FaRtaL Chpt 5

==From a Ristar to a Lady - Chapter 5 -==
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Innerman City, Inman
Milligan PDZ, Woodbine Operational Area,
27th January, 3061
0000 hrs (1600 hrs on local 28 hr cycle)
Anastasia dreamed.
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She was back in the sibko, together with the remaining kits who had not washed out of the brutal training. Their Kit Master, a retired warrior named Qlost, barked at them fiercely. “What makes us Clan?”
They recited together, on the hot tarmac of the parade square under the punishing rays of Huntress’s star.
"If we think kill, we will kill.If we have a boot, we crush our enemy.If we have a hand, we strangle our enemy.If we have a club, we bludgeon the attacker.If we have a knife, we stab our foe.If we have a gun, we shoot it.If we have a tank, we roll it over the opposing ranks.If we have an aerofighter, we bomb them.If we have a mech, we win.We are always the victor.When the blood is spilled, the bloodname is earned.We are the Clans!"
We are the Clans!
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She became aware of a dull humming in the background. She slowly opened her eyes, and found herself lying in her hoverlimo.
“You were murmuring throughout, you must be conscious enough to dream.”
Hearing the familiar voice, her gaze turned to the source of the voice. Across from her, Finn Rason sat with his arms crossed.
The sight of Finn’s arrogant face started to clear Anastasia’s mind.
Why am I here now? Oh yeah. A Harvester mech had gone on a rampage, and she had stopped it. Finn only arrived when it was almost all over. She wondered what mech he used, it was not a design she had seen before, since it was definitely not the Rifleman he had used on the clan frontlines. He was still clad in cooling vest and shorts, but had thrown on a jacket to look more presentable.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “The medic said there’s nothing much wrong with you, you didn’t suffer any injuries other than probably a few bruises.”
“I’m fine.” replied Anastasia. “What about my companions?”
He nodded, “Both of them suffered more serious injuries than you did and were sent to the hospital. Your driver might have a concussion, while your maid Luisa might have a fractured ankle, needs an X-ray to check. My man’s driving the limo now. I’m sending you home first.”
Anastasia felt a bit guilty for not remembering Luisa’s name correctly. She sighed in relief, at least they were safe. She took out her mobile phone and quickly typed out a message to the head butler, so that Ben and Luisa would not get into any more trouble. Furthermore, she insisted to him that the household would pay for any medical bills incurred. For once, the decadent wealth of an Inner Sphere noble came in handy.
“So you do have a heart.” He said rather callously. “I’ve thought you were cold and uncaring of anything.”
Ignoring the slight pangs of pain throughout her body, Anastasia slowly sat up. As she expected, Finn did not even try to help her as she struggled. She also did not want the help, so she was not complaining. Her long hair was tangled up and in a mess, but she ignored that and looked out the window.
The sky was already dark, and Inman’s two moons and the stars were shining since they were already away from the city, zooming along the road to the Kalinski Estate.
Finn continued to nag, “My lady, do you know how dangerous it was, to take on a mech like that? Please don’t be so reckless again. It would be very… inconvenient if anything serious happened to you.”
“……”
“If you continue to be this reckless, I will get your father to limit your outings.”
Anastasia quietly nodded her head. Finn seemed quite surprised by her passive acceptance, but that surprise quickly turned into suspicion from the look on his face.
Anastasia said, “I will be mindful. I did not mean to create trouble, I just needed to do something back then. I was too ignorant of my position.”
She could see guilt on his face. Obviously, his troops needed to respond quickly, and they really did. She had not expected a response so quickly. But when seconds and lives mattered, it meant people on the spot had to act. But nobody except her actually did anything. So he must have felt helpless when he realized she had already resolved the situation.
Hah! Take that, Finn Rason! She felt like gloating, to rub her victory into his face, but she was just too emotionally drained right now to actually do so.
Finn did feel guilty hearing Anastasia’s sincere self-chastisement. In fact, the militia had already been powering up in response to a surprise drill, and would have been there in moments, but Anastasia had already disabled the enemy. And he wasn’t there for her specifically, but she just happened to be there. Most importantly, she didn’t do anything wrong. Heck, they should give her some commendation award for her quick thinking, because she definitely saved lives there. Whether or not she was a noble didn’t matter.
