CnC Chpt 11

==Cat and Crescent - Chapter 11 -==
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
===Mission Deployment===
Trojan-class Dropship Hondo
Approaching Moab, Lyreton, Rimward Periphery
Wednesday, October 6th, 3024 
"All right, Rangers," Remihel said, closing up his thermos of coffee. He faced the assembled Blue Crescent Rangers across the open deck of the Hondo's internal bay, where they'd mustered. "If all goes according to plan, we shouldn't face any opposition in our landing zone. But as the ancient wise-man once said, 'No plan survives contact with the enemy.' So we handle this like a full-fledged combat drop."
 
Remihel took a few long seconds to look around at each of the distinct groups mustered in the hanger. Despite the early hour, everyone looked sharp and keyed-up. The infantry suited up in their jungle fatigues and ballistic vests, their TK assault rifles slung from their shoulders. Sergeant Reich and the crew of his Pegasus tank wore camouflage green coveralls designed for anti-flash protection. The three aviators all dressed in blue flight suits. The mechwarriors, in contrast to the others, had yet to don their bulky cooling suits, instead wearing the minimal attire common to their occupation. Wes and Luke both wore shorts and lightly-woven shirts, while Josie wore knee-length athletic leggings and sleeveless top - though she'd draped a ragged tartan over one shoulder like a sash.
The waiting Rangers quieted down as Remihel's voice carried through the hanger. "We've got thirty minutes on the clock until Zero Hour," he said. "Local time is 1450 hours on a nineteen hour day. The situation on the ground is fluid. Two days ago, the shanna of Moab - Cassie Jalal - died in the explosion of her UrbanMech. Mandrinn Crivoi accused four other mandrinns - including his neighbor Tamir Yosef - of carrying out her assassination. In return, they accused him of doing the same. Crivoi's forces, spearheaded by his mercenaries, launched an advance into Yosef's prefecture about two hours ago. His goal? Knock out his opponents one by one, and secure Moab under his rule."
 
Remihel glanced once more around the hanger. "Lest anyone forget, our primary contract is against Crivoi's mercenaries - de Souza's Reavers. Our employer shall pay three hundred thousand C-Bills a head for each dead Reaver, and half a million bonus if we collect the whole set. That's two million C-bills on the line for us, folks. But Mandrinn Yosef agreed to pay us, too. We get to salvage anything the Reavers leave on the field." He grinned. "That potentially includes the Reavers's. Leopard dropship, if we can take it intact."
 
Nods and a few quiet whistles of appreciation met his announcement. A captured Leopard would raise the value of the Blue Crescent Rangers immensely, even though it couldn't replace the much larger Hondo. For his part, Remihel tried to keep his expectations low - he hoped to knock down the Reavers' own Shadow Hawk and match up enough pieces to get Chief Lottie's project mech back into service.
 
"So that's what's on the table today, folks," Remihel said. "The situation may be fluid, but I'm confident we can walk away from this with no casualties. Just keep it professional, and play the game smart. Everyone knows their orders. Are there any questions?"
 
Chief Lottie, standing in the catwalks with all of her mechtechs, bellowed to the assembled group. "Blue Crescent Rangers!" she shouted. "No guts, no galaxy!"
 
A chorus of whoops and cheers filled the bay, cut short by Captain Harwood's voice on the intercom. "Twenty minutes to hit dirt," he said. "All hands, secure for landing."
 
"To your stations, people," Remihel ordered. "Let's do this."
 
Matching action to words, he climbed the ladder and crossed the catwalk to his Marauder. Aksu waited with his cooling suit draped over a handrail, and his neurohelmet already in hand. "Best of luck to ya, boss," he said gruffly. "Bring this old gal back in one piece, heh?"
 
"For sure," Remihel agreed. He stepped into the cooling suit and let Aksu help him with some of the hard-to-reach straps. Once he finished, Remihel unhitched a section of the handrails and climbed over into his mech's cockpit. 
 
