"It All Began With..." (Part 2)

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• Date: October 23, 3028; 11:54 Local Time
• Planet: Twycross
• Location: Trellshire Heavy Industries, Militia Mess

The mess hall wasn't that crowded, as most of the militia had already eaten lunch and gone back to whatever they were doing. Mikell was fortunate, in not being cleared to return to duty he wasn't needing to be anywhere at any particular time. If you considered being in recovery for a wound to the thigh 'fortunate', he thought to himself, you really need a different barometer for good fortune.

"So you're the guy, huh?" An olive-skinned woman sat down across from Mikell, interrupting his chain of thought. "The one who was in the Scimitar doing a crazy gun run on a Jenner?"

"I don't think we've met." He looked her over, not unattractive but wearing the plastic apron which showed she was doing kitchen duty. "Have we?"

"Nah." She made a throwing gesture. "I'd remember."

"So would I, I think." He sipped from his cooled coffee, shaking his head at how he'd let it get cold. "What do you want?"

"Well word is they're going to axe your crew. Tough break, you deserve better."

He pointed a finger at her. "We only get what we deserve, no better or worse."

"Taurian stool." She said amiably. "I'm stuck doing KP duty because my Lance commander didn't like me telling him to sleep with someone else after the battle. He reprimanded me and gave me the choice of taking that reprimand or taking KP for a month. I really preferred the duty."

Mikell narrowed his eyes. "I get the sense that's not entirely true."

"It's better than having a black mark on my record and waiting for him to make another advance on me." She looked him over. "So I thought I'd say hi while I was bored."

"Why me?"

"Us misfits have to stick together." She shrugged, and ignored one of the other people cleaning tables looking over at her with an expectant expression. "If we do, then maybe next time we do something crazy it'll be something they can't sweep under the rug."

"I didn't want to do a crazy gun run." He lowered his voice. "I just needed to be a distraction long enough for someone in something heavier to hit the Jenner from the back. Luck would have it, that turned out to core it through and we got lucky."

"And I didn't mean to get my Warhammer shot up by two Panthers while 'out of position'." She actually held her hands up, using her index fingers to form quotation marks around her face. "Which is to say they insisted I hold where I was until the dust storm passed and then found out the Snakes used it as cover to move those slow things up and take shots."

"My condolences."

"Big word for a tanker."

"Wasn't always a tanker. Won't always be one."

She rolled her eyes, and then threw up her hands. "Well, if you want to keep being mysterious and brooding, then I'll go find someone more interesting to bother." She stood up, taking his coffee cup and sipping from it. "And who doesn't drink their coffee tepid."

Mikell hesitated before she walked off, and then spoke up. "Come back after you finish cleaning up, about an hour or so. If you have a fresh cup of coffee we can talk. Misfit to misfit." She smirked a bit, and walked off without another word. He returned to thinking, taking out a small notepad and scribbling a couple things down on it with a pen. Then he stood up and started walking through the tunnels, checking the notes he had from earlier.

The BattleMech simulation center was set up with a number of large grey pods in a row, but only one of them was occupied at the moment. A broader man was sitting in the seat, removing a heavy neurohelmet and letting out a slow breath. Mikell waited a few moments before approaching, drawing his attention. "Yes, may I help you, Private?"

"Perhaps. You are First Leutnant Reginald Brand?" He offered his hand, carefully working over in his mind how to get this conversation to move. "I'm Private Mikell Sethan, we met briefly in the defense of THI."

"Oh, the Scimitar driver?" The handshake was firm, and Reginald nodded slowly as he let himself recall it. "So, what is it you need?"

"A lot of things, but to start this off I want to tell you the militia is looking to cashier me out. Your unit wants to take me on, but I'm not too keen on the idea." He looked over the MechWarrior, and gauged his reaction so far. Liking what he was seeing, he proceeded as he'd planned. "According to the meeting I had this morning, they're going to deploy soon."

"I couldn't talk about that, even if I knew anything. You know that, Private."

"I'm only Private for about another twelve hours, then I'm a private citizen." He paused, and made the gamble he had been working on. "A private citizen who will start working on his own unit."

"Whoa." Reginald dropped his voice, and glanced around. "Going rogue?"

"Independent. That's the idea. I've got someone else ready to go in, and if my meeting tonight goes well then I'll have some equipment to work with instead of just hopes."

