WS Chpt 32

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==Chapter 32 - This is the Way the World Ends - Wolf Skinners (3024)==
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Ar-Rabigh
Astrokaszy
28th August, 3024
2130-2359 Local Time
Entry into the Emir's fortress was suitably impressive. Once past the double-gate system at the entrance, the Wolf Skinner vehicles were greeted by a Banshee assault 'mech with open arms, though its weaponry wasn't quite right to Captain Harris' practiced eye. He quietly pointed out the double-barreled laser where the medium autocannon was supposed to be and light autocannon in place of the normal PPC to Lieutenant Stevenson. Stevenson nodded once he thought about it, but didn't say anything.
A deep voice boomed out from the Banshee's speakers, //"Welcome to Rabigh, my Friends! Enemies of curs-ed Mazrea are always welcome here!"\\ Even through the electronic amplification, the Wolf Skinners could swear they heard the capital letters in the brief speech. As the drivers of the vehicles followed their respective ground guides to apparently VIP parking, the Banshee and Stinger moved to their maintenance cubicles. A local jeep quickly parked at the foot of the Banshee and collected the Emir when the lift brought him to the ground. It scurried around to the side of the palace and out of view.
Once the Recovery Vehicle parked, the princeling hopped down and called, "This way, my friends! Your troops will be seen to with refreshment while you are greeted in the palace!"
The Major and Renzi quickly conferred with their respective security details, but etiquette won in the end. Notably, no move was made by the locals to disarm anyone, even as the three Wolf Skinners and pair of Renzis entered the palace.
Outside, Master Truck found himself the senior NCO, and immediately tried to identify his local counterpart. An older gentleman with a red sash quickly engaged the grizzled Sergeant, and said with passable English, "Welcome, my friends! My Emir bids you be fed and watered as honored guests! I understand your caution and will not ask you all to dine at once."
The older man snapped his fingers, and a small swarm of servants appeared to set up a table covered with food and pitchers of water and benches in the parking area, roughly enough for half of the troops to sit and eat at one time. After a few more, lower words exchanged with the red sash, Master Truck shook his hand, and gave the go ahead for the troops to dig in, half at a time, of course.
Inside the palace, the castaway officers were greeted with a literal fanfare of trumpets as the heir escorted them toward the throne. Even Renzi seemed a bit uncomfortable and unsure what to do as they approached. When the heir motioned the five officers to stop a dozen paces short of the throne, the Major did the only thing he could think of and gave a formal bow, Marik style, to man on the throne. The others quickly followed suit with varying degrees of proficiency.
The Emir gave a patrician nod of acknowledgement and smiled broadly. "I thank you again, my friends! Al Mazrea has long troubled my people, as I'm sure you know, given you have brought one of them home. We will deal with her case in the morning."
At the obvious reference to Aliyah ar-Rabigh, the Major and Captain Harris gave each other alarmed glances. The Emir continued placidly, "For now, please, join me in a feast to your victory over our mutual enemy!"
Servants jumped to obey their Emir, setting up long tables and benches for the feast. The dishes served were a wide variety of local fare, some of which were even recognizable to the former Free Worlders. The guests were ushered to the head table. The heir sat to his father's right, and the Major to his left. The Renzis were seated next to the heir, with Harris and Stevenson to the Major's left.
Comparing notes later, the Wolf Skinners would note the food was much the same as that served to the troops in the parking lot, if on rather more expensive dishes.
The meal passed with the Emir insisting on hearing the story of Al Mazrea's defeat. Captain Harris did most of the talking, with occasional assistance from Lieutenant Stevenson. The beheading of the enemy Hermes brought genuine delight to the Emir, and he laughed and clapped at that. When further discussion revealed Al Mazrea's Emir was dead, a far more calculating look crossed the old man's face, and his smile turned into a wolfish grin.
"That is EXCELLENT news! The time to strike them may be close at hand! We will discuss that more tomorrow. For now, please eat, and be at ease!" he said.
On the other side, Renzi and his wife engaged the heir in polite conversation and received assurances they would be rewarded for bringing such glad tidings to Rabigh.
