DMHT2

=Chapter 2=
==Dead Man's Hand: A Taste Of Ashes==
Bluebell, Sweet Water
Coventry Province
Federated Commonwealth
5th July, 3057
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Joker stepped off of the electric trolley and onto the sidewalk, breathing in the dry morning air. For whatever reason, the first people to settle Sweet Water had chosen the base of a massive mesa to build their homes. While it sprawled outwards, a significant part of the city was still built into the cliff-side. Sure, it offered truly breathtaking views, but it had its own problems concerning available living space. Fortunately, Kobe's apartment was in a newer by which she meant only a few centuries old, part of town, but that did mean a longer commute to work.
Buying a coffee and a pastry from a street vendor, she walked down the broad avenue. Sure, she could have ridden all the way, and only had to cross the concourse, but it was such a lovely day, and she was going to be spending most of it indoors anyway. Midmorning, and the city was already bustling, a strange mix of advanced technology and more rustic, regressive examples: it wasn't uncommon to see a hover-truck pull up next to a hitching post for horses, but everything was clean and orderly. Far too many worlds so removed from the centre of what was laughably called 'civilization' tended to be broken down, corrupt and in many cases, slowly dying. But Sweet Water was lucky, as the McCabe family, who had held the noble seat since the First Succession War, seemed genuinely interested in living somewhere worth living, and not just filling their bank accounts at the cost of the locals. As such, the roads were clean, schools well equipped, and law enforcement no more crooked than many of the core worlds.
It was certainly a step-up from where Joker had been raised.
A shrill whistle filled the air. Joker looked up to see a train making its way across the elevated tracks towards the Hub. The massive building that served as the nexus of travel for Bluebell and the surrounding area. Originally back in the days of the Star League, the trains had been ultra-fast Maglevs, but while the technology needed to maintain such a system hadn't been fully lost. It was both expensive and hard to come by outside of the more affluent worlds. As such, the system had long since been replaced with a far more basic, but in Joker's mind, more aesthetically pleasing diesel-electric system. She watched as one of the big, streamlined locomotives came into view, slowing down as it approached the station built into the upper floors of the Hub.
Kobe had taken her for a weekend away on a very similar train, and she had found memories of their time spent in the private, sound-proof cabin as the train had rumbled through the night.
But she didn't have time to revisit pleasant memories, so finishing her coffee, she made her way into the Hub. The interior was all black and white marble, or at least a local equivalent, with polished brass fixtures and fittings everywhere. It must have taken a small army to clean, but the people of Bluebell were very proud of the Hub, and made sure that it was immaculately maintained. Making her way through the space crowd, Joker walked past the coffee shops and small stores that catered to those just arriving or about to leave on a long journey, and instead headed for the very back of the building. Flashing her military pass to the uniformed guards, she was allowed access to the pony for the elevator.
Sweet Water may have lost their Maglev trains and their arcologies, but they'd managed to retain one gem from their past, in the form of the massive elevators that ran up the side of the mess, from the Hub to the spaceport that occupied the bulk of the massive flat space almost a kilometer above. Two stories high, each elevator car was encased in a protective cocoon made of the same material as a BattleMechs canopy, protecting those inside from the elements, but giving an unobstructed view of the city and the surrounding countryside as they rose up. Fortunately, she'd arrived just before one departed, so grabbing a seat, she settled in to enjoy the ride.
Bluebell wasn't a planned city. It had been allowed to grow organically over time, and it formed a fought semicircle at the base of the mess. The central commercial and administrative district was directly in front of the Hub, but it quickly gave way to a patchwork of whitewashed buildings made of wood and local stone, with plenty of trees and open spaces. Oh, sure, some areas where better off than others, but they had worked hard to avoid the dilapidated slums so typical of boarder planets. Most of the Inner Sphere may have forgotten Sweet Water as anything more than a line in a tax ledger, but it hasn't forgotten itself. That same isolation that kept it from flourishing also kept it from being picked clean by opportunists, meaning that there was still enough money to ensure that everyone had a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Joker wasn't foolish enough to consider it paradise, but it was certainly above the curve.
Before long, the elevator arrived at the top of the mess, and Joker yet again showed her pass to be allowed into the military wing of the spaceport. It certainly wasn't the most advanced set-up she'd ever seen: some long dead engineer had simply leveled the top of the mess and covered it with a thick layer of ferrocrete, turning it into one massive landing field. A cluster of support and control buildings sat clustered around the top of the elevator, including the civilian terminal. Which was the slightly larger, all be it mostly empty militia base that was Joker's destination.
The first thing to come into view was the massive temporary gantry surrounding the Ante-Up, which was undergoing a much needed period of extended maintenance and refit. While true that most DropShips could operate for extended periods of time between such extensive work. Given their usual style of combat, it never hurt to be sure that you could get out of trouble just as quickly as you got into it. On a more prosperous world, the work would have been varied out in a dedicated repair facility, but in Sweet Water, it required a more... creative solution, and significantly increased downtime. Joker had balked upon seeing the initial request by the ships captain, Dane, but he had pointed out that it wasn't like they'd be going anywhere any time soon. So, reluctantly, she'd allowed him to commission the local workshops to partially dismantle the interplanetary drive, cleaning and restoring parts that would have cost as much as her Loki to replace.
Beyond the grounded DropShip say the hangers for the various VTOL's and conventional aircraft operated by the militia. May were transports, intended to move troops around, as well as provide emergency medical transportation and S&R capabilities for a significant part of the planet. Their main defensive punch came from a quartet of aged but well maintained MechBusters attack planes, named Faith, Hope, Charity and Desperation.
Joker watched as a massive KC-9 King Karnov transport taxi across to one of the runways, then accelerate until it took off, banking sharply and heading off to the North. She couldn't help but laugh at the idea that, despite the massive, open expanse of perfectly flat ferrocrete, they still insisted on using arbitrary runways for taking off and landing. But then she wasn't a sky-jocky.
Shaking her head, she continued on towards the low, sprawling building that served as the headquarters of the Sweet Water Planetary Militia.
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