Seventy-six years of use left their mark on Dark and Stormy. Many parts had been replaced, and dozens of mechanics made a number of alterations to various different systems. Many of the original panel labels had worn off over the decades, to be replaced by handwritten labels on sticky-tape or occasionally neat paint applied with a very fine brush. Three years ago, Remihel replaced the right-hand control stick with one salvaged from a Thunderbolt. It offered a finer level of control, and fit his hand better than the original. And, Remihel remembered, I don't miss that obnoxious creak whenever I touch it.
 
As the first thing on Remihel's checklist, he buckled the five-point safety harness, then uncoiled the thin hose from the compartment on his left. He plugged it into three different places on his coolant vest. One line in, one line out, and pilot diagnostics. He tapped the rocker switch to turn the system on. A few moments later, the coolant reached his suit, flowing through the tiny tubes woven through his gear. It chilled him for a few moments as the system stabilized, and then everything balanced out.
 
"Ready for the helmet?" Aksu asked.
 
"Wait a moment," Remihel said. He frowned at the poorly-lit space down by his feet, underneath the Marauder's console. "Something's off."
 
Aksu frowned. "What do you mean?"
 
Remihel unbuckled his harness. "Tell Chief Lottie there's something you need to add to your pre-deployment checklist."
 
Aksu frowned. "What's that, Commander?"
 
"Remove kitten before deployment," Remihel said, snagging the errant feline off the floor, and lifting it up to his lap. The little tuxedo cat looked miffed.
 
"Oh! So that's where you escaped to, you little villain…" Aksu said, quickly retrieving the kitten and placing it on his shoulder. "She loves your Marauder… I thought about naming her Stormy."
 
"Hm. I'll think about it." Remihel couldn't help but laugh. "Helmet?"
 
He accepted the dark red neurohelmet from Aksu and lifted it over his head. He retained the helmet he'd received years ago from the Taurian military, after his grandfather's antique finally gave up the ghost. It was a good model - as light and modern as they came without actually being LosTech. The Taurian bull adorned the front of the helmet, while the rank symbols for a cornet were visible on the left and right. Once he'd settled the neurohelmet down on his shoulders, he reached back over his shoulder and plugged the helmet into the Marauder's system.
 
Farthest to his left, Remihel reached out and found a button set into the control panel. It was a solid, important-looking button, made of brushed nickel, with a transparent protective cover. A cool blue light glowed around the button's perimeter. Remihel lifted the cover with his thumb, and pressed it with a finger, holding it down for a three-count. The glowing light shifted from blue to green, and a clack sounded loudly through the cockpit.
 
Sounds of life emanated from within the Marauder's reactor, slowly building to a gentle whine. The synthesized voice of the computer came over the audio pickups in Remihel's neurohelmet. "Reactor online!" it reported. "Sensors online! Weapons online! Aaaaall systems nominal! Hooray!"
 
Years prior, Remihel's classmates at the Ècole Militaire reprogrammed Dark and Stormy's computer as a prank. Gone was the traditional "Betty," the professional-sounding voice used for most mechs. The pranksters substituted "Miho" - a girly, high-pitched, overenthusiastic voice that added a cheerful yay to many of its recorded voice lines. It took Remihel six months to figure out how to fix it - but once he knew how, he'd never bothered. Just another bit of history to add to the Marauder's seventy-six years.
 
<{"Now I need to match your voice."}> the computer said.
 
Remihel took a deep breath. "Pattern Check: Baron Remihel Ezekiel Greenbrier."
 
<{"Voiceprint pattern match obtained! Now, let's proceed with the initiation sequence."}> After a brief pause, the computer continued in the exuberant tone of a child hurtling in for a surprise hug. <{"Code check!"}>
 
"But iron - cold iron - is the master of them all," Remihel said, reciting the line from the old song.
 
"Yay! Authorization confirmed!" the computer said. "Welcome aboard, Baron! Full control is now yours."
 
The visor of Remihel's neurohelmet came alive. The main screen displayed a visual feed from the Marauder's sensors, a full two hundred and seventy degrees. The remaining ninety degrees, directly in the mech's rear arc, compressed into a corner of the screen. Symbols filled his vision - diagnostics from the Marauder's DI computer, overlays for situational maps, and a small host of other pilot aids. The sheer data threatened to overwhelm him, but many things could be tuned out until the moment he needed to focus on them.
 
