CnC Chpt 8

==Cat and Crescent - Chapter 8 -==
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===Training Hard, for Battles to Come===
Trojan-class Dropship Hondo
Departing Herotitus, Rimward Periphery
Friday, October 1st, 3024 
The enemy Hunchback ambushed him at point-blank range. Remihel didn't see it coming until too late, as Dark and Stormy passed the three-story building where the Hunchie hid. The false facade of the building collapsed as the Hunchback powered its way through, and before Remihel could react, the monstrous Class-20 autocannon tore through the Marauder's rear armour into the reactor. Alarms screamed for just a moment, and Remihel reached for the ejection handle-
YOU ARE DEAD, the sim-pod glumly informed him, lemon-green letters standing out stark on a slowly-darkening external screen.
 
"How rude," Remihel muttered, removing his neurohelmet and opening the pod's door. A green light still glowed above all of the other simulator pods, indicating that this time around, he was the first to die.
"Well done, Commander!" grinned the systems tech, who observed the entire fight from the computer which linked the six simulator pods. "You killed the Hunchback."
 
"Very funny, Aksu." Remihel said. 
 
The old tech had a glimmer in his eye. "I'm serious, Commander. You took out the Hunchie!"
 
Remihel glanced at the main screen. Sure enough, the display indicated the fifty-ton Hunchback was dead, with the kill assigned to… "What?" he demanded, arching an eyebrow.
 
"When your Marauder blew up," Nahuel Aksu declared, a wicked grin on his craggy, wrinkled face, "the Hunchback stood too close. His autocannon ammo went off spontaneously!"
 
"That's new," Remihel muttered. He climbed out of the simulator and watched the rest of the scenario play out on the main display. The remainder of the Blue Crescent Rangers struggled against the odds. Josie fought her Griffin with wildcat ferocity, but she acted alone, ignoring her lancemates. Wes had the right ideas to respond tactically - a quick withdrawal to the right flank using jump-jets - but neither of the other pilots seemed to hear. Luke, in fact, recklessly pushed further into the crossfire of the ambush.
Remihel saw one bright spot, however. Overhead, Marius de Vries and Jason Diao, in their Warrior VTOLs, both gained some space for their fast, lightly-constructed machines to circle around. Unlike their mechwarrior compatriots, they worked well together and knew exactly what sort of battle they wanted to fight. They got into the rear arc of the ambushers, and pumped 60mm autocannon shells and SRM-4s into the backs of various enemies.
"I think you set the difficulty too high," Aksu commented, as Josie's Griffin pursued the retreating Shadow Hawk, only to begin striking pre-laid anti-mech mines.
 
"Practice hard, fight easy," Remihel muttered, reiterating the mantra his instructors at the Ècole Militaire hammered into his skull.
 
The tech shrugged and lowered his voice. "I'd be demoralized soon, if I was them."
 
Remihel frowned. He resented the comment, and nearly told Aksu to mind his own opinions, but held off his initial impulse. "You think that's likely?"
 
Aksu hesitated, clearly uncertain where his commander might draw the line. "They gotta walk before they run, boss. You got the right idea - get 'em pointed in the same direction and moving together. But they aren't House troops driven on by patriotism..."
 
Remihel considered his response, but another of the sim-pods opened to reveal Josie, mad enough to be spitting fire. "That sonova cheating computer!" she snarled. She didn't throw her neurohelmet across the room - neurohelmets were too rare and expensive to be abused like that - but for a moment Remihel suspected she might not care any more. "What the hell's with all those A-M mines? I think the computer didn't bother placing them - it just decided we were in danger of winning and needed to blow up some more..."
 
Wes and Luke emerged from their own simulators a few moments later. The simulator - detecting that all the mechwarriors were 'dead' - ended the simulation. Marius, the senior Warrior pilot, summed things up. "That was brutal, guys."
 
"Probably could have managed it if the commander hadn't exploded to death," Luke said. "We needed all that missing Marauder firepower on the field..."
 
