"The Menagerie at Twycross", Part 5
- Date: June 12, 3050; 06:01 Local Time
- Planet: Twycross
- Location: Salmacis Base, Commander's Office
The stress must really be getting to her. "Commander. Xiphos is back." Her head snapped to look directly at him for a moment before he realized she was looking through him for a heartbeat. "We've got a problem."
The olive-skinned woman shut her console off with a stab of her finger and rose quickly. "Walk with me." She threw on her uniform jacket, buttoning it up and he looked away for a moment to see a shattered porcelain mug at the base of a wall. A dark stain had run down to the metallic floor, and he shivered a bit at realizing the sign she had lost her composure far enough to waste coffee.
He had to quicken his pace to catch up, as she reached into a pocket and situated her comm into her ear. Her tone was all business, as she began speaking before activating the comm. "What's the problem?"
"Only half of them made it back." They were out into the above-ground access corridor to the 'Mech bays, hardened glass meant to withstand the Twycross storms allowing him to look out and see the sky just before sunrise. A swirl of dust in the distance told him there would be a storm later today, but likely a mild one. They descended a set of stairs to enter the facility containing the hangar and workspace. The original design had been for surface-level hangars until Olivia had insisted they keep sensitive equipment out of the way from the dust storms. Since she'd been in combat on Twycross before and suffered through one of those storms, she had known exactly how bad it could get. She had also discovered how expensive it can get, building a facility for repairing 'Mechs underground.
"Yeah. That's about what I expected to hear." The Commander seemed to brace herself outside the entry door. Then she walked through into the top level of the 'Mech bays. The Victor was in one of the repair bays missing a considerable amount of armor and with a hole in the left torso where the missile launcher should be. The entire right arm was missing, which made its primary weapon also out of use. Across from it was the Black Knight, scarred but intact except for a visible hole in the 'helmet' mask over the cockpit.
Olivia's brow furrowed, as she took in the two 'Mechs standing there, and she put her hands on the railing overlooking the technical teams' staging area. They were consulting storage records and trying to determine the extent of the damage to the two BattleMechs. Half the Lance had come back, and which two ‘Mechs were missing likely were why she had gone still and silent.
The Centurion which had Sofia in it hadn't come back.
"Commander-"
She pointed her right hand at him, not even looking in his direction. "Shut up." She whistled loudly to get the attention of the crews below. "People, I have orders for you. I want you to do your absolute best to make sure the Victor is ready for combat again, but if you can't fix the right arm I want you to stop work and put it aside. One team needs to make sure the rest of our 'Mechs are ready for combat at any time from now forward, and I mean all of them."
"Yes, Commander." The head technician stepped forward. "But we're still trying to ascertain if we've got-"
"If you don't have parts, you don't have parts. But you'll find the time." She rapped her knuckle on the railing and spoke up louder. "I am authorizing overtime, and paying triple instead of a hundred-fifty percent. Make it happen, and keep me informed." She turned around and looked at Otto for a long moment before heading off in a different direction.
"They're in the infirmary. They came back pretty banged up, but in an hour they should be available for debrief."
"Screw that." She growled out, quickening her pace as he caught an edge of fury in her tone. "Irene's no longer here, and the medics should fear me rather than the other way around." The infirmary wasn't too far through the underground tunnels; Sub-level One, Section 6 was supposed to be close in case someone had to be pried out of a recovered 'Mech.
Otto watched her slam the door open and Vandal gave her an annoyed look while Ellen tried to straighten up in her bed. "Damn it, Commander, we could have waited to debrief." Only Vandal usually got away with talking to Olivia that way, due to his age and experience. But today was a different day, and his expression shifted once he looked at her. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, be reporting. What the hell happened out there?"
"Commander-" The medic was speaking up until Olivia turned her whole body and stepped up to stare up into his face. The sheer aura of menace and intimidation rolling off a woman a head shorter was enough to make Otto step back. "Nevermind."
Ellen was sitting back against the pillow of her infirmary bed, making a face. "I'll give you a brief one, Commander. There were only three 'Mechs we faced out there. One Assault-class which packed a wallop, a Medium-class which seemed geared for long range combat, and a Marauder."
"Just a Marauder?" Vandal spoke up, rubbing his finger along the bedrail. "It seemed so, at least we guess it was the 3R model. Two PPCs and an Autocannon on top." He noticed Ellen glancing at him, but he continued. "We split up. Boleyn and I took to some rocks for cover, Raster took the Victor for an ambush, and Garrido- Sofia went down the middle to engage whomever was there."
Olivia rounded her head to look at Ellen. "Why the middle?"
