of gladiators and at least a cohort of infantry.
 
“How the hell did they even get out?” Drusa mused to herself.
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=== Zero Hour ===
AFMS Liberator, Zenith Jump Point
Gypsum System, Arcadian Free March
21 January 3034
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The command of OpForce Tubman went to Vice Admiral Dame Julia Andros. For her part, the Concord native wasn't sure why she'd been tapped. The daughter of a family living in Kansas State on Concord, ambition and a desire to see foreign stars brought her into the naval college at AMSA, and now thirty-three years later - after years of everything from boring picket duty to commanding ships into action against pirates or other forces - she was a Vice Admiral and a Knight of the March.
 
And it all lead me to this.
 
Being on the command bridge of the Liberator brought back memories. Twelve years ago she'd been Captain of the Liberator for a 20 month stint before putting in time as a Naval College instructor and getting her first star as a Commodore. And like her successor, Captain John Campbell, it was the highlight of her career. A Star League era WarShip, it seemed to come from another, better age, even if people on Concord knew it to have been a tainted age.
 
Beside her, the commander of the ground element stood with a rigid back and a firm countenance. Major General Olivia Armstrong, Baroness of Briggs, was from the Arcadian nobility, even wearing her family's coat of arms as a sigil on her uniform depicting a roaring bear standing on two feet. She wore the red of the AFFM as if born to it, wearing her officer's sword even here on the deck of a WarShip. Her hair was still a rich yellow tone without a trace of gray or white yet showing. Normally she would be staying on the Liberator to serve as Chief of Staff to the whole force, but with six regiments and attached assets under the command, she would be transferring to the Galatine and landing when the time came.
 
"I want readiness signals from all ships," Andros said aloud. "Zero hour is here." She checked the timer. Five minutes left.
 
Over the next few minutes, the fleet checked in. The Liberator's sister ship, Guardian was fine, as were the three corvettes Harrier, Hawk, and Falcon and their carriers, Audacious, Reprisal, and Formidable. The plethora of JumpShips, military and hired civilian, had many more DropShips attached. Some were loaded with troops. The others had vital supplies aboard to fulfill their mission.
 
Last year we were on the offensive, swallowing world after world. I wonder what this year will bring. At least we have a better cause than expansion…
 
"Admiral, all vessels report ready," said her comms officer.
 
The ship's astrogation officer spoke up next. "Engineering reports a full charge in the K-F drives. We can jump at your mark."
 
We do this right. Not a moment too soon. "Jump on my mark."
 
The bridge filled with anticipation and tension as the clock ticked to zero. Everyone knew the stakes. What was on the line. They were ready to do their duty and get the troops where they needed to go.
 
The timer hit thirty seconds. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten… nine… eight…
 
At five, she took in a breath. At one, she spoke.
 
"Mark."
 
By the time the clock hit zero, energy was already surging into the Liberator's K-F drive. Everyone felt the familiar displacement that came from violating Einstein's laws before reality re-asserted itself.
 
Their destination system appeared on the central holotank. Andros didn't miss a beat in giving the order. "Commence entry burn, all ships."
 
The vessels maneuvered to the programmed course and commenced the ordered burn, keeping formation as they did so. Admiral Andros watched with satisfaction as the holotank updated to show their projected course intersect with the planned destination.
 
Bolan.
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=== Yet another War ===
Ducal Palace
Roslyn, Eastern Islay
Arcadia, Arcadian Free March
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The time difference meant it was the middle of the day for the March-Princess. Sara-Marie had a number of issues of state she should be handling, including planning for the year's Liberation Day celebrations and her imminent Speech from the Throne to the assembled Legislature.
 
But at the moment, all she could do was stare at the central holotank in her personal Military Operations Center in the heart of the palace. While red-uniformed AFFM personnel, mostly intelligence and analyst officers, went about their business, she watched the icons for most of the Free March Navy and what were the best regiments of the Army make the transition. One moment they were at Gypsum; the next, Bolan.
 
"Serene Highness."
 
She turned. Her cousin, Lord Alexander, stepped up beside her. His eyes were tight with worry. "Our children march off to battle once more," he said. A low sigh came from his throat. "Sometimes I think of asking Parson Howard just how it is that God can let things get to this point. Parents sending their children to fight and maybe die, all because a spoiled brat feels the need to conquer and enslave a people to prove his might."
 