"It was the mines," Josie argued. "Those stupid mines scattered everywhere. I walked exactly where the Shadow Hawk moved - he didn't blow up! But I triggered at least four or five."
 
Aksu, who supervised the entire scenario, shook his head. "Those mines were command-triggered by an observer in one of the buildings, Cornet Wallace. The Shadow Hawk lured you in."
 
"But why are there mines in this simulation anyway?" Josie complained, turning to look at Remihel. "I told you, Mandrinn Crivoi doesn't stockpile any anti-mech mines. He's too over-focused on his own battlemech forces to care."
 
"You told me that, but I'm still including small numbers in our training scenarios." Remihel said.
 
"Small numbers? Seems like a lot to me..."
 
"Sergeant Aksu? How many mines did the simulation place?"
 
"Fifteen," Aksu replied. "Cornet Wallace hit four of them in that prepared chokepoint. Cornet Skinner hit one-"
 
"And got really blown up!" Luke interrupted.
 
"-while the commander would've triggered two mines in a few more steps."
 
"See! See? Seven mines out of fifteen - that's too much."
 
Remihel held up a hand to silence further protests. "That'll be enough." He glanced quickly at the time. "Folks, everyone take a ten-minute bathroom break, and then get back here for a last sim run for the day. We're going try something different."
 
Once everyone filed out, Remihel turned to Aksu. "Remove the ambush, and lower the enemy accuracy rating down by about eighty percent. Then swap Josie's Griffin for the Reavers' Scorpion. Make her commander of the Red Team, and give me a decent stand-in for the Scorpion."
 
"Leave the mines?" Aksu asked.
 
"Ehm... no. Go ahead and remove them. I want them looking for unexpected variables. You're right - there's no need to antagonize them pointlessly."
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===After party Chit-Chat on the Catwalk===
 
The sharp staccato of explosions filled Hondo's lounge, in perfect chorus with the whoops and shouts of the assembled Rangers. Everyone present knew how fake the show was, but for some reason, this just made the entire production of Mercenaries! even more entertaining.
 
Remihel didn't entirely follow the plot. There were more complicated ways for the heroes to rescue the (unnamed) planet from the grip of pirates... but off the top of his head, Remihel couldn't think of any. It didn't pay to think too much about the details. After all, the leading actor of Mercenaries! broke the fourth wall at least once per episode to remind the audience that the writers just wanted more battlemechs and explosions.
 
The combination of Mercenaries! vids and pre-recorded Solaris VII gladiatorial matches thrilled the Rangers. Chief Lottie scheduled one episode every second evening. On the off nights, the Rangers instead gathered in the Hondo's lower-deck mech bay for a series of 'steel beach volleyball' games.
 
All in all, the mood of the Rangers improved dramatically over the sour faces Remihel remembered from just two weeks prior. The unit believed they had a future.
 
From the corner of his eye, Remihel noted Josie sitting in her chair, watching the vid with an expression that bordered on disinterest, though she participated in the friendly banter between Maddy Diao and Mia Lewis. But she seemed more withdrawn than usual, and only a few minutes into the latest episode of Mercenaries!, she rose, snagged her noteputer and fresh can of Timbiqui Dark off the table, and headed for the door - an almost covert flight from the crowded lounge.
 
Hm, Remihel mused to himself, as she slipped out. Something's off. I can't put my finger on it…
 
The show ended, and Chief Lottie switched out for the next fight replay from Solaris VII. Cesar Rimac, the astech who took his duties as company hustler seriously, interrupted Remihel's chain of thought. "Hey Commander! Who do you think has the best chances for the Grand Championship this year? Think Manuel Delvalle's going to collect it second year running?"
"Nah," Remihel said. "I like the look of that new guy we saw tonight. What was his name - Hans?"
 
"Hans Moder."
 
"That was it. He's got some skill."
 
"You want to put any money on that opinion?" Rimac said, looking cagily at his little hand-written book. "The odds on Delvalle are three to one..."
 
"Why, Cesar, if I didn't know better, I'd think you're trying to hustle me," Remihel chuckled. "But I'll play along. Five C-Bills on Moder."
 