"I figured the Centurion could take a pounding, and we could cover her if it got too bad. She... didn't follow the plan. She noticed the odds were not in our favor and showed she read the reports by stepping up and challenging the Assault-class to fight her."
"She certainly does take after you, Commander." Vandal snorted softly, and winced as a hand went to his ribs. The cockpit restraints probably left some bruising under the gauze wrapping, Otto figured.
She couldn't muster a glare in response, just looking between the two of them. "Go on." She hooked a foot onto a stool behind her, and rolled it out so she could sit down. "How badly did it go?"
"Not as badly as we thought." Ellen picked up, making a hand motion. "The Centurion survived the first salvo, and the second salvo. But it fell - and fell apart - after it. But the fools shut themselves down overheating, so we got to pick them apart. I don't think they recovered from that, either, because we did some serious damage." She was quiet for a moment, and spoke softer. "That move is likely the only reason we could pull it off."
"I'm aware of the implications." Olivia said slowly. "What about Boleyn?"
"Ammo explosion." Vandal muttered, looking away. "Cooked him alive." They were all silent for a while, the medic seeming like he was about to interrupt twice before turning away to busy himself with packing more medical supplies to take with them. "We don't know where Sofia is, the 'Mech fell but didn't explode. But her comm wasn't responding so either she was knocked out or her system was."
"And we couldn't wait to find out." Ellen added, straightening up again despite a wince. "Reports say there's usually groups of five 'Mechs with these invaders. We fought three, so where are the other two?" She spread her hand out a bit. "I... made the call not to risk it."
Vandal spoke up, raising his voice. "I did-"
And in turn, Ellen began to shout, eyes narrowing. "I could have ordered us to-"
"Enough!" Olivia snapped out, and pointed at each of them. "You, stop trying to take responsibility for your superior. You, stop pulling rank after the fact. And both of you shut the hell up." After they both dropped their gazes and fell silent, the Commander folded her arms in front of her. "I'm mad. I'm pissed off. I'm hurt at what happened, but I'd make the same call in your place. Sofia is tough, if she lived she'll make it back. If not... then it's something I plan to make the invaders pay for in blood." She half-turned away, looking to Otto. "Get their BattleROM recordings and let me take a look. For now, they're off-duty until the medic says they can fight."
"Gotcha, boss."
As they left, Otto watched her hand reach into a pocket, saw her fingers holding a coin between them. He reflexively pulled his own coin out of a pocket, but she quickly stuck it back into hers and left her hand closed around an object. "Commander? What's the matter?"
They were walking down the hall, back towards the barracks access tunnel. "I never planned for this, Otto. I wanted her to do anything but mercenary work, but she decided to do this." She seemed about to say something, then shook her head. "And I had to have something like this happen as her first actual combat mission. Not like ours, not even like my first drop with the Regulars."
"I see..." He didn't, but he also wanted to interrupt her train of thought. 'Where was she going with this?'
Olivia opened her hand to show a small pendant nestled in her palm, a silver cross on a fine chain of steel links. "I've never been particularly religious, Otto. I always assumed if there was a God, they didn't care enough to do anything other than pass judgment on us poor souls after we die." She started walking again, the other mercenary falling in behind her. "As I got older and my family got more distant, literally, I was going to the academy on Coventry. Still got my rag around here somewhere."
"Boss?" He saw a stairwell ahead, and realized where they were headed. "I know you're having a tough time-"
"Anyway." She talked over him, turning her head to look over a shoulder. "I ran into many different religions, at the academy. I started to wonder if the one I was raised with had any truth to it, and how would I know? Only one way, and I wasn't about to test it." She shrugged and looked forward again, starting down the stairwell. "I began to lose faith, or at least to lapse in following the right things to do. I stopped going to services, but the academy chaplains never bothered asking about why. I think they knew."
"I liked to think I'd accepted it was all crap. Something to keep people in line, a relic from a time before the Kearny-Fuchida drive, obsolete but stubbornly clung to because what else was there to do? Lose faith altogether? I don't think humans can do that." They had descended one level, and were still going, as Otto watched her walk with a poise matching her steady tone of voice. "I couldn't, at the least. Dunno about the rest of you lot."
He followed her out into the hallway on the third sublevel, coughing discreetly. "Can we change the subject?"
"No." She turned left. "The old Commander and I would talk, at length, while we were posted on White Reach. I'd try to convince him it was a stupid game to keep following rules set down three millennia ago by people who didn't understand the world was round. He'd spend time poking holes in that, saying the specific rules changed many times or that it was clear the people knew the world was round but never gave it thought." She waved her right hand as though throwing a piece of garbage away. "I hated him for that, but not for how he followed it all up."