The First Leutnant hissed a long breath inwards, looking around, before speaking. "This could get me in trouble just for listening to it. And you could get in trouble before you even got yourself able to become registered with the Mercenary Review Board."

"Don't worry about the Review Board, I can handle that side of this. I just need a couple good people and some leads to fill out the ranks."

"Going rogue is kind of a problem, Private Sethan. Much less trying to convince me to help."

"Independent." Mikell corrected automatically, again, and shook his head. "I don't need to convince you to help, you already know if you're going to or not. What I need to know is if you can let me know the decision later, tomorrow around 10:00? I'll have more concrete information for you, also."

"I'm going to regret hearing you out." Reginald shook his head, and grabbed his jacket from outside the pod. "I didn't have this conversation, I don't know what you are talking about, and that's what I'll say if anyone asks me. You had better have some solid concrete for me in the morning or I'm going to be very upset with you." He left, frowning.

Mikell waited, thinking the whole conversation over in his head and nodding. That was one. The decision he'd come to after the meeting with Hauptmann Keating was looking more like a good one. He quietly returned to the mess hall and found Olivia waiting there as he had requested. She was sitting on top of one of the tables in her casual-dress uniform, looking at him steadily as he approached and sat down at the table. Beside her were two cups of steaming coffee, and she quietly pulled a flask from her hip pocket and poured a measure into one cup. "Do you want some?"

"You know, that could get us into trouble."

"Don't care."

"And no, we should be talking and not getting drunk."

"I won't be getting drunk, I'll be getting buzzed." Olivia sipped at her cup and moved to sit across from him. "So what is it you were going to say to me?" She half-smirked. "You know what happened when someone hit on me, I'm sure I told you."

He sipped at his coffee, holding up a finger to forestall her going any further on that line of thinking. "I'm thinking of going independent after they cashier me out."

Her expression stopped being amused, the smirk wiped away in a blink of an eye. "Going rogue is kind of more than a misfit thing, that's more of a firing squad thing."

"Why does everyone want to say it like I'm turning pirate or something?" He muttered into his cup. "I plan on starting up a mercenary outfit. Legitimate, honest work."

"When someone needs to express it's legitimate, it probably isn't." She murmured across the table, frowning now. But she hadn't gotten up. "Talked to others?"

"Some. I need something solid before I really move this ahead with my contacts, but I can get us travel to Galatea and the registration cost to form an outfit with the Mercenary Review Board. There are two problems I need to go over, though. First, we don't have anyone other than three people involved and it is going to take a hell of a lot more to actually have a mercenary outfit."

"Ehhh, we could start small and work our way up." She sipped from her cup, nodding as she pressed past that problem first. "What's the second problem?"

He smiled, chuckling to himself as he swirled the cup in his hand. "We don't have any hardware. I really thought that was going to be a lesser issue than 'we don't have anyone to drive a 'Mech anyway', but you inspired me to look on the bright side." He took a long drink, then shook his head. "If I'm lucky we can hire a DropShip, but the BattleMechs are the bigger hurdle right now."

"Well, I don't have one in my back pocket but we could use the ignition codes for my Warhammer."

"I told you, we're not going pirate."

"Could steal it and jump the border." She pointed out, sipping from her cup.

"Okay, sure, it's not like the Draconis Combine will stop us at the border and run our identities."

"Fake those?"

"And they don't hire mercenaries there."

"Keep going 'til we hit the other side?"

"Federated Suns territory?" Mikell sat back in his chair. "Look, you are aware they're practically the same as the Commonwealth territory, yes? Their alliance is slow to really merge the two huge swaths of territory but I'm sure if we show up with a stolen BattleMech it won't go well. Let's try thinking something else which isn't going to get us in trouble so we have to hide out at Canopus."

Her expression had been souring steadily, but now she brightened and sat up. "Say-"

"No." He stood up, and shook his head. "I have a couple more people to talk to, how about you meet me tomorrow at fifteen hundred? Say, at Sublevel Four, by the Trellshire Heavy Industries access route?" She nodded, standing up and walking off. He began to scribble notes on a small notepad again, and stopped as he saw she'd stopped and turned halfway. "What?"

"Never thought I'd go rogue before."

"Independent!" He hissed, frowning. "Go on, I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll bring an eyepatch."

"Please no."