"The Lord works in mysterious ways," she murmured in reply, knowing that their pastor, the white-haired Parson of the Palace, would say the same. She made a mental note to check in on him and seek counsel. "All we can do is pray that they come out safely, and that our efforts are not in vain."
 
"We worry ourselves sick over the Skye War, and who is it we first draw our swords on? A nation acting like the damned Romans." Alexander chuckled sourly. "Even now I worry that our calculations are wrong. The Marians may escalate this to all-out war, and while I tell myself it is proof they would have come for us anyway, well, sometimes I wish I might have talked you out of this."
 
"A part of me wishes you had. What of our other preparations?"
 
"The militia overhaul continues. The fissioning of our existing brigades is complete and we are employing hired transport assets to re-deploy them across the March, although most of our activity will come once this operation is complete and we can disperse the transport fleets to accelerate re-deployment. As for other matters, Colonel Sinclair is hard at work on establishing the new Striker Regiment on McAffe, and Brigadier Lockhart already has the First Cuirassiers set up to occupy Fort Defiance until the return of the Arcadian Guard. The battalion of Black Knights the Defense Works constructed last year will serve as familiarization training for the MechWarriors of the regiment until the other machines for the unit arrive."
 
"And the Bolan troops?"
 
"Colonel Jackson is taking a portion of the AMSA training cadre to Gypsum to train their battalions up to standard while the upgrade kits are applied to their machines, and we have orders to build line-quality BattleMechs for the regiment of Bolan MechWarriors who got to our space. We'll be raising new support units to join them all at the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, the Bolan Hussars, the Bolan Rangers, and the Bolan Cavalry Brigade will be added to the rolls on the first of next year, the same as the First Cuirassiers and the Eighth Striker Regiment. Additionally, that fighter wing that got away is being assigned to the Free March Cavalry for the time being, bringing their aero group up to full strength as we now consider it."
 
"And the other militia forces who escaped?"
 
"We've organized them into the First and Second Bolan Irregulars, they will be garrisons on the new border with the Hegemony," he replied succinctly.
 
"Thank you," she replied, grateful for the chance to speak of something other than the fear on her mind. Her eyes, however, could not pull away from the lit up dot of light on the tank that represented Bolan. Almighty Jehovah, Lord of Hosts, I pray to You to stand with our armies as they fight in a cause worthy of You. In Your name, Amen.
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=== Surviving for sake of lost Comrades ===
Planetary Defense Command, Bolan City
Bolan - Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
21 January 3034
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Princess Amita Umayr, Heiress-Apparent and currently Regent for the small, pitiful remains of the Principality of Bolan, climbed down from the cockpit of her family's wrecked Phoenix Hawk LAM with death in her heart and on her mind. Death was their only future, it seemed. Either the death of body and mind, to move on in whatever cosmic joke existence brought forth for Humanity, or the living death of slavery, of being reduced to a piece of property. Being chattel.
Her feet hit the ferrocrete of the PDC 'Mech hangar and she looked up toward the machine her family inherited from the fallen Star League. The Phoenix Hawk LAM was a rare machine, a BattleMech that could transform into an aircraft and back, but this one wouldn't be doing transforming any time soon. The delicate conversion machinery was damaged by fire from the Marians, or rather their Boyz Movers mercenaries, and the parts needed to fix the machine were lost to the Marian advance. Given the state of things, she shouldn't even be piloting the machine, barely-armored wreck that it now was, but it was still one of the relatively few 'Mechs capable of walking and firing thanks to its energy complement.
The hangar once held an entire battalion of the First Principality Guards. Now it held about a company and a half. Lieutenant Choudhury's damaged Commando was to her immediate side, and Captain Khan's Warhammer on the other was missing both arms. Their MechTechs worked feverishly on both trying to fix them, but parts were getting as low as food. Even fuel was going to be an issue soon.
The Marians have us. We can't win. But to surrender, after all this… to waste all of those lost lives, and commit myself to those damnable pens where my parents and brother are kept. She wanted to cry at the cruelty of it all, but her upbringing kept her locked down. She couldn't. Not in front of her troops. Not with the few remaining men and women fighting to protect their world and their comrades from these Periphery bandits with delusions of civilization.
 
