Blood and Fury

"Blood and Fury" is the 22nd episode of Death From Above.

The Marauders extract vengeance on one of the Benefactor's minions.

## Summary

Taking the information gained from their encounter with Red Mariah, the Marauders gather their resources and make plans with the Lord Commander who has returned from dealing with his personal spy network.  The person who hired Sir Raven Cuthbert is someone called The Face and they work directly for The Benefactor.  Hoping to find more information the team consults Barnett, their recently rescued hacker extraordinaire, and finds that The Face has recently traveled to the Solardia system.  Much of the system is run by various pirate bands but they are able to narrow down his location to the fifth moon in the system.  He appears to be working with a group of pirates called the Blood Hawks but in order to get a better idea of his exact position the Marauders will have to do some digging.  Talon sends a heavily encrypted message to his friend Rio in the Lyran Commonwealth requesting any information on The Face.  While they wait to make the jump to the Solardian System, far away The Benefactor is making plans with other minions to disrupt the possibility of coming peace among the powers of the Third Succession War and to reign in a certain band of MechWarriors gone rogue.

The Lord Commander takes some time with Jackal to find out more about his newly found calm, and medication, and the two men share painful memories that have trapped them mentally and emotionally.  Jackal cannot escape the memories of his former lance members dying and the Lord Commander is continually remembering the push of a button that destroyed thousands of lives, including the one that meant the most.  Upon arrival to the Solaria system Patel, the new ship’s doctor, suggests that the low atmosphere of the moon makes it perfect for spying on the pirates with a telescope…which they are going to build.  The information gained from their new equipment is not good.  Not only is the planet crawling with pirates, but it also has a comm station which is perfect for radioing in distress calls to the nearby tank factory which is cranking out as many as forty tanks a week for The Face to use as he likes.  A daring plan is hatched, utilizing the specific skills of Kenneth, the former member of the Asteroid Defense League, and the daringness of the Marauders.  The teams begins to prepare to hot drop in their mechs onto the moon’s surface and into the middle of The Face’s base of operations, while Kenneth and two others prepare to space jump down to the comm station to find The Face’s exact location.

Hot dropping onto the moon, the Marauders finally meet The Face.  Attempts to bribe several members of the team fall short but Valravan takes heavy damage to her mech during the battle.  Jackal also finds some long lost family members who help out with several air strikes.  The Face is finally defeated but proves uncooperative to questions.  Things take a darker turn, especially for Coryphee who turns to torture during the interrogation but The Face finally reveals what he knows though this does not save his life.  The Marauders learn that The Benefactor is a woman with almost limitless resources with a special interest in Project Boomerang.  The Benefactor does not know the location of the project but she does know the code, which she gave to The Face which is now in the possession of The Marauders.  Most importantly, she personally funded the invasion of Zathras by pirates…an invasion that was single handedly thwarted by The Lord Commander.  Later that night, Coryphee and her father have a talk about the information gained from The Ears during which he reveals that his decision to destroy the space station, the space station with his wife and Coryphee’s mother onboard, was not his alone.  He made it with the input and blessing of his wife…and he has a new plan that involves Project Boomerang, the code, and Coryphee.