"It All Began With..." (Part 8)

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• Date: November 20, 3028
• Planet: Galatea
• Location: 'Slade's Salvage Yard'

Mikell stood there with Reginald on one side and the salvage yard operator on the other, Peter Slade folding his arms at the silence. He nodded at the scene before them, sounding entirely unapologetic. "What? You asked about it, and you know what kind of place this is."

Reginald looked at him, then back at it. "You know, you have a point. But I'm having a moment of silence here, sir." He sighed. "There is just something profoundly sad about seeing it."

Mikell nodded. "Yes, but it's what we've got to deal with. I'm really sorry, Reginald, but you know it has to be done."

In front of the three men was a dismantled husk of a Warhammer, both legs missing and the torso having most of the armor removed. What remained was weathered, reddish paint worn off and visible corrosion having set in along the right side of the torso. The classic lines were thus a little less clear, but between the shoulder-mounted short-range missile launcher on one side and the spotlight on the other it made it more obvious what one was looking at. The arms were laying nearby on a pile of scrap, being designed as two large weapon pods after the elbow. One of those arms was missing its Particle Projection Cannon, the other had missing parts in the housing so it would likely need to be completely replaced. On the torso itself, four Medium Lasers were still present, as well as two emplacements for machine guns; those had been apparently removed some time ago.

For a scrapyard, this wasn't bad. Mikell glanced at Reginald and shook his head before turning to Peter. "So, you are asking how much for this-" He pointed to the dismantled BattleMech. "-thing?"

"Two million."

"Sir?" Reginald looked back at it. "We can do better than this."

"Not on Galatea." Peter drew himself up. "Now if you're not interested-"

Mikell held up his hands, and shook his head slowly. "Do you have any spare leg assemblies? I'm also going to need a cannon to replace the missing one, and it looks like the ammunition bin is missing for the machine guns."

The yard master shook his head, speaking his next words slowly. "Not missing, removed."

Mikell seemed to digest that, looking to Reginald who just shook his head slowly and sighed. Looking back to Peter, he blinked and lowered his voice. "Come again?"

"See, some MechWarriors like to rip it out so they don't have all the ammunition in there. A ton of ammunition for the machine guns? Even with two guns using it up, that still leaves a lot. So they just go without the guns. Of course, that's a job and a half to adjust so they just remove the ammo bins and never use the guns." He mused to himself for a moment. "I don't even know if this fellow fired its machine guns for the last twenty years before it wound up here."

"Why is it here, again?"

"Hip actuator failed catastrophically, and they didn't have time to fix it before they shipped back out. So they sold it to me, bought a Thunderbolt and hurried out." He brightened a bit. "Say, I still have one of those in one piece, if you're willing to buy. Four million and it's yours." The Thunderbolt was one of those BattleMechs which could do a lot of tasks, and had a little bit of everything in it. An older general design than the Warhammer, neither had undergone many changes in the last five hundred years, though two hundred years ago there were a few different models of Warhammer which had developed in the Successor States to suit their style of combat. The Thunderbolt, though, remained more or less the same - when you saw one, you knew what you were up against. Unless your enemy had one of the oddball Eridani models, in which case you were in for a nasty surprise.

Mikell pretended to consider the offer, then shook his head. "No, no, I sort of need this." He drew a circle in the air with his fingers to show the dismantled parts. "But I need to have the parts to put it back together so what can you help me with there?"

"Hell. I have the internal steel structure for a Warhammer's legs, but the myomer's gone to rot and half the actuators are missing anyway. If you're willing to comb through my inventory, we can probably find suitable replacements but you're going to need to find the myomer on your own."

Mikell winced a bit at the implied workload but he wasn't concerned too much about the repairs. Luckily, Trellshire Heavy Industries built Warhammers and could provide parts once he got back. It wouldn't be cheap, though. "Got it." He looked to Reginald, who had allowed his expression to slide back to being neutral. "So we have something to do this afternoon, then. You said two million?"

