"White Reach: Landfall" (Part 4)
- Date: September 8, 3031
- Planet: White Reach, Pelea Continent
- Location: DropShip 'Aquila', External Access 2
"This is a serious matter, Commander Sethan." She held it out. "The Common Senate would like you to appear again in one month's time. They would also appreciate it if you did nothing more to cause something... sensational as before to happen inside city limits again." He took the envelope and opened it to note the papers were inside. "The High Senate will reconvene soon as well. A courier from that body will likely contact you also."
"Very well, then." He began leafing through the papers, nodding slowly. "Everything appears to be in order here. Was there anything more?" As she shook her head he knocked on the hatch behind him. "Then clear out. We're sending up a scout soon, trying to see if we can pinpoint the location of the interference on the planet. Hopefully after that, ComStar will open up again and we can all go back to playing by the rules."
She visibly bristled. "We do play by the rules-"
"No." Mikell cut her off. "What you're about to say is how you play by the rules and us reckless mercenaries are the ones breaking it. But we're authorized to be here unlike some of the other groups on the planet. I submitted it to the Common Senate. I left you a copy which, certain as I said, didn't reach them. Imagine that, it must have gotten lost." His voice dripped with sarcasm as the hatch began to cycle open. "Madam, I have been courteous, and I have done what is as close to what I should do as is possible. ComStar being shut down sort of made it impossible to forward my authorization, so I'm not surprised people are confused or defensive about what I am here for."
"You aren't welcome here."
"Here's the thing." He scowled at her as the hatch finished cycling open. Reginald and Olivia were standing on the other side. "I really don't care if I am. I have a job to do, and I am being paid to do it. I prefer doing something for the people here, but." He shrugged, leaving the thought unfinished.
The courier scowled and looked up at the DropShip before looking back down at the trio just inside the hatch. "So why submit yourself as you did?"
Olivia smirked and patted him on the head. "Because he's an idiot." She quipped lightly. "Now get out of here."
Mikell held up a hand at Olivia and looked back at the courier for a long moment, before speaking softly. "I believe everyone is accountable for the decisions they make and the consequences which follow. But that doesn't mean I am required to accept the punishments your senators would graciously dump at my feet to be rid of me." He pointed at her, expression hardening. "You want to be upset at me for what I did? Fine. I can accept your outrage. But it's not going to stop me from continuing this path, and it won't stop me from trying to find ways around repeating the same mistakes." He tapped the control for the hatch, starting to cycle it shut. "You want to find a villain for your narrative? Better be sure you want to fit me in there, as I'll have to play the part."
As the door shut, Reginald sighed at him. "Are you seriously going to follow through on that if she does anything? We really have enough to do already, hopefully the investigations will turn up the interference source and we can get back to the other tasks at hand."
Mikell snorted. "Sure. I'm serious. If they want a boogeyman in the careless mercenaries, I'll wear it with pride. It's not like I'm going to be here this time next year. The Inner Sphere is a big place, and the Lyran Commonwealth-"
"Federated Commonwealth." Olivia corrected under her breath.
"Shut up. And the Commonwealth is a slightly less big place. I'm sure there's more work for me somewhere else and these people can vilify me, crucify me-"
Olivia tapped him on the shoulder. "What the hell does that mean?" He stared at her for a moment. "What?" He looked at Reginald, who shrugged in amusement. "What?!"
"Nevermind. What matters is we do the job with a lot less mess, we get paid, and we never have to be here again. Go check with Louis and make sure the Warhammer is ready if we need it, okay?" Olivia stalked off, and Mikell started walking again, hearing Reginald make a small noise. "What?"
He paused before speaking. "Are you trying to convince us, the courier, or yourself you want to be a wild and scary merc who doesn't give a damn? You put up a good act, but you went through a lot of trouble you didn't have to just to look like you were going an extra step beyond the minimum expected amount."
"Well I'm human, not a complete dick."
- Date: September 16, 3031
- Planet: White Reach, [Redacted]
- Location: [Redacted]
"What are your orders, Captain?" A red-haired young woman glanced around at the other 'MechWarriors. "We can be ready in fifteen."