He pondered for a moment whether he should correct this misunderstanding, but that disappeared once Anastasia spoke.
“In fact, I will make it simpler for you. From now on, you don’t have to take care of me. I will take care of my own business.”
He blinked. "What?"
"I'll tell my father too, so we won’t even need your help. We have been too troublesome, so we’ll just manage on our own.”
When she started talking, she had not meant to actually proceed to never asking for help again, but somehow her mouth moved faster than her brain, and once she had said it, she felt obliged to stand by her words.
Finn stared at her, and her look of determination seemed to cut him like a knife. She also seemed to be offended that she was so entangled with him.
“Did I do something wrong to you, Lady Anastasia?” The icy gaze she directed at him made Finn think again about whether he had done anything wrong to her specifically, but there was nothing he could think of. Did she even know she was doing it?
Anastasia spoke. “At least, if our engagement was even a little bit important to you, you would not have tossed me into the seat opposite you. Do you even have a conscience?"
He sputtered, "That…” When the driver had pointed out her hoverlimo to him, and after he had made arrangements for a driver and his Templar to be returned to base, Finn had carried her to her vehicle and placed her on the seat, then sat opposite her in the limo’s passenger cabin.
As a gentleman, even if they had no relationship, he should have at least made sure to protect her from falling off her seat by sitting next to her. But instead, he left her on the seat across from him without any hesitation and had just been observing her face waiting for her to wake up.
Yup, his behavior was not befitting that of a gentleman and an officer, and furthermore, he was her fiance! When she pointed it out, he felt a stab at his conscience, but Anastasia’s blunt tone erased whatever guilty feelings her words had invoked.
"Well, I did not expect much from you anyway, so you can just forget about what I said. But even if you’re so unhappy about our engagement, you can’t just control my movements just because you are my fiance, Viscount Rason.”
She was being crude and offensive, but somehow he didn’t mind. So instead of answering, Finn just gave a twisted smile as a reply.
Anastasia Kalinska was a very strange woman. Finn again thought about what she did. The Anastasia he had met before wasn't like this. She was a stereotypical noble lady, just another pretty face. Had she been acting all along to hide her skills?
Then Anastasia noticed something outside her window, fixed her gaze on it, before she turned away and shook her head as if she had been mistaken about something.
“What? Is there something you saw?”
Perhaps it was because her actions were so outside of his expectation that Finn suddenly became curious about her. So, he ended up speaking first, which was a rare occurrence.
But Anastasia ignored his question. Finn wanted to say something to her, but he soon closed his mouth.
The soft yellow lights of the hoverlimo’s passenger cabin washed over her face, which somehow conveyed a strange melancholy.
Finn couldn't deny that he was becoming curious about this woman. That didn't bode well, but he just couldn't take his eyes off her.
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Raldamax, Outworlds Alliance
“Woo! That was a blast!” Camille hooted in victory as she high fived a reluctant Larris.
Meanwhile, Erlin and Gast stood with the local militia commander as their combined support personnel supervised the partition of the supplies left by the defeated pirates. In the distance, smoking wreckage of the pirate force could still be seen, victims of their hard-hitting accuracy and evidence of the short battle.
Erlin was negotiating with Captain Santos, the local militia commander. Mentally he recalled the new terms the unit had wanted him to present.
“Captain, the previous agreement was that we take the 'mech parts and half the ammo, you take the rest.” The local militia had been so hard up for support against the pirates they were willing to accept nearly any terms.
Good thing the Jaguars’ Spleen was on hand. They sought minimal remuneration, while asking instead to be paid in food, supplies, salvage, spare parts, and recovered ammunition. The local militia had taken a huge risk by agreeing to contract them, they could just be another pirate band taking advantage to strike from within.
Erlin admitted quietly, “Our dropship is running out of space. My techs think we recovered enough of the Panther that we can put it together with the other Panther parts we already have to make a full mech. We think you can use it well.”
“One three-five tonner? With no mechwarrior?” Captain Santos grinned wryly. He knew just as well as Erlin did that trained mechwarriors were difficult to find. Erlin and his crew were by far the best mechwarriors Santos had ever seen.
