Ep19

**This page contains major spoilers for the story. You have been warned!**

## Summary

The Marauders set out to jailbreak a former prison mate of Coryphee, the Lord Commander’s daughter, an expert hacker with information on The Benefactor.

## Play by Play

The Marauders are getting used to being nobility and landowners on New Abilene.  They are also getting used to two new team members, Jackal aka Edwin Jones and Coryphee aka Lea Anan.  Jackal’s welcome is tentative and dependent on his mental stability, as well as a thorough background check.  He volunteers that he was taken from his work in the mines on New Abilene, thrown into a mech and expected to fight by the senate.  His previous lance consisted of friends who were also miners and they were all killed before his eyes in the battle against Kam.  The Lord Commander, Talon, and the others are wary of their new untrained mech warrior…but they still give him Beta’s old Catapult to fight in.  For his part, Jackal promises to put his new lance’s lives above his own personal demons.  Coryphee’s backstory is a bit more surprising as it is revealed that she is really the Lord Commander’s daughter.  The Lord Commander and the team go over what has transpired over the past few months, specifically regarding The Benefactor and the manipulation and secrets that have been held over their heads.  Now that Coryphee has been recovered it would appear that The Benefactor now has no hold over any member of Mason’s Marauders.  The team decides that they want to remain together and find out more about The Benefactor and possibly take them down.  Coryphee knows someone that might be able to help, a man named Juan Barnett helped her to escape from her prison on Zathras and he also happens to have information on The Benefactor.  Barnett is a brother of a captain in the Capellan Confederation and a hacker/pirate, and as such he has gone into hiding after his escape from prison.  It will take Coryphee some time and hacking of her own to find out where Barnett has gone.

While Coryphee goes off with Valravn and Jackal to hunt for Barnett, Talon and the Lord Commander take some time on the shooting range to discuss Talon’s role as lance commander.  Talon has great tactical skill on the battlefield but very little skill with people.  The Lord Commander urges him to remember that he is commanding warriors, not just mechs and Talon agrees to try.  Back inside the manor, Coryphee has found some very interesting information regarding Barnett’s whereabouts.  It seems that Barnett’s tongue was a bit too loose one evening and he got himself picked up by some bounty hunters who then dropped him in a prison on the planet Alloway.  The facility is a privately run prison filled with the worst of the worst out in the middle of a desert.  The prison is also very well defended with mechs on their own.  The Yojimbo sets course for the month long journey to Alloway and the Marauders head to the simulators to work on their battle tactics before their coming prison break.

Upon arrival to the planet, the Marauders find that not only is the prison heavily defended but that it is mostly underground and is currently undergoing a jailbreak.  This complicates matters considerably as there is a lockdown control that can be accessed but it requires whoever is accessing it to be out of their mech.  Further the anti-personnel weapons that the team brought with them have to be used with care as they don’t want to accidentally kill the man they came to rescue.  Even more challenging is the fact that Jackal begins hearing voices during the battle, specifically a spirit named Phaedra who claims to have been Jackal’s friend in the mines and is calling for Jackal to kill the one who killed her…someone she calls “The Bloody Valkyrie”.  The escaping prisoners begin turning against the prison guards and Jackal has the idea to try and sway them to their cause.  Through luck or fate, Jackal turns out to have relatives being held in this prison so his appeal for aid is far more effective than expected.  The Marauders manage to get the front door of the prison open and destroy several of the opposing force’s mechs.  They attempt to parlay with the warden of the prison, who demands a mech to replace at least one that he has lost, when Jackal becomes so irritated with the negotiation and the voices in his head that he slams his face into his control panel.  Unwittingly, Jackal does heavy damage to the warden’s mech and knocks him down.  Having recovered Juan Barnett from the midst of the prison riot, the Marauders withdraw to the Yojimbo and take their leave of the planet.  Barnett is grateful for the rescue and is more than willing to help.  He reveals what he knows about The Benefactor, namely that they have unlimited resources in space travel and communication but not money.  He also relates how he was previously employed by The Benefactor as a pirate.  Barnett suspects that whoever The Benefactor is they are part of Comstar, possibly with precentor access but no public image, and they are also very interested in politics.

## Media

* Youtube (remove this bracket text and add the link)