"Lieutenant Siegbold, I want you to take Carver with you. Carver." He nodded at a younger man, glancing back confusedly. "You have the Catapult K2. The two of you should be a credible threat to any scouts trying to breach."
"Sir." Lieutenant Siegbold hesitated, then shook her head. "I want more than that." He arched an eyebrow at her. "Give me Anders with the Banshee, and Christian in the Quickdraw. We won't be fast but the firepower should be adequate to crush anyone trying to stand in our way." Anders glanced over, looking surprised, but then straightened back up as the captain glanced around the 'MechWarriors.
And his expression twitched, annoyance flickering across his face. "Two Assaults? You want to use two for this?" He sighed, leaning on the table. "Lieutenant, we have the luxury of secrecy right now, and if we start throwing Assaults at the problem-"
"Sir, if we have to fight, I would feel much better having a full Lance." She countered swiftly. "And we don't know what they will send, it could be scouts or it could be a full assault force." The expression on his face told her this was going to get her in trouble, even if he was convinced she was right.
"Take Anders and Christian then. And if it turns out you didn't need them I'll post you to the Emmetton base after." He pointed at her. "And you will thank me I didn't make an example out of you."
"Yes, sir." She turned and left with the rest of the 'MechWarriors.
Captain Tybalt watched them go, then snorted and went back to image on the table. A figure sidled out of the shadows, a hooded robe obscuring the features. "What is it you see?" A raspy female voice asked. "Have you found it yet?"
"Not yet. We need more time." He glanced at her, then sighed. "We may not have it, though, if Siegbold is right."
The woman walked around the edge of the table, head lowered as if in reverence. Captain Tybalt knew different, remembering the pose from when she had hired the outfit. "You swore an oath." She said finally. "Your name is on this, finding Damascus and preventing anyone else from taking it." She hesitated, a gloved hand touching the edge of the table. "She will not be pleased if you fail her."
"We're not failing her." Captain Tybalt squirmed slightly at the mention of his employer. "We-"
"Are nevertheless not succeeding. The project demands the supplies inside Damascus, before we can resume operation." She hesitated. "Are you pleased with your progress, Captain Tybalt?" Her voice had turned pensive, her head turning to look at him from under the hood.
"I am certain we cannot do this any faster, ma'am."
She nodded slowly, turning away. "I need to see to other preparations elsewhere. I leave this in your capable hands, Captain. When you find Damascus, shut down the transmitter and ComStar will turn the HPG back online so you can send a message to me. Do not contact us before you uncover Damascus. Is that clear?"
"I-" He swallowed down the words he had been about to say, and then bowed his head. "If that's your instructions, I will follow them to the best of my ability."
"Your ability doesn't impress me all that much, currently." She walked out of the room, her voice growing harsher and more raspy as she raised her voice. "And if your ability proves not to be good enough, the punishment for failure is in her hands to determine, not mine." She swept out of the control center, leaving little silence in her wake.
Captain Tybalt glanced around at the operators who had stopped working to stare, and they all hurriedly found their work ready for them to pick back up. He slowly sank into his chair and brought up the progress map thus far. Only forty-two percent finished, and that was assuming they hadn't been cute and placed Damascus on the ocean floor. This job was shaping up to be far more of an effort than he had thought when accepting the offer. Of course, building a new Star League was going to take an immense amount of effort, but still . . . in twenty years' time, if they succeeded here?
Who knew? Even the impossible might be made inevitable.
- Date: September 17, 3031
- Planet: White Reach, Pelea Continent
- Location: DropShip 'Aquila', Briefing Room
"How badly, sir?" Simone frowned at the image, leaning forward. Kelly was trying to balance a stylus on her fingertip, while Otto watched her distractedly. "Is it going to hamper our ability to tell if we're getting ambushed?"
"No, Jade and Louis don't think it will be that bad. Any sensor readings outside of a kilometer will be a problem, but the sensor suite on the Raven should cut through the interference fine."