"Hold on, if you want all the other parts-"

"Two million, two hundred thousand, because those parts aren't useful to me aside from a starting guide. I have no guarantees the leg structures will be any good to work from, what with the myomer rot, and I'm going to need to do almost as much expense to get the other pieces. Of course, you're lucky it's still got one Donal-"

"Lord's Light."

Mikell made a face despite himself. "Reginald, correct me if I'm wrong but that's a Draconis Combine model of Particle cannon. Am I remembering the specifications right?"

"You're not wrong. That is the top of the line Draconis Combine model, commonly used in Panthers." Which were a Light-class BattleMech weighing in at thirty-five tons and built to be maneuverable fire support for much faster Light 'Mechs. "Mister Slane, was this the original cannon?"

"Sure is."

"Sir, these arms are from a DCMS Warhammer model all right. If the paint wasn't worn off I'm sure you'd see the dragon emblem on it."

"They'll still fit, though?"

Reginald shrugged a shoulder. "No guarantees. Depends on the tech who has to put it back together. Poor bas-"

"Two-point-two then." Peter threw up his hands. "And you can look for your list of parts."

"Thank you." He looked to Reginald. "Tell Jade we have a job for her talent sorting data, and then we can send a note to Olivia we have a Warhammer for her."

Reginald sighed, not looking forward to either task. "She will be thrilled to learn it's about four months out from actually being battle ready."

"We're about six months out from our outfit being battle ready so I'm not concerned about it." Mikell nodded and spread his hands. "Let's go sign the paperwork, and then we can get this BattleMech in a crate and stowed. Then we can start purchasing passage for the trip back."

---

• Date: December 9, 3028
• Planet: Blair Atholl
• Location: Jump Transfer Point, Leopard-Class DropShip 'Shadowfoxi

There was a tired sigh from Eva as she walked back towards the control cabin. "I need to get the ship ready for the next Jump, boss." Mikell was following behind her, pinching the bridge of his nose. Elly noticed them come in, and the look on Eva's face told her to make herself scarce. "And you should strap in somewhere before we give the all-clear signal, so if you don't mind?"

"I really need to know how this happened. I was told the name of this was a mythological horse from ancient legend. I am reasonably sure 'Shadowfox' wasn't the right name."

"There was a mistake on the form. I told you before. We can have it cleared up later if you really care about it." She sat down and turned around. "But that's going to have to be after we land somewhere with a HPG station, and it's going to be not right this minute." Her voice rose as she continued. "So if. You. Do. Not. Mind. Get buckled in, I do not have time for this right now." She pointed her finger at the communications station, and he sank into the chair. "JumpShip Blue Gallows, Shadowfox has all stations and cargo secure. We are ready."

The comm crackled a moment as the voice of the operator of the JumpShip came over. "Copy, Shadowfox. Jump in twenty seconds."

Mikell closed his eyes, and waited as his senses shifted and there was a brief disorientation. He blinked his eyes open to see Eva reaching for the comm controls. "All hands, Jump is clear, you are free to move around. Elly Cordova report to me, please?" And after she shut the comms she turned her head. "And you go find something to do other than hammer the same complaint, or you will be issued a suit and told to ride the outside of the ship from now on."

"Okay, I'm going." He got out of the seat, getting out of the way of Elly as she hurried to the door. He shook his head and floated past, finding himself in one of the smaller rooms to be seated in. Jade was in one of the chairs and belted in with a datapad and a stylus in hand. "What's up?"

"Just working on something."

"You know, we're not even that close to Twycross. You don't need to get a jump start on whatever work you think needs doing."

Jade glanced up from the pad, her expression puzzled for a moment before it shifted into one of annoyance. "I already finished most of that preliminary work the last time we stopped to charge. All I need is the data to put into the database, and it'll all be worked out. For now, I'm just chasing a hobby." She paused. "You know about challenge coins?"