For the Wolf Skinners, the menu was exotic but tasty. The Renzis dug in with gusto, experiencing far better prepared food than they'd been able to make for themselves. In fact, one of Renzi's requests was simply to allow one of his troops to observe how the palace cooked food. The heir was amused and seemed inclined to grant the request on nothing more than good humor.
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Ruined Airfield on the outskirts of Ar-Rabigh
2130-2359 Local Time
As negotiations for the next day's bazaar drew to a close, the local merchants at last brought out a few crates and asked their guests to make offers. The crates had two things: date liquor and date candy. Renzi's guys were lined up to make offers for bottles and boxes of the stuff, and Novak couldn't restrain her troops from participating in the bidding. In the end, a half dozen bottles of liquor and half again as many boxes of candies ended up in the hands of the Wolf Skinners. The locals charged a steep discount for the otherwise useless L-Bills from Ghorepani, but all seemed satisfied with the exchanges. The liquor was strong and sweet, and the candies were even sweeter, coated as they were in powdered sugar.
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Smoke to Lieutenant Ranjeet on the lance freq
<<"Lt, Things seems to be settled down">>
He will keep his eyes out for bushwackers, especially since the troops got some firewater
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Wolf Skinner bivouac around WSDS Mondez's impact site
29th August, 3024
~0630 Local Time
Staff Sergeat Demtrius "3D" Drakos was just off the mid-watch, but had finally received the green light from the Sergeant Major to set up his archery range. He'd been carefully saving the empty ration cases as they accumulated over the last month. Filling them with sand made them perfect targets for the arrows he carried in his cockpit. He had also measured out the range on the other side of the crater weeks ago, when he'd first had the idea. When he'd started to attract a small crowd of curious junior troops, he dragooned them into helping carry the boxes and shovels to the other side of the crater. A certain 10-year-old was also tagging along, balancing three empty boxes on her head.
Master Sergeant Ed Rossi, First Sergeant of the 'mech company, laughed when he saw the small parade with 3D at its head. "It's like I always said, 3D! Troops will only follow you out of curiosity!" he called with a huge grin. The other senior NCOs having breakfast with the First joined in the laughter.
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"Some followers are better than no followers, Top."
"Just a little exercise, hand-eye coordination and aiming discipline. The chance I think I am Odysseus reborn is irrelevant." 
3D will organize the setup of the range and thank everyone for their help. He'll loose all his arrows while giving a class. As he has only really been serious about it since the unit's last posting he expects room for improvement. Every adult in the class will have a chance to shoot a volley.
"I might be able to knock together a couple of compounds, that'll let more of shoot at the same time."
"If you're interested young lady, I'll make you a drawstring bow and some arrows in the next few days." 
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Wolf Skinner bivouac around WSDS Mondez's impact site
~0730 Local Time
Irritation playing across her face, Athena Fury said, "I'm short, not weak! I can pull that..."
3D had to admit, the little firecracker was actually muscular for her size. Apparently, military rations and weeks of digging had got something resembling a growth spurt going. And her mother was athletic, to put it politely. 3D's family would have called her an Amazon and meant it as a compliment.
The junior troops started putting money on her ability to actually draw the compound bow, especially in light of some of their own struggles with it.
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Ar-Rabigh
29th August, 3024
0900-1200 Local Time
The guest wing of the Emir's fortress was more comfort than any of the off-worlders had experienced in a LONG time. Even the open bay for the troops had softer mattresses than DropShips. The infantry troops hadn't actually been prepared to remain overnight, but the Sergeants put together a reasonable guard rotation by dragooning the drivers into helping. Even Master Truck and Warrant Cushman contributed by swapping off as the Duty Officer.
At a civilized hour, servants brought breakfast. Fresh eggs, hummus and olive oil were among the wonders of the meal. The Major and MechWarriors had rooms to themselves but could hear excited conversation from the Renzis' room. Something about "holding out on us!" countered with "too poor" and "royal flex".
Negotiations were convened back in the throne room. The Emir had an older, bearded technician on his left. The Major had Warrant Cushman. In the end, the Emir was more than happy to part with sufficient repair parts for the Wolf Skinners' Marauder (even including two tons of armor) in return for the salvage from Al Mazrea. He even threw in a case each of date liquor and date candy, and perhaps the biggest prize of all: a two-liter glass bottle of olive oil.