She entered the locker room, put up her cooling vest, stripped the sweat-soaked clothing off, and took to the showers. The water was barely lukewarm. The reactors were at fifty percent capacity to save fuel, and the hot water heater was one of the bits where they were making that power stretch out. Feeling the chill on her dark olive skin made her miss warm baths in the palace, as much as she'd disliked living there instead of in the field. But she made the best of it, using the sliver of remnant soap in her things to wash off.
 
Once done she left the stall, one towel draped around her torso to cover her from below the shoulders to the middle of her thighs, the other holding her damp black hair to dry. She took a seat on a bench and thought of her family. Jagdish was alive, they said, in the slave pens with their parents, while Rama was here, an eighteen year old boy whose dreams of martial glory were now a horrific nightmare. Lalitha was safe, offworld, probably on Arcadia by now. Word came from ComStar that Duke Constantin's world of Gypsum successfully transferred their allegiance to the Free March and that the Marians, aside from a mild protest through their allies in the Kashamarka Antisuyu, were respecting that. A free Umayr line, although her children will be Marghilomans, not Umayrs. But still free…
 
Should I kill myself? Just… take a bullet and end it? Spare my family the dishonor of whatever awaits me on Alphard, under that spoiled brat playacting a Roman Emperor? ...no. Whatever else, I am kshatriya. I am a warrior and I will not abandon my comrades in such a cowardly way. If we die, we die together in battle with the foe.
 
"Amita!"
 
She turned toward the exit of the locker room. Rama rushed in wearing the one-size-too-big military uniform they'd found for him. He was supposed to be starting his military education. Would have, if the Marians hadn't come. They shared the same shade of green in their eyes while Rama was of a lighter skin tone. Facial hair was growing on his chin, although not with consistency. "Amita, you should come."
 
Her first thought was that the Marians had penetrated their defensive line, and that the final destruction was upon them. Or maybe her officers were losing heart and ready to surrender. "Why?"
 
"A fleet of ships just jumped in system!" Rama cried out. "We're saved!"
 
No. It was foolish. The Marians were rotating troops in and her overeager brother was grasping at a false hope. That was what it had to be. Nothing else would happen, nobody else would come…
 
...would they?
 
For a moment she let herself hope, enough that she stood. "I'll get my uniform and join you." He remained a constant buzz of excitement while she got dressed in the tanned uniform of the PBAF, taking care with the insignia marking her as a Captain of the Principality Guard. She felt the eagerness and hope around her as they journeyed to the command center, but dared not let it take her over. Someone would have to bring them down from their disappointment.
 
At the entrance she was saluted. Lord Raju and Lord Indra, the two generals not dead or captured, stood by the holotank in the center of the room. The power flickered briefly before a technician zoomed in on an image coming in from a perimeter satellite out at the Bolan Nadir point.
 
A gasp came from Amita's throat. There were a lot of ships. More than Bolan could possibly still have. More than the Marians were said to have. Could it be? Are we getting aid at last?! "Are we getting a communication? Do we have IFF codes?"
 
"Checking now… confirmed." The young woman looked up from her station. "Codes are coming in. Highness!" the tech looked up and Amita could see the hope on her face. "Arcadian IFF codes, Highness."
 
The perimeter satellite took time to relay the visual. It showed a formation of combat vessels. Amita felt her heart swell at the sight of two Star League-era vessels and a pair of what looked like Arcadia's corvettes. Two aerodyne-like DropShips of significant size accompanied them with a screen of Lightning and Zero aerospace fighters. Numerous DropShips came up in the rear, spheroid and aerodynes, including a large one that looked like a Fortress-type ship. Toward the rear another corvette and carrier DropShip watched the van.
 
They came, she thought. They… they actually came! Hope swelled inside of her. A force that large, the Marian Navy couldn't fight that. And they must have five regiments at least!
 
"Do we have active communications?"
 
"We don't have access to an HPG to reach them, so radio only. It'll be hours before we get a reply."
 
"Let me know when it comes."
 
----
 
Five hours passed before Princess Amita got the call. She returned to the PDC's command chamber and received a printed note. The contents made her brow furl. "They want us to prepare for an evacuation?" She glanced at Lord Indra. "What is this? Aren't they coming to drive the Marians off of Bolan?"
 
"I discussed the matter with General Vajpayee before we received the message. One of the possibilities was that they did not come to drive the Hegemony off but to extract the royal family and our surviving troops," Indra replied.
 
"But… why? With their forces we could force them out!"
 