"Oh lord."

"Okay, look, I agree with that expression on your face. But hear me out." She tapped the stylus on the edge of the datapad. "First, there is something about having a shiny thing of your own to show off you really belong to something." She paused, seeing Mikell's neutral expression. "Secondly, I can use it to contain data and use that data to keep track on the coins' owner."

"I . . . I'm going to need you to explain that." Mikell closed the door behind him and strapped into a seat.

"It's simple. You put serial numbers on the coins, and you track data to those numbers so you know when someone shows you coin number thirty-five who it's supposed to belong to. Along with why they earned it, and what it was for."

"And that would matter? Far as I understand the tradition-"

"It's about earning your place and having a token to show for it. It's like service ribbons or unit patches, and I know you'll be doing the latter eventually. But the coins? If it's not something you are issued, it's something you earn, it has a value which can't be explained."

Mikell nodded slowly. "But you want to link the serial numbers to a database to track them."

"It's part of what I want to build for the outfit so we can keep track of what things are. Without actual hard-copy, in redundant data storage. Frankly, I don't want to rely on someone else to hand me a program when I can do half of it on my datapad with a couple weeks of time." A pause as her mouth shifted into a half-smirk. "It also means when the thing breaks, we don't go outside the company for help fixing it."

"Sold. I know I don't want anyone else poking inside our own data. Whatever the MRB keeps on hand, they're welcome to share with people but I'd like to keep our own records of things. And the coins come into play to help with this?"

"Well it's coins or issued identification tags which can be counterfeit a whole lot easier than coins where we encode data so when we see a coin we know it's legitimate." She tapped a finger on the pad. "Also it will keep me from being bored while I wait on things to go wrong for me to fix."

"Given my luck, I don't think you will run out of things going wrong."

Jade shrugged and dipped her fingers into a pocket, sending a coin floating quickly across to Mikell. He looked at it, and paused. It had a round hole cut through it, with some sort of glassy stone in it but one face of the coin had some sort of characters he didn't recognize immediately. The other side had a fox chasing around the edge with nine tails behind it. "That's an example of what I can do with enough time and someone who knows how to get the equipment to make a coin properly. Some of the others would just cut designs into it, but I had a guy who worked with metal and would strike it out of some bronze."

"That's nice." Mikell floated it back to her, tilting his head. "Cost?"

"You're going to be dealing with BattleMechs and tanks, the cost won't measure anywhere near the cost of ammunition. Heck, we could even use scrap metal if we have the right tools and technique."

"Why do . . . you know this?"

"Boredom. Boredom and a lot of chance to read up on various things which are considered obsolete." Jade shrugged and looked back to her datapad. "Not that it's uncommon, the Free Worlds League does still run a coin mint."

"That's the League, though." It was a constant, repeated joke how the Free Worlds League tended to do things which were archaic, quaint, or just out of place. Largely because it wasn't as unified as the other four Successor States, being a collection of smaller territories which were held together under House Marik as a means of security in this uncertain world. They were also one of the few powers which bothered to use fractional currency in the form of coins as well as bills, and if you tried asking someone from the League why they would start speaking and then try to change the subject.

"Uh huh." Jade smirked and returned to the datapad. "Just wait until I finish the design, okay?"

"One condition. You have to design unit patches too."

"Heh." She pushed her glasses up on her face and smirked over the edge of the datapad. "It didn't take you more than five minutes to decide you wanted those." She waved the stylus. "I would rather not do so, though. I don't know a thing about getting patches made, maybe you could look someone else up?"

Mikell made a non-committal noise and got out of his seat. "You sure this is going to help you with the rest of what I hired you for?"

"It could not hurt. Now let me focus."

