This takes place after the events of DFA Legacy on 11/4/17, if you have not seen that episode, you might want to wait and watch it first.
George was sitting at his desk, trying to compile a casualty list and damage reports for the meeting with the Star Colonel in the morning, well, later that morning. He’d been up nearly twenty hours, and he had doubt he would be up at least 16 more hours before he would get anything resembling sleep. Thane’s remaining technical crews had started their assessments, but the artillery strike had done an inordinate amount of damage to the planetary capital. Several buildings had been flattened by Long Tom fire, including a hospital, the administration center and several housing projects.
The roads and power grid had likewise been flattened. This would take months to fix. It had been a stroke of luck that Star Captain Serena had been called away from the administration building before the attack. If she’d been killed in the strike, there would be no restraint from the Warrior Caste. Mason was helping him compile his reports and provide time tables for repairs to the city and the rest of the surrounding area. The execution order for the surviving mechwarriors of the rebels had come across his desk. He amended them to the briefing packet for the Star Colonel.
“What’s wrong Mason? I can barely feel you looking down on me from that moral high ground you enjoy.”
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“Don’t call me Sir, i am not a member of the Warrior Caste.”
“My apologies, George, the loss of so much life is never easy.”
“Do you know why the warriors take great pains to avoid fighting in cities?”
“To minimize damage to the civilian infrastructure?”
“So people like me don’t have to count the cost in broken buildings and shattered lives!” George was off his feet, the anger rising in his voice. “This may come as a shock to you, oh superior one, but these were members of the Jade Falcon clan! Does not matter who they were before we took the planet. They could have been the blackest hearted of villains, or the most sanctified of honored elders. We do not care, we take in everyone who wants to be a productive member of society and find them a place.”
“George, I understand how upset you are..”
“I sincerely doubt that. Have you ever had to compile a dead and missing list? Ever had to organize civilian efforts to search the buildings and recover lost members of your people? Have you ever had to prioritize which people aren’t going to receive the medical care needed because a pack of monsters shelled a hospital with artillery? Have you really?”
“They were my people to, George, I tried as hard as i could to put down the Chasseur artillery command.”
“They were your people? You don’t even want to be here, Mason.”
“What?”
“You obviously have the attention of the Warrior Caste, and here you are wasting your time pretending to be a civilian. Complete your Trial of Possession and get back to doing something you’re at least capable of doing.”
“George, please. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I have been in freefall since i got here. I don’t understand what i am supposed to do.”
“You don’t see Mackenzie wasting her time here with the civilians, do you? She’s probably out with the rest of your star, celebrating the lives that they saved.”
“Mackenzie and i are completely different people.”
“Yes, as i see it, she is at least trying to learn the ways of our people instead of judging us with her every action. You’re dismissed. If i see you again before the meeting, i will likely punch you in the face until one of us is no longer breathing.” George finally exhaled. George was barely five feet tall, and might have weighed a hundred pounds, but in that moment, Mason was sure he would make the attempt.
“Very well, George,” His brain tried to work through the things that would calm the anger in the Merchant, but nothing came out of his mouth. He did not understand the Falcon mindset well enough to try and help the older man with his rage. He bowed to him and slipped out of the room quietly. He found himself sitting outside one of the classrooms when he heard the soft hum of something mechanical.
“Good evening, Mason.” The soft mechanical voice of Star Captain Serena greeted him. She had been part of the operation to take Anywhere, and her Star had been caught in open ground by the Long Toms. The damage had been extensive, and she had been grievously injured. She spent most of her time recovering in the medical facilities. She alternated between a cane and a wheel chair. The cane was for formal events, but he had seen how much that pained her. This evening she was moving through the command center in her chair.
“Good Evening, Star Captain.” Mason nodded uncomfortably.
“I trust George and his team will have the damage assessments ready for the meeting, quiaff?”
“Yes, i mean aff. George is working like a madman to make sure that everything is ready.”
“He honors the Clan by his hard work. He is extremely competent, i hope he will choose to remain here and help me administer this world.”
“Can’t you just order him to do so?”
“Because I am a warrior and he is a merchant?”
“That’s how this works, right? The Strong survive and the weak exist at their sufferance?”
“Oh, you have your ears open, but you do not hear.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Clan, and the Clans as a whole, are one, overly complex and interconnected family unit. When a Clan thrives, all of its constituent parts, from the mightiest Khan to the lowliest laborer, thrive with it. We are strong because we have to be. We could not protect our holdings, and by extension the rest of our people if we were not strong.”
“What gives you the right to invade the Inner Sphere?”
“What gives you the right to fight over the throne of the fallen Star League?”
“What?”
“You have fought four bloody wars that have turned entire worlds into charnel houses of dead and dying people. Our people fought a similar war in our early history that nearly destroyed all of us. If we had not taken the radical steps that led to the way the Clans are now, we would we likely have disappeared into the void.”
“What does that have to do with the Succession Wars?”
“The universe went mad, and warfare on a scale that set entire nations to battle became the norm. How could you have accepted that as the way of things? How could your people have allowed that to be?”
“We did what we had to do.”
The Star Captain smiled and Mason could see the pain it caused her. “That’s exactly what we did, too. We changed the paradigm by which our society functioned because we had to do so, or we would have died.”
Mason’s brow furrowed as he started to think about what she had said.
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