"Yes sir!" If the tech thought Remihel was cheap, he didn't voice that opinion aloud, and dutifully wrote the amount down in his little notebook.
 
Remihel stayed another half-hour before rising and heading for the wardroom door. I want to mingle with subordinates, but give them time to let loose without the danger of The Commander listening in. I remember how much I complained about my bosses when I was a very junior officer... Still, I value building some rapport...
 
He checked his watch. We've still got another three hours before we reach the JumpShip and cut our thrust gravity. Might take a tour through the ship to make sure everything's tidy...
 
At the end of his tour, he reached the lower cargo bay. The temperature on the lower decks ran a bit higher than average. Remihel heard - and felt - the rumble of the engines, not quite so distant here as on the upper decks. In the night-time lighting, Dark and Stormy loomed even more menacingly than usual.
 
Remihel paused as he passed one of the H-7s Warrior, which waited in its bay with the blades removed and stored for transport. He heard something faint, a fragment competing with the dull engine sound. He stood still, listening carefully.
 
Lights here are on, he realized. Something's triggered the motion detector. More out of curiosity than alarm, he walked through the crowded mech bay, his feet silent on the deck. He heard another faint sound from ahead - and then strains of music coming from the catwalks above. Near the Griffin's left shoulder, he guessed.
 
He climbed the ladder, two decks up, and found Josie sitting on the catwalk, her legs dangling over the edge, feet moving in time with a slow bagpipe tune. Her noteputer lay on her lap, and she held her can of Timbiqui in one hand as she watched him come up the ladder.
 
"I'm not drunk!" she announced, and then hiccupped.
 
"I'm not convinced," Remihel said. "Are you able to get down on your own?"
 
"That, uh. Might be a good question," Josie admitted, looking at the vertical ladders. "Pretty sure I can!"
 
Remihel pointed to the can of Timbiqui Dark. "How many of those have you had?"
 
"Three!" She set the can down. "I'm not drunk. I'm just..."
 
"A lightweight?" Remihel suggested.
 
She laughed. "Maybe a featherweight... but that wasn't it." She kicked her feet back and forth, and leaned her elbows on the rail of the catwalk. "Today's my birthday," she said.
 
"What?" Remihel said. "No, that's... I thought your birthday was in April."
 
Josie shook her head. "You looked in the Herotitus database. Somebody entered it wrong when I became a gladiator. Too much trouble to fix it! But today's my real one." She picked the can again and drained it in a single swig. "Happy birthday to me..." she sang quietly, and hiccupped again.
 
"Happy birthday," Remihel said. "But please don't fall off the catwalk."
 
"Not gonna," she said. "I just... needed some time. Too loud upstairs." She tapped the noteputer on her lap. "And I've got a book. Guess which one!"
 
"No idea."
 
"Come on, guess!" she insisted. "I know you'll recognize it."
 
Remihel sat down next to her, and swung his feet out over the edge. Offhand, he couldn't think of any titles. "I give up."
 
"Let me read the first sentence," Josie declared. "General Aguilar died in the red snow on Mount Landry, begging for mercy from-"
 
"Judge Finn McCann and the Avenger's Union."
 
"See! I knew you'd recognize it," Josie said.
 
"One of my grandfather's books," Remihel admitted. "I admit, I didn't expect that. But... why are you starting with the second book in the series?"
 
"Maybe I'm not starting with it," Josie giggled and set her noteputer aside.. "I liked the first one, and so I'm reading the rest of the series. You have read your grandfather's books, right?"
 
"Of course." Remihel nodded. "I felt obliged. The Taurian Concordat awarded him a baron's title as reward for his work. Once I got old enough, I felt I ought to be knowledgeable about how he gained the things that I inherited."
 
"Hm..." Josie looked at him with a sly sideways face. "Obliged… you make it sound like a chore. Did you not like it?"
 
"As a teenager, I enjoyed reading them. My favorite's still Gray Army Faction. But he never published some of his later books, and I like those better."
 