---

• Date: December 19, 3028
• Planet: Apolakkia
• Location: Jump Point, Leopard-class DropShip 'Shadowfox'

"Commander, you should really sleep." Reginald said, drawing Mikell out of his focus on the datapad in his hand. "You keep reading over the same bit over and over, and I know you haven't slept yet today." He offered a cup with a lid, sighing. "It's no good for you to go this long without sleep."

Mikell took it, sighing and taking a long drink. "I can handle it. I used to pull whole weekend marathons while at the school." He realized after speaking he was quite thirsty, and started to drink the rest of it; some sort of sweetened juice.

"And that wasn't as smart an idea then either." Reginald sighed, and shook his head. "We're almost back. Five days. And you are not staying awake for that time." He folded his arms.

"I still have some work to do, there's a list of equipment we need to start looking for, and I need to cross-check that with what Trellshire can offer." He rubbed at his eyes, and fought back a yawn. "It needs to be done-"

"Yeah, you delegated a lot of that to Jade on Galatea and now you're taking it back because you're getting stir crazy from a month on the DropShip. Stop. Sleep. You'll have a lot of work ahead soon."

"I can't sleep yet, just a little bit more work."

"I bet you're going to sleep soon." Reginald glowered down at Mikell. "Very soon."

"And what makes you say that?" He looked up, setting the datapad's edge on the table.

"Because I asked Irene to give me something to help me sleep, and put some it in your drink." Reginald glanced at his wrist, and moved forward to grab the datapad as it floated free of a loosened grip. He tucked it into the commander's jacket, and shook his head. He touched the intercom panel next to the sitting area. "Irene, can you give me a hand getting our fearless idiot to his cabin?" After he let go of the button he looked back at Mikell's sleeping form. "You'll have time after you sleep to get things done."

---

• Date: December 24, 3028; 15:50 Local Time
• Planet: Twycross
• Location: High Orbit

The Shadowfox was on approach to Twycross now, Mikell fidgeting at where he was strapped into a chair near the rear of the cockpit. It was used for internal communications, but Elly had long since done a minor modification to move all the communication functions to one station. After finding this out, Mikell had elected to claim the chair for himself and Eva had simply told him to not bother her as she was busy flying the ship. However, Mikell now spent most of the last three days on approach sitting there and trying to comprehend something he was reading now. On arrival he had requested any messages sent to him so he could read through; several small notes had arrived and had him wondering what had been going on. Several large charges had been done to the accounts he'd left open on Twycross for Olivia to tap into, and there was no notations on what they were actually for. Three days of eating sandwiches and reading, and sleeping only a little was starting to get to him. He never expected the ride in the control cockpit on a Leopard to be quite this bad for him. But he'd made his decision, and was going to stick to it.

As it happened, he was lightly napping as there was a chime from Elly's station. She noticed him look over, and keyed the transmission open for them all to hear."DropShip 'Shadowfox', you are cleared for landing at Field Base Salmacis. Please set your autopilot to follow the beacon."

"Copy, Twycross Control." Eva turned her head. "Elly, get us the signal and let them know we're coming." Elly nodded, and gave her a thumbs-up before clicking the control back and starting to speak into her headset.

"Hold on a moment, Salmacis?" Mikell looked over at Elly, who was ignoring him. "I don't recognize-" He stopped, frowning and narrowed his eyes. "Oh. Olivia." She read the files a lot deeper than he'd thought, to find the references he'd left there. But a field base would also cost quite a bit of time and money. That thought meeting in his weary mind with what he'd been reading hours before and leaving him feeling simultaneously enlightened and embarrassed to have not gotten it quicker. "Nevermind, let's get down there and then I'll figure it out." Maybe he would also be able to sleep better when he was on the surface.

---

• Location: Priam Company Field Base "Salmacis"

On approach Mikell noted the buildings on the surface, and a landing strip which was just large enough to handle the Leopard-class DropShip. After the DropShip finished landing, Mikell quickly moved towards the hold and noticed Reginald gathering everyone else here. "Okay, Reginald! You find where we're keeping people for now and get a look at our 'Mechs to be sure they're in good shape. After you do that, get them transferred to the Shadowfox 'Mech Bays. I want the technical team Olivia had starting to go over them. Get a list of stuff Irene and Eva are going to need, also, and I'll start making arrangements tomorrow."