That settled, the Emir turned to the Renzis. Surprisingly, they asked for chickens and an olive tree seedling. This bargaining was much sharper, and the Emir wore a deadly serious expression throughout the back and forth. The olive tree fell off first, after a stern explanation of exactly how hard it was to make them grow (it turned out "greenhouses" on Astrokaszy were for keeping plants COOL). The Emir patiently explained how hard it was to maintain chickens too, but the Renzis stuck to their guns, eventually giving up a ton of armor in exchange for a dozen chicks of mixed sex and written instructions on how to keep them alive. A day-long tour of the Emir's kitchens was included in the bargain, along with a half-liter bottle of olive oil as a gift.
While that negotiation was going on, the Heir was sitting across a table from Warrant Cantrell, the Wolf Skinners' S-2. Aliyah Ar-Rabigh had just been dismissed, her mooning at the Heir finally beginning to wear on the young man regardless of her notable beauty. Cantrell did NOT like where this negotiation was headed. Before she left, Aliyah had reluctantly agreed with the Heir that fitting back in to her former station in Rabigh was untenable. She had also readily agreed that Rabigh should have a liaison with the Wolf Skinners, nodding enthusiastically.
Once she left, Cantrell was open about the fact he had hoped to leave her in Rabigh. That had only drawn a wide grin from the Heir. The subsequent negotiations left Cantrell with a very bad feeling about how much Rabigh knew, and the inescapable conclusion that Aliyah was riding back to the crash site with the expedition. The cost for that was quickly acknowledged as something well beyond Cantrell's paygrade, and even the Heir seemed inclined to defer to his father.
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Ruined Airfield on the outskirts of Ar-Rabigh
0630-1200 Local Time
Ramjet had received the call last night when the Major said he'd be staying with the Emir overnight. The expedition had at least brought enough troops to make security at the laager manageable without the two squads with the Major and the Renzis.
As dawn broke, the merchant caravan could be seen heading for the airfield. A mini bazaar sprang up with remarkable rapidity, and soon the smell of roasting meat was wafting through the laager. Liquor and candy were still on offer, but in much smaller packages that were just as earnestly haggled over as the bottles and boxes had been the previous night. Surprisingly, there were also booths offering more mundane wares, from eating utensils to crockery and even glass.
Renzi's second seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing but wouldn't begrudge the Wolf Skinners any extra security they insisted on. 
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Wolf Skinner bivouac around WSDS Mondez's impact site
29th August, 3024
~0730 Local Time
Irritation playing across her face, Athena Fury said, "I'm short, not weak! I can pull that..."
"Alright young lady. It's a 23 kilo draw, I was working on accuracy before range. Let's have you try and see how your technique is." 
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Casting a vicious glare at the troops betting against her, Athena picked up the bow and set her feet, squaring up to the target like she'd seen 3D do. With a grunt, she smoothly pulled the string back as far as her short arms would allow, which was well short of a full draw. She held it there long enough for the betting troops to start arguing whether she had succeeded or failed. With a snarl, she released the string, and the arrow hit the target. But it flopped down flat, the head barely sticking in the cardboard. That was enough for the ones betting in her favor to declare victory, though it was close enough it could come to fisticuffs if 3D didn't exercise some NCO leadership, and quick.
For her part, Athena was pouring sweat, frustration written on her face as she strode forward to retrieve the arrow.
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The grumbling among the troops subsided with the prospect of another round of shooting.
From behind him, 3D heard a curse. Athena was holding up the arrow, inspecting it. "I hit a rock in the box! I think it may have screwed up your arrow," she said with disgust in her voice.
Sure enough, when 3D got a look at it himself, the aluminum shaft was deformed slightly, and the head was dented. Nothing a hydraulic press and some quality time with power tools couldn't fix, but something that would have to be fixed. The lack of the arrow only slowed the round of shooting a little, though, and the group was back in camp well before noon.
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==Chapter Notes==
Primary chapters and narration are by main author, Daryk
Section spoken by Smoke was written by DOC_Agren
Section spoken by Lieutenant Ranjeet was written by SANSd20
Section spoken by Blu was written by truetanker
Section spoken by SSGT Demetrius "3D" Drakos was written by Deathstalker
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