"Oooh!" Josie said. "Why unpublished?"
 
"Didn't feel they were ready yet. He also got into a feud with his publisher, from what Grandma told me."
 
"How unfortunate. What sort of books? More from the McCann series?"
 
"There's one unpublished McCann story. A spinoff book featuring his daughter Miriam. And three fantasy books - with wizards, chariots, and goblins."
 
"That's a lot," Josie said. She picked up her can, swirled it a few times to confirm it was empty, and then set it back down on the ground. "I liked that first Judge Finn McCann book... but I understand him a bit better than I'd like. The quest for vengeance against the SLDF deserters who destroyed his family..." She sniffed and leaned forward to look at her Griffin. "Two years ago today, Dad and I finalized our plans to overthrow Crivoi. We went down to the Phoeniecian Strip for a day of surfing. Later that evening, we met three other leaders at this little fish tacos place just off the beach."
 
"I begin to understand why you needed some time today," Remihel said.
 
Josie nodded, frowned, and looked off into the distance. "Your turn, now. You talk!"
 
"Me? About what?"
 
"Anything," she said. "Tell me a story. You're always listening to me, so now it's your turn to talk. Tell me about... I don't know... oh, I heard that you broke the bank at Treasury Casino!"
 
Remihel hesitated. "You sure you want to hear that?"
 
"Yes," she said, smiling at him. "I heard you made off with nine million C-Bills."
 
"Ehm." Remihel spent a few moments composing his thoughts. "Well, if you insist. Back in 3019, I came out to Herotitus with Volker and some other friends. Volker talked me into it - I shouldn't have listened to him, which is a depressingly consistent theme."
 
"You two are rather different," Josie admitted. "How did you - oh, right, you were college roommates."
 
"Two years at the Ècole Militaire, and then lance-mates for two years in the TDF," Remihel said. "We've both changed a lot over the years. Anyway... five of us came out to Herotitus for a three-week stay. Myself, Volker, his girlfriend at the time... two others that Volker invited. I don't remember their names. We had a lot of money to go around and none of us bought any sense. We toured most of the higher-class places in downtown New Hedon. I preferred the shows."
 
"That's your story and you're sticking to it, right?"
 
"Right," Remihel said. "But - you ought to know this - there's actually some good shows to see. There's a Kabuki theater, operas ranging from Mozart to Voightlander, and there was this acrobatic magic show by the Hautzendorfer family."
 
"Oh. I guess I immediately thought of... something else." Josie admitted.
 
"Right, right, I know you did," Remihel said. "Because that's why people come to Herotitus, right?"
 
"That, and the gambling."
 
"Yes. Volker came for both. He took to the gambling tables hard. He had a good run in the Home of Fortune and then dragged me to the Treasury. He lost a half-million C-Bills in an evening. Absolutely insisted the house cheated him."
 
"He ought to remember the House always wins." Josie pointed out.
 
"This was different," Remihel said. "We went back two more nights in a row, and I helped him watch the place. It turned out Volker was right. We figured out the system, and then figured out how to beat it. I talked Volker out of arson, and proposed a little scheme. It was technically legal - and we could prove it. We cleared out about seventeen million over the course of an evening."
 
"Ach," Josie said, shaking her head. "That must have been incredible to see."
 
Remihel nodded. "It was... and it's also half the story. The guy who ran the Treasury Casino worked for an Inner Sphere intelligence agency. He didn't like our little vendetta. Volker got away free as a bird, of course. The universe loves him... But me? I got drugged, stuffed in a trunk, and then dumped on a road in the backcountry of Herotitus. They drove over me as they left. Broke both of my legs."
 
Josie stiffened. Her feet, dangling over the edge of the catwalk, went very still. "Did it hurt...?"
 
"Not much. Occasionally, I ask people to run me over again, just for fun."
 
She laughed. "I guess that was a dafty question, wasn't it...?"
 