After a few moments, the touchscreen near Remihel's right shoulder lit up. Glowing symbols of the other three mechs popped into the display, showing their current status. The symbols for the Pegasus hovertank and the Phoenix Hawk already turned green. A few moments later, Luke's Stinger came online, and then, last of all, the Griffin. Data streamed in from the other three mechs, showing their current ammo loadouts, damage models, and pilot status reports. Both the Marauder and the Phoenix Hawk carried the expanded communications suites to serve as lance command mechs, and Remihel hoped to use that to good advantage. 
 
Remihel tapped the communications master switch. "Crescent One to Lance. Report status. Crescent Two?"
 
"Teacup here," Josie answered. "All systems nominal. Ready for drop."
 
"Crescent Three."
 
"This is Newt," Wes said. "Crescent Three reports combat ready, no issues to report."
 
"Crescent Four?"
 
"It's Smooth..." Luke crooned, half singing his callsign out over the comm. "I've got green on every screen - it will be a joy for me to deploy, and-"
 
"Good," Remihel cut him off. "Crescent Five?"
 
"All systems green," Sergeant Reich reported.
 
"Landing ETA is five minutes."
 
A short chorus of affirmations filled the channel, and then the voices went silent again. 
 
After a lot of discussion with Josie and Captain Harwood, Remihel selected a landing zone near Boca Grande, the ruins of an old Capellan military base about a hundred kilometers southwest of Bingham Prefecture's capital. A century or two prior, Boca Grande guarded a few precious metals mines - but those played out before the Capellans abandoned Lyreton. A few things about Boca Grande appealed to Remihel. It possessed certain defensive advantages, located in a hilly region that channeled attacks into three defensive chokepoints. The Hondo could set down just north of the abandoned fortress, where a large swath of hilltop was strip-mined flat. And most importantly, the Rangers could unload their three VTOLs, reattach their rotors, and fly them off the hardened pads for combat missions.
 
Remihel checked his feed from the dropship's sensors. The Hondo entered Moab's atmosphere tail-first, slowing itself with short bursts from its main engines. Numbers on the altimeter dropped quickly, as Captain Harwood preferred a quick insertion and a hard final burn. It feels like we're falling out of the sky…
----
===Seizing the Prison===
 
Two tense minutes later, the landing burn shoved Remihel down into the seat of his command couch. <-"Sixty seconds,"-> a voice said over the lance's comm.
 
That sixty seconds felt far longer than it should have, but then a tremor ran through the Hondo, and the dropship's engines cut off entirely. "Opening the outer hatch," Harwood said. "Security clamps released."
 
Remihel felt the clamps that held his mech in place release. The Marauder truly stood on its own now. Remihel unmuted his microphone. "Rangers, deploy."
Immediately, Smooth stepped forward with his Stinger, leaving his maintenance cube and stepping toward the curved ramp leading down to the dropship's main door. He moved quickly, confidently, and proficiently. The Phoenix Hawk stepped out a few moments later - Wes looking rather more wobbly than his wingman. Josie came next in the Griffin, and then it was Remihel's turn.
 
As soon as he formed the intent in his mind, Dark and Stormy took a short, quick step, then a second. The ramp ahead turned left and then curved downward, following the outer edge of the Hondo's spheroid hull. At the main hatch came a sharp right turn, then another short ramp going down to the ground. He emerged into Moab's haze.
 
Actually, that's smoke. The dropship's engines savagely burned the grass underneath the landing zone, and some of the fires still flickered around the periphery of the flat, open region. A lot of fences, Remihel noticed, seeing a mess of security wire all around the perimeter.
 
Luke's voice snapped across the comm. "Yeah, um - this is Crescent Four, and I'm taking fire."
 
"You're what?" Remihel said. His eyes snapped to the HUD, and he found Luke's Stinger already a half-kilometer to the south, scouting for opposition that he wasn't actually supposed to find.
 
Josie interrupted. "Teacup here. Boss, we just landed inside a prison."
 
It took Remihel another second or two before he understood. Apparently, Mandrinn Crivoi didn't leave Boca Grande entirely abandoned. 
 
"Well, lovely," he growled. "Thirty seconds into our first combat drop, and I left my plans for a prison break in my cabin. So we're going have to wing it. Three! Four! Open up the throttles, head southwest, and find the front door. Hit anything that shoots at you. Two, you're on me. Let's cover the east side."
 
