Hayden let the air slowly out of her lungs as she tried to come to terms with the battle she’d just fought and the Jade Falcon she’d just beaten. Well that’s a hell of a thought i wouldn’t have had a month ago. Her comms chirped to life and she was pulled out of that moment by the radio.
“This is Leo…”
“Uhm...lieutenant, we’re going to need you to come see this.” It was one of the infantry officers that had been assigned to the APC.
“What’s wrong? Did they sabotage the facility?”
“This is a you need to see it with your own eyes sort of a thing, Ma’am.”
“All right, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She turned the frequencies to catch Melia and Rampart, “Converge on the facility, evidently we need to see something.”
“Roger that.” Melia answered.
“Hopefully we can find a tech to work on my mech, that Locust did a number on my radiation shielding…” Rampart responded.
She climbed back into the cockpit of her new Thunderbolt and proceeded at full speed towards the facility. Fergus and Clarissa remained in the field to watch over the three mechs they’d disabled while the Gambler moved to send out repair and recovery crews.
The three heavy mechs stepped inside the command facility and were taken aback by the appearance of a pair of assault mechs standing guard around a dropship. In an isolated part of the compound, someone had landed a dropship in the facility, and there was a perimeter fence around it, marking it off from the larger facility. Neither of the assault mechs had moved, but that wasn’t the curious part.
Inside the perimeter fence Hayden could see a variety of people engaging in R & R. There were people watching a movie on a large projection screen set into one of the walls, while others were participating in some kind of game. One of the people had a radio uplink and was channeling it through the external speakers on the larger of the two assault Mechs. Hayden’s targeting computer identified one as a King Crab but couldn’t place the other one.
“Nicely done, Commander of the Inner Sphere unit who forgot to issue a proper Trial of Possession for this facility and its contents. We are willing to assume that you were so surprised by the speed of your assault that you failed to access the Jade Falcon comm network to issue that challenge.” He was sitting in a folding chair that vaguely triggered a memory in the back of Hayden’s mind. He was wearing what could be charitably described as a swimsuit, and his feet were sitting in a large plastic pool of water.
“And since we won that challenge, we’ll be taking you and all of your people as Isorla.”
“Well i am glad you are learning the lingo, but you are both right and wrong. The perimeter fence denotes an area that is not in fact Jade Falcon territory and is in fact ours. We will defend that area if you insist on coming over the fence, but we would prefer not to. We have no quarrel with you and yours, and would prefer to avoid any hostilities.”
“Are you high?” Rampart barked over the radio.
“Hey, I’m talking to your boss, you can pipe down, or the dropship over my shoulder can turn that Catapult into a coffin.” The enemy commander hadn’t moved from his seat, but all of the nose mounted weapons on the dropship rotated in their turret housings.
“What about the Falcon personnel and equipment?”
“You are correct, they are yours for the taking. Well, minus a scientist who caught an unfortunate case of laser poisoning.”
“Why did you shoot the scientist?”
“He had an overly enthusiastic sense of duty to his clan and tried to get the technicians to overload the facility’s reactor to critical to turn you and your companions into a mushroom cloud.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that would have interfered with our mission, so we had to step in and take care of that problem. You’ll find the rest of the Falcon civilians to be quite amenable to your orders and requests. They are good people.”
“And their equipment?”
“You’ll want to talk to a merchant named Jorja, she has a complete inventory of the facility and its contents, and i assume you want to get the hell out of here, so they are packing everything in shipping containers.”
“Thanks, i guess?”
“No problem, don’t pick a fight with us, and i won’t have to bury you.”
“And who precisely are you?”
“Oh, right, i’d come shake your hand but you’re in a Thunderbolt and i’m in a kiddie pool. Star Commander Andrew Kirov, 4th Crateran Cluster, Delta Galaxy.”
“Kirov?” Melia asked over the comm.
“Delta Galaxy of Clan Jade Falcon?” Leo asked him.
“Does my Dropship or my battlemechs appear to be covered in the most obnoxious shade of green available? Does it have the name of a hallucinatory bird fever dream painted on the side?”
“No, and while the sarcasm is just great, if you could answer my questions with a straight answer, that would be fucking super.”
“Nice, you have a hot temper.”
“Look it’s been a long fucking day.” Leo started.
“Are you related to Ivan Kirov?” Melia asked the Star Commander. That actually got a response. The enemy commander sat up in his chair and pulled the sunglasses down off of his face.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“We’re with the Deadman’s Hand.” Leo answered him.
“Oh...Oh…..OH…..Uh Oh.” He smiled. “Nice to meet you Hayden, Sanders, i heard good things about you. Do you guys know you have a bounty on you?”
“Wait...what?” Melia answered.
“Yeah, the Old Man put a price on you guys. I got super lucky. Tell you what, you guys want to come over and i’ll do my best to explain some things, and maybe we all end up in a drunken stupor.”
Leo closed comms to the enemy commander and pulled up Rampart and Melia on their private channels.
“What the Actual Fuck is going on?” Rampart almost yelled into the comms.
“If he’s related to Ivan, then he’s got a family connection to two of the captured mechwarriors from the Dead Man’s Hand. Ivan’s the one who got us the intel on the Falcon machines and gave us a rough explanation of how the clans fight a war.” Melia answered his friend.
“Who the hell would have put a bounty on us?” Leo asked the both of them.
“We need some more information, maybe we break bread with these people and see what they are willing to share?” Melia asked with a hint of curiosity.
“Agreed…” Leo opened the comms again “We’ll meet you in fifteen minutes.”
“Good, Good. Oh, if you have any of those miserable fucks from the 2nd New Ivaarsen Chasseurs with you, they can stay at home. I don’t want the tainted anywhere near me and my people.”
“What about the 2nd NIC?”
“Terrorist monsters the whole lot of them. I may have to shoot one if i see one.”
“Rampart, supervise the rest of our people and make sure that we get the Falcon personnel and gear secured. We’ll try and sort this out.”
“These people don’t make any god damned sense!”
“We’ll see you soon, Star Commander.” Leo said over the radio.
“Welcome to the field headquarters of the 149th Battlemech Division, Lieutenant, we’ll happily receive you.”
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