Nevertheless, there was a reason why the old adage ‘Battlemechs are expensive, life is cheap’ still held true, even after the technological renaissance in recent years. Out here in the Periphery, just a single mech could make a huge difference.
“I am sure you can get some of your militia to try. Lots of willing volunteers, you know that.”
Santos whipped out a flask from a pocket, uncapped it, and took a long swig. Erlin knew it was alcohol, it was unprofessional, but out here in the boondocks, nobody cared.
“Gotcha. We’ll take it off your hands then, but we’re not exactly rolling in money.”
“No problem. Maybe one-point five million C-bills or barter equivalent to that? And before you think there is a snag, I guarantee it will be a fully functional Panther with working PPC and missile launchers. Your techs can check it out before we leave.”
Santos’ eyes widened. “That’s a real bargain, amigo. Sure, if you’re offering. And since we gave us such an offer, we’ll have one for you too. You folks are welcome to join our victory celebrations, food and drinks on the house!”
They shook hands to seal the deal. Santos added, “Lots of folks were wary of you when you came by, but you really proved yourselves. No merc commission board out here to vouch for anybody, I’m afraid.”
Erlin smiled thinly.
Santos continued, “And look, I know who you guys really are.” He did not elaborate, but they both knew what he meant, “Your mechs threw me off at first, but the way you guys shoot… heck, even most house regulars can’t do that!”
“Is that a problem?”
“Hell no! Out here in the Periphery, we don’t care much about interstellar politics. If anybody asks, you’re just a bunch of Samaritans passing through.”
Erlin’s smile widened a bit. “Always better to help good people.” Most of the others would not have understood that reference. He supposed that was why the rest of them had designated him to be leader - his training in the Cloisters of the Cloud Cobras gave him a better base of knowledge to interact with the Inner Sphere. More specifically, he had been a member of the Dharmo Cloister, based on Buddhist teachings, though every Cloister ensured their members were exposed to a wide range of religious beliefs.
Santos was right about their marksmanship too. The remnants of the Jaguar’s Mists barely escaped from Garstedt with four mechs, the Broadsword dropship Red Cavalcade, and they were just able to rendezvous with a fleeing Scout jumpship, Silence of Night. When the choices available were to rejoin the rest of the clan in their likely-doomed flight back to the homeworlds, or to stay in the Inner Sphere to seek vengeance against Pence Lamongue for his betrayal, the decision was immediate and near unanimous.
Most of the unit, including the support staff and even the crews of the ships, were isorla or abtakha from other clans, and held no real loyalty to the Smoke Jaguars. However, they were all fiercely loyal to Star Captain Avryl Showers, who had recognized their potential and put herself in the line of fire time and again to give them opportunities to prove themselves, forging them into a formidable unit capable of matching the best in both the Clans and the Inner Sphere. She was a ristar, and she had earned their loyalty.
Her death was a shock, and the survivors fully intended for Pence Lamongue to pay, one way or the other. If it required them to become mercenaries, then so be it.
They did not have much to go on, but they did pick up from a random media broadcast a picture of Pence in the background while a reluctant Finn Rason gave an interview to a member of the media. It was some Federated Commonwealth show welcoming home the war heroes of Operation Bulldog, the campaign to drive the Smoke Jaguars out of the Inner Sphere. That had been several months ago near the Draconis Combine periphery. But that was enough to go on.
They knew he was near Finn Rason. And they also managed to find out that Captain Finn Rason had just returned to his landhold of Delacambre as a Viscount, near the Davion periphery.
So that was where they were headed next. Besides, they also had unfinished business with Finn Rason.
They renamed themselves as a new mercenary unit, the Jaguar’s Spleen, in a tragically humorous allusion to their origins, and took up pirate-hunting jobs along the periphery, slowly gathering supplies and making their way to the former Federated Suns, now called the Federated Commonwealth. There had been a few betrayals and double-crosses, especially near Antallos, but they had managed to survive that turbulent area.