"For now, perhaps, but in the long term? The Marian Hegemony has no other borders requiring significant defense and a larger number of line units than the Arcadians. They are already taking a risk coming to our aid as they are. They are unlikely interested in fighting a wider war."
 
"So it will be for nothing!" she shouted. "All they're doing is giving us the means to retreat, to become exiles! Bolan will still fall and this, our comrades' deaths, will be for nothing!"
 
"Hardly, Highness." Indra's voice was harsh. "They are our last hope, and I'm taking it. I've already given the order to prepare for the evacuation and to halt all counter-raids on the Marians. We'll preserve our lines against any renewed attack and await Arcadian rescue."
 
She narrowed her eyes. He was her superior officer in the military, but as she was acting Regent (for what little was left), she had political authority he lacked. She could countermand the order. If I didn't mind undermining our remaining troops. "So we run?"
 
"No, we survive," he said. "Our comrades' deaths will not be in vain, as we will get off this world with you and your mother and your brothers. The Umayrs may go into exile, but in exile they will be a symbol of resistance to Marian occupation. In time, with aid from the Arcadians and others, we might yet return. It is a damned better alternative than surrender and you know it, Highness."
 
Amita bit into her lip. It's not good enough! Our people deserve more! They deserve better! But deep down, she could see his point. We live to fight another day, just as we are already doing. Survive today to keep the hope alive of winning tomorrow…
 
Very well. That is our duty, and I will see it through. It is the only way to honor my comrades now.
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=== Preptalk ===
Gladiator Headquarters, Bolan City - Bolan
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Cornelia paced back and forth through Princess Aahana Memorial Stadium. Her footsteps echoed throughout the cavernous halls meant for thousands. Drusa sat on a bench instead, next to the private box that served as Legatus Avery’s office. They’d been waiting an hour already. Cornelia hadn’t stopped the entire time.
 
“What the fuck does he even want?” Cornelia muttered for probably the fifth time in as many minutes.
 
Drusa suspected the answer, but didn’t want to voice it. She figured Cornelia did too, even if she was too afraid to name it.
 
“Why’s he making us wait?” Cornelia continued.
 
“Part of the punishment?” Drusa offered with the first words she’d said since they’d arrived.
 
Cornelia stopped and stared at her, her face a look of disgust, though Drusa couldn’t tell if it was directed at her or the Legatus. “Fuck me.”
 
“I don’t think you need to ask, I think the Legatus has plans for that.”
 
“This is serious, Dru! What is wrong with you?”
 
Drusa spread her arms and shook her head. “You know how I get when I’m stressed.”
 
“It’s not fucking helping.”
 
“So, what does help? Wearing a rut in the floor sure doesn’t seem to be doing you much good.”
 
“Can we talk about it, finally?”
 
“I think that’s already on the to do list for today, given the meeting-”
 
“Stop it. Just, try, please. You know what I mean. We need to talk. Why did you do it?”
 
She’d grappled with the question for days since she’d let the Bolanese escapees go. She didn’t understand why at first. It just hadn’t feel right. But nothing about war ever felt right, just necessary. The next day, with time to process, she’d come up with lots of reasons. Mercy, honour, the rules of war. They all made sense, but nothing of them felt right. She wondered if it was just her mind trying to rationalize illogical choices with whatever logical justifications she could come up with. She wanted to explain it all to Cornelia. She wished she had the words to do so. All that came out was. “I just couldn’t do it.”
 
Cornelia slapped her hands to her face and groaned.
 
The worst reason though, was the one she suspected was right: empathy. Life on Pompey was hard, almost unbearable for a poor pleb. How bad was it for the slaves? How could she condemn someone to a life of utter misery like that? An enemy killed in cold blood, sure, fine. That’s war. But to do that to a fellow human being?
 
“Dru, please. Think, really think about this. There’s a reason.”
 
“I just...I just couldn’t. I can’t really explain it.”
 
“Try! We have to tell him something!”
 
“How does he even know what we did?”
 
“I don’t know, he just does! What else could this be for?”
 
“Promotion?” Drusa said with a shrug and a nervous laugh.
Cornelia shoved Drusa’s shoulder against the wall. “This is fucking serious! There’s ten thousand kids on Pompey alone that would literally kill for our mechs, and millions more around the Hegemony. We need to have an answer. I’m not going back!”
 