"Aye," Josie replied, and her Griffin maneuvered into position off his right shoulder.
 
Crivoi apparently set up his prison in one of the barracks halls of the old Capellan fortress, but the guards established a lot of security wire far beyond that. Six guard towers perched on the old fortress embankments, looking primarily inward, although they possessed a few light anti-personnel weapons focused outward. They posed no significant threat to battlemechs.
"Crescent Five," Remihel said, studying the lay of the land. "Collect our infantry. Get them aboard the Outriders. Beta Squad gets priority. In a few moments, I'll designate a waypoint to access the prison."
 
A bullet hit Dark and Stormy's armored canopy, but it was an anti-personnel round and didn't even leave a mark on the surface. The Marauder's computer identified the shooter - a guard standing high up in one of the towers, not fifty meters away - and designated him a target.
 
Remihel turned and brought up the Marauder's right arm, pointing the PPC and medium laser directly at the guard. Instead of firing, he activated his mech's external speaker. "Have you considered therapy rather than suicide?" he snapped.
 
The guard lowered his rifle and stared at him in apparent dismay.
 
"Just pitch the rifle over the edge," Remihel added. "Then sit down and wait."
 
The guard reluctantly removed the magazine from his assault rifle, unchambered the round, and obeyed. "Good gun safety," Remihel added, lowering the Marauder's arm. "Maybe we could make a mercenary out of you."
 
Resistance from the prison staff proved short, and Wes emphasized its futility when he almost accidentally shoved the prison's sole armoured personnel carrier out of its parking spot and into a ditch.
 
It took Beta Squad only a few minutes to arrive, escorted by Sergeant Reich in the Pegasus hover-tank. Most prison guards surrendered without a fight. Remihel ordered them out of the buildings to stand in a field, where Wes's Phoenix Hawk towered over them as a new sentinel. Section Leader Drusilla Britton's Beta Squad quickly took over the prison's control center, and once they pronounced the area safe, Remihel parked Dark and Stormy, lowered a rope ladder from the cockpit, and swung down.
 
 Oh, he realized, when he'd climbed halfway down. Moab's 0.48 gravity will take a bit of getting used to.
 
Two members of Beta Squad covered the prison's warden, sitting in handcuffs in a ratty chair in the middle of his own command center. "This fellow here's in charge," Drusilla said, gesturing his direction with the muzzle of her TK. "Says he'll talk to the ranking officer. We searched him and didn't find any weapons."
 
"All right," Remihel said. He looked at the prison warden, who's uniform bore the label Pedrosa, E. "You want to talk, Warden Pedrosa? I'm here."
 
"What's your name?" the warden challenged. 
 
"Hanse Davion," Remihel replied. "You can probably guess I'm an important man. I need to rule the entire Federated Suns, want to end the Third Succession War by Christmas so I can plot the Fourth, busy, busy, busy… so I'd appreciate it if you didn't waste my time."
 
"Fine, then," the warden huffed. "Be that way. But you can't let the prisoners here go."
 
"You used the word can't," Remihel said. "Now I'm not a grammarian, but I really feel you've misused the word can't when you really mean 'please don't… even though it's technically possible.' I get that right?"
 
 The warden's eyes narrowed. "Are you a mercenary, or a stand-up comic?"
 
"Both - but one pays better than the other, and offers medical insurance," Remihel said. He glanced over to Section Leader Britton, standing nearby. "Drusilla, have you seen any technical reasons we can't release the prisoners here?"
 
"No sir," she grinned. "We convinced one of the guards to give us his login and password, so we can open all the doors from that monitor right over there."
 
"Great." Remihel smiled at Warden Pedrosa. "Try again."
 
"If you're mercenaries… I can pay you. We can arrange something."
 
"Hm. That sounds extremely desperate and generic. So are we talking Mandrinn Crivoi's money, here? Or whatever C-Bills you happen to have stuck in your wallet for your poker night and lunch?"
 
Pedrosa sighed and lowered his head. "I'm duty-bound to try, Mister… Davion."
 