"It's fine. Sometimes I have a dark sense of humor." Once Josie nodded, he continued. "I passed out when it happened, so I don't remember much. Probably for the best. I lay on the road for about seven hours."
 
"What?" Josie said. "Did no one stop?"
 
"It took that long for someone to come by. Like I said, the backcountry of Herotitus. Almost empty... but not entirely. You remember Cornelius Ewing - Uncle Corn - from the restaurant last week?"
 
"Oh! Yes?"
 
"He drove to church on Sunday morning with his wife and kids in the van, and found me sprawled out on the road with carrion birds circling. They scraped me off the road, found a doctor, and hosted me until I got back on my feet, in the most literal and figurative sense of things. It's a bit saccharine and dramatic to say I owe them my life… but I believe it's true."
 
"What happened then?"
 
Remihel's somber expression turned into amusement. "Volker presumed I'd been kidnapped and murdered. Half-right, I suppose. He notified the Taurian embassy. They sent an intelligence agent to figure out who'd murdered one of their nobles. The masterminds at Treasury Casino ran for the Inner Sphere and left some local patsies to take the fall. Eventually, the Taurian agent came looking for an idiot in an unmarked grave. Instead, he found the idiot on horseback running cattle alongside a bunch of pacifist Christian agrarians."
 
"You didn't inform your family?"
 
"I sent a message to my mother, but she didn't know who to inform." Remihel sighed. "Volker and I both kept the money. Volker didn't get the life-changing experience that went along with it. I consider myself richer from that experience, both spiritually and emotionally."
 
She nodded, placed her hands in her lap, and studied them. "You said you're Jewish, right - so you believe in God?"
 
"Yes," Remihel said. "Though we're Messianic Jews. We follow a bit of the Jewish traditions, but. 
My mom's father became a rabbi when he was young, following his own father's footsteps. And I went to church with the Ewings, though I don't entirely agree with some of their interpretations. What about you?"
 
"Most of the time, aye," Josie said. "My dad grew up New Avalon Catholic, back on Northwind. When I was little, he started attending Mass again, and signed me up to a local Catholic school. Been two years since I've gone to Mass, though." She tilted her head to one side. "Since you're Taurian, the NACC is probably some kinda evil thing to you guys, right? Just a patsy for those evil FedRats."
 
 "It's very unpopular," Remihel admitted. "There's a Roman Catholic diocese in the Barony of Blackfoot, but it's small - and no New Avalon Catholics to be found."
 
 "Ach, that's what I thought."
 
"I've met quite a few Catholics over the years, though," Remihel added. "And FedRats, too. They're not so bad."
 
"My dad was a FedRat... sorta."
 
"I don't hold it against you."
 
"Oh, good," she giggled. "I'm glad you don't." She leaned closer and turned toward him, inclining her face slightly to look up. In a moment of startled clarity, he analyzed her body-language and realized she invited a kiss - lips slightly apart, eyes half-closed, face upturned, chin slightly quivering.
 
Oh, he told himself. This might be a problem...
 
"Mew."
 
They both blinked at the sound. Only ten or at most fifteen centimeters separated their faces, and the moment passed awkwardly. Remihel quickly looked around to break the tension. "That doesn't sound like..."
 
Down below, on the floor of the mech bay, a tiny black and white kitten toddled out from between the Marauder's legs. It walked with a distinct wobble to the middle of the cargo bay and looked around in concern before raising another tiny, high-pitched "Mew! Mew!"
 
A few moments later, a second kitten, almost all black except for its paws, prowled around the Marauder's left foot, making its way toward its sibling. "Mew!"
 
"They're cute!" Josie squealed.
 
Remihel looked down. "Did you know Cinnamon had kittens?" he asked.
 
"Well… no," Josie said. "I thought Cinnamon was male."
 
"No, definitely not." Remihel watched a sleek full-sized cat, also black and white, trot out of cover in order to recover its two errant kittens, dragging the first one back into cover. A third kitten, meanwhile, made its escape while its mother was occupied.
 
Remihel stared down at the scene.
 
"Just how many cats do we have on board?"
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Chapter 8