"I get it, anything else?" He made mental notes, looking around the group. He lowered his voice, and leaned in slightly. "You're going to get some sleep soon?"

"Yeah, soon as I tell the purple horses stop following me around." He noticed Reginald's eyes narrow. "I'm kidding."

"You get to whatever place is set up for you, then you sleep for six hours at least. I'll make sure everything stays together until you wake up. Okay?"

"Okay." He nodded and Reginald slid away to bark out instructions to the group heading out of the DropShip. Mikell stood still for a moment, watching, and noticed Olivia standing at the bottom of the ramp on the other side, wearing a new jacket. Blue with a broad white stripe down the right arm and side. This continued to a pair of slacks she had on. "Olivia, looking sharp. What's all this?"

"Uniforms, sir." She grinned. "Found your directions in the console, along with the notes about getting a base laid out and running." She bowed at the waist. "Welcome to Salmacis Base, Commander Sethan. I turn it over to your command."

"This is a welcome surprise." He patted her shoulder and held up a finger. "Which way to the living quarters for officers?"

"Don't have any yet for officers, just for anyone. But I did set one aside for you, so follow me." She walked to one of the above-ground tunnel structures leading away from the hangar. "We've got about three more months before the excavation is completed to the point we can stop using above-ground storage. Two more months for the 'Mech Bays to be finished and stocked with the proper hardware. Oh, and we don't have a cook so we're making do with extremely basic meals."

"Fine, fine. You could have told me you were doing all this in a message, you know." He looked aside at her, feeling a little annoyed at her shrug. "Why not?"

"I did. It's probably still chasing you from a week ago. ComStar."

"ComStar." He muttered, and shook his head. "So what's in the above ground storage?"

"Spare parts, ammunition, a few pieces of hardware I found already. Better to have it now cheaper than to wait longer." She paused. "And before you ask, I picked this place as one of the less active spots on the dust belt for the season. By the time spring arrives and the storms kick up we should have everything underground."

"It's like you didn't even need me here." He said, laughing to himself. "I gave Reginald instructions, talk with him and split the duties for taking care of the base and those requests while I have some sleep."

"Yeah you look like you need it." She studied him for a moment. "I was expecting you to be upset about me accessing funds without approval."

"We need to get in motion, can't always wait for approval when I'm a month of travel away." He shrugged his shoulders, feeling the annoyance he'd been restraining drain away. She knew she'd crossed a line, and had been concerned about him being upset; he didn't need to micromanage that closely, it wouldn't do any good. He noticed she was walking off in another direction after handing him a code key. "Hey! Olivia?" She turned around, looking at him steadily. "Great work." She grinned and silently threw a vague salute before leaving.

The interior was about what he expected, a ten foot by ten foot room with a cot and a trunk. With four plastic boxes piled up in one of the corners with a piece of paper taped to the sides. Olivia's handwriting was scrawled on the makeshift label, reading "Commander's files, do not lose"; he smiled some at that as he lay down on the cot and tried to relax.

Shortly after closing his eyes, an indistinct voice spoke up at the barest whisper. "You're going to get them all killed, you know. You're not ready for this." Mikell lifted his head and saw an indistinct humanoid figure standing just inside the door, surrounded in a shimmering haze like a heat mirage. His heart caught for a moment, before he realized this wasn't real. If it was, he'd be screaming instead of staring.

Mikell closed his eyes and shook his head. "You're not here, you're not real, and you don't know me." He muttered, rubbing at his eyes with fingers. "Just go back to my imagination where you came from."