Drusa searched her mind for the right words. They wouldn’t come. Cornelia stared, unblinking, unflinching, into her eyes. She was furious, but her eyes seemed to be pleading for an answer.
 
The Legatus’ assistant rescued her from having to answer, for now anyways. “The Legatus will see you now.”
 
Legatus Dashel Avery didn’t look up from his computer screen. The two stood at attention in front of him as he worked his way through whatever was on the screen. The assistant came back with a cup of coffee. Only when it was one did the Legatus address them. “You know why you’re here?”
 
Drusa spoke first. “No, sir.”
 
“Yeah, you do. That was a statement, not a question.”
 
Drusa glanced towards Cornelia.
 
“Look at me, not at her.” The Legatus said with a stern, but still calm voice. “Your new Centurion’s report was incomplete. I’ve already spoken to her, and she says she included everything you said about the action on January 18th. Second chance. What did you leave out?”
 
It was a bluff, Drusa hoped. He might not know. But she knew Cornelia would say it, and that the guilt from it would fester between them if she did. Drusa spared her and spoke first. “We encountered a damaged Commando with at least twenty infantry, many of whom appeared to be escapees from the processing centre. We failed to engage them.”
 
Avery nodded. “Good first step. Next step, why?”
 
She reached for the right words, words that would convince him, but nothing came. The seconds were slipping by and she knew he wouldn’t wait long. “I couldn’t do it. I think it’s awful what we do to people, forcing them into slavery. My dad saw what happened in the mines. The stories he told, they were horrific. I wouldn’t condemn them to that sort of life.”
 
Drusa stood in agonized anticipation every moment as Avery took a moment himself before replying. “You know I grew up on Canopus. Do you think it’s easy for me to do this? Everyone is free on Canopus, freer than anywhere else in the galaxy. I don’t like enslaving people either but it is my job. With the choice of this or starving on the streets, I chose to work.”
 
“I joined to protect the country, not enslave-”
 
“No, you joined because your life was grinding you into nothing and you wanted out. The Hegemony doesn’t care, because they let you join because they want you to take slaves to keep the gears of the economy grinding on. This is your job. This is exactly why you exist. Now make peace with it. If this happens again, it could be you wearing a white tunic and chains.”
 
He turned to Cornelia next. “Do you feel the same?”
 
“I just wanted to support her.”
 
“She doesn’t outrank you, and you were both under standing order to destroy the enemy and take prisoners where possible. You failed to carry out those orders. If she fails to carry out her orders, then it’s your job to ”
 
“I’m sorry sir, It won’t happen again.” Cornelia squeaked out, her eyes downcast. “May I ask a question, sir?”
 
Dashel nodded.
 
“How did you know?”
 
Avery turned around the monitor for his computer. It showed the standoff on a loop. “Every MHAF mech has cameras, several of them, built into it. Always have, always will. Most militaries do it. Not everyone checks it, and those who do not all the time. But your Centurion’s report says you managed to finish off a Wyvern and a Hunchback after the rest of the Maniple was destroyed with a pair of the lightest, shittiest mechs in the Inner Sphere. People call those things bugs for a reason, heavier metal swats them like buts. That’s impressive, and the film backs it up. I think to myself ‘maybe one or both of these pilots should be put on the track to Centurion herself.’ So I keep watching. And then I see this, and suddenly, I’m in this position. I don’t like this position. I’m a gladiator, not a babysitting, not a school teacher with a ruler. Shape the fuck up, or I’m sending you back home. If it hadn’t been for your exemplary action earlier in the day, and in the rest of the tape I pulled from earlier actions, you’d be out on your asses already.”
 
“Get to know your mechs better too. Work with your MechTechs, learn from them, ask question. You should know every square inch of your mech by now, and the fact you didn’t see the cameras earlier tells me you’ve got a lot of hours to log-”
 
An electronic siren screamed.
 
“Fuuuuck.” Avery said as he shot up and dashed for the door.
 
“Legatus! What’s going on?”
 
“Something just jumped into the system. For that alarm to go off with that tone, something big.”
 
“What do we do?”
 
“You? Go talk to your MechTechs, learn your machines, like I already fucking told you. And try not to have an aneurysm over the next week from the stress of knowing a real army is about to drop on your head. Me? I’ve got a lot of shit to do to make sure we survive when they get here.”
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DRASCTIS 1