"And what was that?" Otto looked at the doors to the chapel as Olivia simply pushed them open and stepped forward. It was a simple non-denominational space, with six benches arrayed around a center altar. An adjoining supply room held most of the things the various religions might need, but wouldn't carry with them.
Instead, Olivia simply set a small votive candle on the altar and struck a match from a pocket. "One time I'd gotten very drunk, before that whole bloody campaign was over. It was after he stopped me from killing a prisoner, because she was too important to kill. Even if she was begging for it. He told me he didn't believe there was a higher power, but as I was about to pounce on that he put his hand on my shoulder and asked me something." She met Otto's eyes finally, and tilted her head slightly. "He asked me what harm was there in hoping there was someone looking out for us 'up there'."
She turned back around to the candle, staring into the flame. "So no, Otto. I've never been very religious. In fact, I'd drifted away from it. But then I had a daughter to look after, and she decided she wanted to be a merc like her mother." She slowly descended to kneel before the altar, dipping her head. "So these days I find myself thinking... it can't hurt to ask anyway." She clasped both hands in front of her, eyes closing.
Otto swallowed, watching her for a few moments before backing away and leaving the room. He had never seen Olivia seem so vulnerable, not even during the worst parts of their time on White Reach. She'd always laughed it off, or played things off like a joke. This side of her was new to him, and he wasn't sure how much it changed how he saw her. Then again, he hadn't know she had a daughter until she showed up on the recruitment rolls, which still made him wonder how she'd kept that secret.
Another test.
Sofia was watching insignia scroll by on the screen one by one, and identifying them one by one. "The Capellan Confederation. The Free Worlds League. The Magistracy of Canopus." She was bored, most of these ones she knew from having studied the historical programs. Behind her was her mother and the tall woman were speaking to each other quietly, while the person conducting the test only told Sofia if she was correct or not.
They started getting harder, older defunct symbols starting to work their way into the listing. "Rim Worlds Republic. Duchy of Andurien. The Aurigan Coalition. Star League." The last one had a pain starting behind her eyes, and she tried to blink. She couldn't. The next image made her pause, feeling the pain increasing. "Wolf's Dragoons. Northwind Highlanders." The pain was growing much worse on the next one, and it took her almost a minute before she spoke again. "The One Star Faith."
"Correct." The test administrator's voice was calm, as he hesitated. "You are doing well." The only words he'd spoken since the test began other than 'correct' or 'incorrect', though she had heard the latter only once so far.
Then another symbol appeared, a green dragon on an orange circle. She hesitated much longer than before. "Rysel Industries."
"Incorrect."
She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. "... but that's right."
"Incorrect." He now sounded annoyed, and she heard footsteps. "Those are traitors. They deserve to die."
"But-"
His hand was on her head, a firm grip with the fingers as his voice became an angry growl. "You are failing the test. I have no need for failures. Identify them."
"I am right! Mother, tell him-" Then the fingers tightened.
Everything went dark, and she heard a distant argument. It was her mother again, almost shouting about how it was still her daughter's choice. Sofia struggled to open her eyes, and this time she almost was blinded by bright lights and barely able to make out a male silhouetted against them who was silently staring. Then the argument moved closer, as her mother was speaking. "I don't care what you're telling me the machine is saying. It will be fine, she's not-"
"She could be dangerous." The other voice was calm, that of the woman who ordered the tests. "I know you have your pet maniac, and think she is under control, but this is a whole different level. I cannot be certain submerged directives were implanted, or subconscious conditioning took place. This is a risk we cannot take."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not giving up on her. She's still alive. It's not over yet until she's dead."
Sofia opened her eyes again, glancing around before remembering where she was. It was the cockpit of her Centurion, or what was left of the 'Mech after it had fallen forward. The legs were separated from the torso, the internal structure having torn apart in a gruesome display of ruined myomer and titanium-alloyed steel twisted until it sheared apart. The fusion engine had broken on impact, shutting down to avoid any catastrophic failure, and the backup power supply was likely in pieces over several dozen meters. The 'Mech had no power, and that meant it was dead on the ground.
But she wasn't dead yet, which was all that mattered. It wasn't over.
She knocked her head back against the headrest lightly, taking a long breath in and listening to the wind howling through the ruined body of her 'Mech. No personal comm unit had the transmitting power to punch through a storm, or the interference which was still going on. Trying to do so would just waste its battery, and she needed that to try finding help. The emergency kit under her seat had a flare gun and hand-light, but there were no flares and the light was too weak to use for signaling during the daylight. The ration stashed in the kit had a rip in the packaging, so she had declined to eat it.