Their mechs and their skills gave them a significant edge against most run-of-the-mill pirate scum that preyed on vulnerable worlds without decent defenses. They took down the better part of Sally’s Snookers, a small pirate band that pillaged Raldamax for ‘tribute’ regularly every six months for years. The rest of the Snookers consisted of a Trebuchet which blew up in an ammunition explosion, two Wasps which were only fit for salvage after being blasted to pieces by their combined firepower, and several APCs which the militia managed to cripple after the Battlemechs had been eliminated from the field. The Snookers’ dropship had fled into space after the defeat of its ground forces.
Without the Spleen, the Trebuchet alone would have made mincemeat of the militia. Thankfully, the presence of the Spleen meant that the Snookers were the mincemeat this time round. And the addition of the Panther should stiffen up the local defenses for whichever ragtag pirate band decided to pick on Raldamax next.
Their force composition was small but potent, a testament to the effort Star Captain Showers had put into the unit. Erlin piloted a relatively slow but powerful Blackjack-O, which served to anchor the unit. Gast’s Night Chanter, essentially an omni-Crab, isorla from an old Coyote cache that Avryl Showers had won possession of, where Gast had been taken in as bondsman in that same battle. Camille’s Owens, salvaged from a raid on the Draconis Combine. Larris’s Strider, also isorla taken in battle.
All omnimechs, though some were made with inferior Inner Sphere construction materials and engines. But the ability to equip them with clan-spec weaponry made them fearsome opponents and more than a match for the pirate rabble that inhabited the Periphery.
The appearance of their unit also made more than one pirate think they were a regular House Kurita unit instead of mercenaries, and even less would think of connecting them to the Smoke Jaguars. Which was just the way the Star Captain and saKhan Brandon Howell wanted when they designed their unit composition.
They had come a long way. But there was still an equally long way to go. Nine more jumps to Delacambre, Erlin thought. And then, Pence will pay!
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*; Note from the Author : As most here would know, the verse at the beginning was lifted from Robert Thurston’s ‘Way of the Clans’, and that entire segment was probably something all clan sibkos learn, because it encapsulates much of clan philosophy.The other memorable paragraph Thurston wrote in the same vein can be found at the end of ‘Bloodname’:“Their commanding officer had ordered Ter Roshak's unit to stay alive as long as they could, and to keep on shooting the whole time. If they ran out of ammo, they were to use knives. If they lost their knives, then they must go after the nearest enemy with their bare hands. If their hands were broken, they must kick the enemy with their feet. If their feet were shot off, they must crawl to the enemy warriors and try in some other way to kill them. If they could not crawl, then they must fire into the nearest brush. If they could not move, then they must simply wait to die. If they could not die, then there must be something wrong with their attitude.”That’s the clans for you, turning the edgelord dial up to eleven is kinda their entire raison d’etre. In fact, I tried to put a bit of Thurston's Joanna in Avryl, that is, if Joanna was a bit more mentally flexible and earned her bloodname, and hence wasn’t so bitter and hateful.That documentary with Finn? That was one of Katherine SD’s PR traps to turn the FC against Victor and Yvonne, by promoting Victor’s efforts to help the Draconis Combine (and not the Lyrans) recover its worlds from the clans. Finn unwittingly played into that, because Katherine’s schemes were way above his paygrade. To be honest, the characters in this story are stuck in planetary and small regional politics, and they do not have the strategic overview to know any better. Read 'Prince of Havoc' to understand the purpose of highlighting the heroes of Operation Bulldog.One of the things that always irked me in Btech was the sheer lack of understanding of the East by the writers, but that’s only to be expected by western-centric game designers. But for the Cloud Cobra Cloisters to not even pay a bit of lip service to two of the twentieth century’s major religions, Hinduism and arguably its more developed offshoot Buddhism? At least Victor Milan threw in some elements of these by fleshing out the Combine’s diversity in his novels, with Sufis, Jews, and the resultant culture clashes with the dominant brand of Buddhism in the Combine.So I plopped in the Dharmo, which is based on the teachings of Buddhism. Naturally, this cloister tends towards a philosophy of defense, and its members tend to be more emotionally stable and to the Warden viewpoint. Don’t mistake their relative lack of belligerence for cowardice though! I visualise the Dharmo's philosophy as similar to the ones in Stirling's Emberverse series, the monks of Chenrezi Monastery.
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Chapter 5