Otto let out a long breath. "At least that year off wasn't wasted, then." Louis had his hands full trying to figure out what broke, how to fix it, and what parts needed to be replaced. Six months before he managed to understand the equipment well enough to really grasp what had been damaged. Then another four months to request specific electronic parts and wait for their arrival, test the system, and get it put back into the Raven. But Mikell had not authorized going anywhere until the Raven was tested to work again, which meant a delay of ten months for the repair and one more to arrange transit and finalize plans to have Salmacis Base ready to return to afterwards.
While the silence followed this for a few moments, Vandal glanced to Otto and Simone was still looking thoughtful. Then Vandal broke the silence. "Sir, I'm going to pilot the Raven, Otto gets the Locust."
"What?" Otto turned his head, jaw dropping. "What for?"
"Do you want the Stinger instead?" Vandal arched an eyebrow. "Please, do you?"
"No-"
"Have the Locust then. By the way, remember rule one of piloting a Locust. If you stop moving you explode because someone shoots you." Everyone at the table except Otto and Vandal snickered.
"Do I really have to, sir?" Otto asked, slumping slightly in the seat.
"Your choice. Stinger or Locust." Mikell opened his hand. "Bear in mind, it's a lot harder to hit the Locust at a dead run and you're more likely to not die to one single hit in the Locust." As Otto threw up his hands in defeat, he noticed Kelly lifting her hand. "What is it, Kelly?"
"I still get my Wolfhound, right sir?"
"Yes, you still get your Wolfhound. Simone." He tapped the table to draw her attention. "This is a scouting mission, pure recon. So I want you to leave the Griffin behind and take the Stinger." As she glared at him, he held up his hand. "Do not engage anyone. Do not let yourself be boxed in. See what you can discover and get out fast." He held up his hand to the other side of the table. "Sagittarius Lance, you're on deck. I am going to tell Louis to have you ready to go if Pegasus brings us back good intel."
"If we make it back." Otto muttered, fidgeting. "This is worse than Anywhere in the snowstorm-"
"Okay, Otto." Olivia leaned forward. "Do you really want to not go? I'll go instead. I'm slower, but hey, maybe we can have better luck getting out if someone who doesn't want to be out there is kept back."
Simone frowned and looked between Otto and Olivia. "Look-"
"Stay out of this." She snapped abruptly. "Otto, I'm asking. Do you want to pass on this mission?"
Otto looked at Simone, who was now staring at Olivia impassively, then he turned his head to look at Mikell. "Isn't this the commander's decision?" He asked, and Mikell settled back in the seat. "Sir, what do you have to say on this?"
Olivia pounced into the silence, slowly standing. "It's his decision, sure. He can tell me to sit down and shut up. But he's not going to, because he agrees with me on one fundamental point." She pointed a finger at Otto. "If you don't want to do the job he assigns you? Refuse. Don't go and screw it up because you're thinking about how you don't want to be there. News flash, none of us really want to be out there risking an intel-gathering mission where we know nothing."
Kelly raised her hand. "I do. I want to kill things." Everyone looked at her briefly, then Olivia shrugged and sat down. "If he doesn't want to go, I can kill him and he doesn't have to go."
"Nobody's killing Otto for not going." Mikell said quietly. "I appreciate your support, Kelly, but this time I don't want you to fight. I'm sending you because with the Wolfhound there's at least a chance you can cover them from anything fast enough to catch them." She beamed and nodded, sitting back happily. "Otto." The younger man glanced over, and guiltily looked down. "I will not order you to do this if you tell me right now you don't want to do it. We can't risk this failing."
"I-" He stopped, and then nodded. "Tell Louis to take out the ammo. Then I'll do it."
"Done. I'll also tell him to have the Griffin prepped, just in case." He looked to Sagittarius Lance, noticing Olivia was looking at the table. "Pegasus, you are dismissed. We are moving the DropShip shortly. 'Shadowfox' is staying here with as much of the noncombatants as we can manage. If you left anything on it, go get it." After they filtered out, he sighed. "Olivia, what the hell?"
"We can't afford any problems."
"Why create them?"
"Sir." She stood up. "If we can't get rid of this interference, we're stuck on the defensive. We can't have that stay over our heads, or we will lose. We don't have the power to do that, and the locals aren't thrilled by our presence enough to help us out. So what we have to do is take care of this." She pointed at where Otto had been sitting. "And what we don't need is someone we can't be sure will do their best."