Hours later, she now wondered if she should have chanced it anyway.
"So, Sofia, what lessons can we learn from this failure?" She asked herself, reaching for her drinking water and taking a sip. "Unfortunately, I don't think there's too much of anything other than 'don't taunt things bigger than you'." She muttered to herself, and glanced around the dark cockpit again. Might as well keep her eyes closed, and keep waiting out the storm.
Normally, a 'Mech left for dead on the field would be claimed by the enemy and the 'MechWarrior within taken prisoner. For whatever reason, nobody had bothered to look for her and this puzzled Sofia. Everything she'd heard was how people would be dragging the carcass of a 'Mech off to see what could be repaired if possible. If it wasn't possible to repair, then they'd see what useful components could be salvaged. And if it was impossible to salvage, only then would it be forgotten and left for junk scavengers to break down into parts.
None of that had happened.
Her eyes snapped open as the sound of wind subtly changed, and she reached for her sidearm. Then she realized it was the windstorm passing, and began to grab what she could from inside the cockpit. The emergency kit had a strap she tucked her arm through, even if it was probably going to be useless. Her other hand quickly grabbed her filter mask and put it on, just in case. She might still have a lot of skin exposed to the weather, but breathing without a filter mask would be much worse than anything else. It was a pity her neurohelmet would have to remain behind, but it was just too heavy to easily carry along.
Sofia glanced down at her hands, then up at the sky. She had no clue what time it was, but she hoped she could make it back to Salmacis before night fell. "It's a hundred kilometers to get back home, and you're on foot you stupid girl," she muttered to herself. She took a deep breath and started walking. "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You can do this."
She wasn't dead yet, and that meant it wasn't over.
- 19:15 Local Time
- Location: Salmacis Base, 'Mech Bays
Something which Olivia seemed to agree upon, as she nodded slowly. "We are usually never this lucky." She turned to look at the Victor, which was having the right arm socketed back in place. All that remained was getting the armor put back together, and then it would be done. "I keep expecting someone to start screaming and there to be an explosion."
"No, no, we disposed of those custom coffee machines. Whatever the heck Louis did to them, they could turn out something easily classified as hazardous material." Otto said casually, smiling over at her. When that didn't get a laugh, he sighed and looked away. "We'll get a report soon on how things actually went, Commander. Are we battening down the base before sundown?"
"No."
"No offense meant, Olivia-" At her expression he backtracked verbally, quieting his tone. "Commander, the dust storms are expected to be stronger than average tonight. We need to seal the lift access for the next five hours."
"We're not doing that. Our perimeter patrols are still out there, and you know how well Quickscell Condors perform." They shared an expression, remembering all the trouble they'd had before with the motive systems breaking down at the slightest damage. Or a dropped bolt-driver during their standard maintenance cycles. "We need to be ready to receive them."
He squared his shoulders, clasping his hands behind his back as reflexes struck him. He was never supposed to correct a superior officer, but as her Executive it was necessary to offer alternative opinions. "If they're not on the way back already-"
"Commander!" The shout which interrupted him came from the catwalks overhead, and both looked up to see a comm officer waving down. "I thought you'd like to know-"
"This is absolutely not how you do it, Jarod." She snapped, and pointed to the spot in front of her. "Get down here and report to me, not shout for everyone to hear." The chagrined officer started to climb down, and she looked at Otto. "I will make sure we stay disciplined, Otto. No matter what."
He hesitated, and shrugged. "He'd approve."
"Like I give a damn, he's not here any longer." She turned around as Jarod walked up and came to an approximation of attention before her. "Okay. Report now, and try to keep your voice down. People are trying to work, and I'm paying overtime and hazard pay."
"I just received word from the perimeter patrol, Commander. They've intercepted-"
"Do we have incoming, then?" She looked back towards where the Head Tech was meeting with his crew chiefs, and was about to walk off before Jarod snagged her sleeve. "You never have permission to touch me like that, Jarod."
"Ma'am, I-" He let go and then started speaking again, rapidly. "It's not the enemy, they picked up an emergency signal from one of our personal comm units on repeat. They are inbound now with one of our people from Xiphos Lance." He swallowed, and then looked to Otto before responding. "Estimated time to return is now forty minutes."
Olivia held his gaze for several heartbeats, and then ran past him to climb upwards, snapping over her shoulder. "Otto, take over for the next hour." He watched her hustle, and sighed, looking back to Jarod and pointing a thumb over a shoulder as a silent instruction to leave. He'd move on to the Head Tech next, who would likely be grateful to talk with him instead of the Commander. And she'd be grateful for getting a chance to get this problem off her back.
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