"No, but we know what you know. We know why you took off running in the first place, and why you're no better than what you ran from." The figure shook its head, the indistinct voice continuing. "You knew about it. You didn't do anything to prevent it, but you knew what was going on." Taking on a woman's voice, it spoke with a harsher accented tone. "And when it was over you told nobody."

He knew the voice, even if he didn't know the person it belonged to. Remembering finding the message, filed away in the archives where nobody was supposed to look. The last words of someone doomed to die because they knew something deemed hazardous to a plan long set in motion. He shivered, and he heard his voice crack as he began speaking again. "What good would that do? What good would anything have done at that point? It was always going to happen. People were going to die, and I couldn't stop it."

"Does that forgive your sin?" Another voice, another change to the figure as he looked over. An indistinct person again, but this time a vague semblance of a robe "Is your sin one of cowardice then? Or is it wrath, which sent you on this path?"

"Stop it. You're all not real, you're just a hallucination because-" He stopped himself, lowering his head to the pillow again. "Go away."

"Finish. You're hallucinating because of what?" The voice changing, shifting into someone else. He glanced up to see a brown-haired man sitting in a chair, dressed in simple white robes, studying a datapad. There hadn't been a chair there before, that was part of the hallucination, right? "Go on, you can tell me, Simon."

"You. You're not here either."

"And you're dodging. You're hallucinating because you're under stress, because this is moving out of your control. Olivia did something on her own initiative, something you didn't expect, and you're only now realizing you're once again on a ride you can't control." The man tsked and tossed the datapad on top of the trunk where Mikell could read the displayed data. Mikell didn't feel like playing along with his subconscious, so he just kept staring at the man sitting there. Or not sitting there, as the case was. "You're hallucinating because you're feeling guilty. You're tired, you studied so hard, you set things in motion. You're doing all the things you need to be a merchant of death."

"Go. Away."

"You stole the money from places you thought nobody would miss, attached to schemes you felt were immoral. But are you doing anything better with it? While you were just moving things around, while it was just getting people into going the same direction, you had no problem. But now you've seen the weapons, now you're realizing what's about to happen. People are going to die because of you."

"Shut up." He really wished he remembered why some of this felt familiar, then remembered dimly having a similar conversation many light years away and several years ago. He'd wondered if it had been a story he read, now he was sure it was just a conversation he was reliving because of sleep deprivation.

"How are you any better than me? Than us?" The man sighed, standing up. The chair vanished, and he folded his arms over his chest. "Why are you doing this? What is your goal, Simon?"

Mikell looked up, and stared into the hallucination, focusing on it for a long moment. There wasn't any point in continuing to fight it, was there? "I want to make things right. I want to do better."

The other man leaned forward, and if he had been real their noses would be mere inches from touching. "You can't lie to me. I'm from your head, remember? You could have done something after you left, but you signed up for a school to learn war. Then you joined a militia force. You're not helping anything, you're becoming part of the problem. Too many loose cannons, you told me once, and not enough direction. Well, you could have stayed and helped with that. You ran. You ran and now you're just pretending you can fix it."

"Shut up and go away."

"And where am I going to go? I'm from you, remember?" The figure straightened up, shifting, and Mikell saw himself standing there, hood of a white robe pulled forward to shadow his face. "Go ahead and fall asleep, try to avoid dreams about what you're going to be doing. But you are always going to come back to the same simple truth." The figure returned to being indistinct, the voice remaining the same though. "You're just pretending at becoming a better person than the people you were running from."

Mikell sat up, taking a deep breath. "I'm going to do better. I'll figure it out somehow. You're just a guilty conscience in a moment of weakness." He pointed a finger at the figure which shimmered in the air, a mirage which deserved to be forgotten. "Go away and leave me alone."

"Oh." The figure shimmered, and then vanished into the air. "You were always alone. And you'll always be alone." Mikell scowled, and rubbed at his eyes again as he lay his head back down.

"This is going to be a good thing." He muttered to himself. "I'm going to make it be a good thing."