"Oh, I'll make sure to put in a good word with your boss when it comes time for promotions," Remihel chuckled. "How many prisoners have you got in here?"
 
The warden accepted defeat. "Eighty-nine. Sixty-eight males, twenty females, and a mental case who insists he is a refrigerator brought to life by Jerome Blake."
 
"Charming," Remihel said. "Mostly political prisoners?"
 
"Yes," Pedrosa said. "And a few spies working for outsiders. The list is on the computer."
 
 "I'll browse it shortly." Remihel walked over and reviewed the control console. From the command post, he could remotely monitor all of the various cells, and open or close all the various doors. A microphone mounted into the computer console allowed the warden to address the entire prison. Remihel grinned, picked up the microphone, and pressed the button.
 
"Good evening, Boca Grande!" he said, in his best Solaris announcer's voice. "I'm the commander of the Blue Crescent Rangers, and I'm pleased to inform you of this facility's immediate change in ownership. If there are any remaining guards in the facility, please come to the command center to turn in any lethal or nonlethal weapons currently on your person. Anyone who does not comply will not be eligible for pizza and cookies. Oh, and we might have to shoot you…"
 
Warden Pedrosa gave a tired sigh.
 
"To those of you enjoying Boca Grande's hospitality," Remihel continued, "please remain in your current accommodations while we figure out these glowing buttons. We'll begin releasing you shortly. If you want things to move a little faster… well, you get what you pay for, am I right? Next time you can hire Wolf's Dragoons." He turned off the microphone.
 
"Are you always like this?" Warden Pedrosa asked.
 
"No," Remihel said. "I had a little too much coffee on the dropship." He studied the list of prisoners. First three people on the list, detained without a trial for criticizing Mandrinn Crivoi. What a great start. And a Taurian expatriate arrested for spying, then- His breath caught as he read the name of the seventh prisoner in Boca Grande.
----
===Objective Obtain===
The radio crackled. "Two, this is One." Remihel's voice shook Josie out of her funk as she looked around the prison. If things went a bit differently two years ago, I might have ended up here. "Can you dismount and come up to the control center?"
 
"I'd rather not," Josie admitted, making no move to obey the order. "I don't really want to see the inside of this prison."
 
A short pause followed. He's going to make me, Josie thought, and shivered. Say something like 'I'll make it worth your while' or 'I really need this favor.' Please don't make me go inside…
 
"All right, I'll come out to you," Remihel finally replied, shocking her. "But please dismount."
 
Wes interrupted. "One, is it a good idea to have so many of us dismounted?"
"I'll be back in the saddle in a few minutes." Remihel declared.
 
Josie accepted this, and set the Griffin to standby mode. Once the mech took up its resting stance, she removed her neurohelmet, unbuckled herself from the restraint harness, and slipped out of her cooling vest. Outside the mech the cooling vest did her no good - and despite the approaching evening, the outside temperatures still hovered around forty degrees.
 
By the time she opened the canopy on her Griffin, Lyreton's sun touched the distant horizon, and the prison's harsh electric lights snapped to life. In their glare, she spotted Remihel and another figure walking out the prison's front gate. She tossed out the rope ladder and climbed down to the ground. Who is this, Remi? she wondered, tossing a quick glance at the misshapen silhouette.
 
He wasn't quite as tall as most Moabites, and wore the battered uniform of a prisoner - ragged orange shorts and a slightly ratty white under-shirt. It showed the tattoos on his upper arms and neck, most prominently the gun-toting sheep of the Sacrificial Lambs. The man's left arm ended halfway between elbow and wrist, without even a basic prosthetic; and his right hand lacked two fingers. Once he'd been strong, and now he looked frail enough that even Josie could break him.
 
In spite of the signs, Josie didn't recognize him until he spoke. "...Teacup? Ach, is that you, wee yin?"
 
She shrieked at the dead man, and lunged at his neck. "Daddy!"
 
For a few minutes, Josie sobbed into her father's shoulder, shedding messy tears. It took her several tries to get her voice under control. "I thought you were dead," she confessed. "I would have tried to save you! I'm sorry - I didn't know!"
 
"Hush," Stephen Wallace said, holding her tightly. "It's gan t' be a'right, lassie."
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Chapter 11