He jammed a finger into the table, leaning forward. "We also don't need extra conflict, because the locals are helping us with that right now anyway." He stared into her eyes. "I'm not going to reprimand you, and I'm not going to chew you out in front of Otto, but I will let your whole Lance know I do not approve of this. You know better than this. Get your head in it, 'MechWarrior Garrido."
She sat back down, frowning, and Reginald spoke up. "The intel on this is weak."
"Yup."
"I've not had worse short of having mistaken intel." He continued, frowning. "We don't know who's there, or what they have. It could be anything."
"No it can't be anything." Aubrey said, sighing. "It can't be Star League Royal Guard, for instance. It can't be Kerensky come back from the dead. It can't be a smart Capellan."
"You say that, but there was a Cataphract on the planet, and that's Capellan." Casey leaned to peer at him.
"So's the Raven."
"Taurian stool. That's pure home-grown FedSun glory right there." She said, smirking at him. Reginald looked between Casey, then Aubrey, and cuffed her on the back of the head. "Ow! Hey! What's that for?"
"Show some respect for who you think is your enemy." He looked at her steadily. "Crazy and stupid mean dangerously unpredictable. I'd rather fight Snakes all my life." He slowly stood. "Was there anything more, sir?"
Mikell shook his head quietly, and shut down the table display. "No. Secure for burn, we lift as soon as the engines are ready."
- Date: September 17, 3031
- Planet: White Reach, Lucent Continent
- Location: Grendich Downs, Grid G04
"One, Four. Can I shoot it?"
Simone glanced over that direction, the Wolfhound steadily in motion to cross her path. "Negative, Four, if it's the signal source we want to find it. Then maybe we could get Head Tech Sands out here or something and-"
"Destroying it could stop the signal too, you know." Otto put in.
"Three, check your comms, I swore I heard you question an order." Otto paused, then there was indeed a burst of static over the line, as she noticed her sensors acting up. "Three this is One, say again?"
"One, Three. Visual contact. I just caught something with my sensors, can see the dust clouds." His voice was coming out in a rapid tumble. "I can't tell what it is but it's big and fast. Going to check out the farthest building. If this speed is right, we'll need to focus on this now."
More static as Vandal spoke up. "One, Two. I see four signals on my sensors, interference is too strong to make out what it is. Signals are inconclusive but they're anywhere from Medium-class to Assault-class."
"I'd almost wager there's no Assaults out here." Simone glanced around. "But then, we were greeted on this rock by an Atlas. Look sharp everyone. How's the scan going, Three?" Absently she started the sweep over the nearest block to her, noticing the readouts glitching. They'd be able to sort it out later.
"I'm beginning the scan of building four. Something's not right here, though, there's a large section of it the scans refuse to penetrate."
"That's our target. Two, Four, finish it and pack it-"
"New target. Enemy contact identified as Quickdraw." She looked up as the computer interrupted. The Heavy-class had just fired jump jets and landed on top of the building near Otto. "New target. Enemy contact identified as Catapult. Model unknown." She glanced past the cluster of buildings Kelly's Wolfhound was standing near and saw the weirdest Catapult she'd ever seen - instead of missile racks, the massive housings had been converted to support long-barreled Particle Projection Cannons. The look was distinct, similar to what was on Olivia's Warhammer-
Her train of thought stopped cold, and she had to start it in another direction. "Everyone, get out of here, we got a Quickdraw and a weird variant Catapult."
"One, Two." Vandal sounded glum. "It gets better. Contacts three and four just resolved in the Raven's sensors. Identified as an Awesome and a Banshee. We have two Assault-class BattleMechs here.
Otto's comm crackled, the distortion heavy but the words clear. "Scans done. Kelly, cover me, I'm coming your way."
"Acknowledged, Three." Kelly held position, as the Raven sprinted across to join Simone. "I'm getting a lot of garbage here, One."
"Forget it. Pegasus Lance, withdraw. That's an order." Simone wheeled the Stinger around. "They can't catch us and the interference-" She reflexively winced as a PPC bolt flickered overhead. "-won't help them aim at us. It's on Sagittarius to get to work now."
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