Hayden was coming off a terrible date with some jackass in
the Drragoons home guard. He had insisted they come to this neighborhood
because they had the best wings. He had neglected to mention that the wings were being served by what could be
charitably described as scantily clad people.
She’d been so enraged by that date she wasn’t paying attention to what
she was doing and ran headlong into someone walking home.
The odd thing was that it was one of her professors. He had come out of an odd looking building
across the street from the restaurant her date had been at. His tie was undone, and he smelled heavily of
alcohol, perfume, and smoke. He was also
a damn giant. She had tried to avoid his
attention in class, mostly because he was looking eye level with the students
three rows back in tiered seating. He
wore his suit coat with one sleeve pinned up, and he was missing the lower half
of his left arm.
“Excuse me, “ he said after she ran into him. He looked exhausted and his voice was more
gravelly than normal.
“Dr. Kirov?” She
asked him quietly. Not that she had any
doubts who it was, but it seemed like a nice way to start a conversation.
“Yes, Miss Shields?”
He studied her with tired eyes.
“Do…you need a ride home?”
She wasn’t sure what prompted that, but she said it anyway. He smiled at her.
“If you want to drive my car, I would not say no.” He tossed her the keys to his car and showed
her where he was parked. It was almost
an APC…with reinforced seats and safety straps covering the rear passenger
compartment. As he was sitting down in
the passenger seat, a woman half his age came out of the door he had come from
and waved down the street at them. He
waved back. She was equally disheveled and
her clothes were a mess.
“Friend of yours?” Hayden asked him quietly.
“Student of mine.”
“I don’t remember seeing her in class.”
“She has been an independent mercenary for almost five years
now. Runs an Aerospace unit.”
“She…seems nice, I guess?”
“Well at my age, you have to take your fun where you can
find it.”
Hayden stared at him for a second and just put the car in
drive. She
turned the radio on quietly but couldn’t figure out the tuning in
this car. She liked the band that was
playing. It was some kind of an old
blues band by the sound of it. She had
guessed the title of the song was Walls of Jericho from the refrain that kept
playing.
“Where are we going?”
“type home into the nav computer.” He said quietly and leaned back in the
seat.
“How do you like teaching?”
“I have spent a lot of my life learning things and acquiring
knowledge. It is rewarding to share it
with others. How are your classes going?”
“Pretty good. You
know how I am doing in your class. The accounting
class is giving me fits. I can’t seem to
grasp double entry ledgers to save my life.
Firearms training is going apace,
Next week I get to start trying out the mech simulators.”
“Have you piloted a battlemech before?”
“I got to sit in my mother’s mech with her once when she was
piloting it. I was a little girl.”
“You remember what it was?”
“An old Griffin, it had been beat to hell and back, but it
kept mom alive.”
“You always remember your first ride.”
“Were you a mechwarrior, sir?”
“No need to call me Sir, and yes I was a mechwarrior.”
“For who?”
“Wolf’s Dragoons.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I was an
intelligence officer with the original crew.
I served from the first day of the first contract with Prince Davion and
my career ended at Misery.”
“What kind of a ‘mech did you pilot?”
“A Cyclops. I was not
a particularly skilled mechwarrior when we started the contract, and they didn’t
want to give me something that I could drive into a wall.”
“Did you always want to be a mechwarrior?”
“I never wanted to be a mechwarrior. Jamie decided it would facilitate my job to
have a battlemech under my feet.”
“What did you want to be?”
“That was never a question I really had time to ask myself.” He smiled softly as the song changed. Hayden thought she recognized the voice from
somewhere, but it escaped her. “There were
always things to be done battles to be fought.”
“So you knew you were going to be a warrior?”
“That was never in doubt for me, no.”
“How did you know?”
“It was the only way forward. I came to the Dragoons as an infantry officer. I spent nearly a year learning how to pilot a
Battlemech before they let me pilot one.”
“Who taught you?”
“Natasha, mostly.”
“Natasha?”
“Sorry, I forget how young you are. Natasha Kerensky.”
“Natasha Kerensky taught you how to be a Mechwarrior?”
“I did not come by it naturally like she did, but I was a
capable student.”
“Which regiments did you serve with?”
“Alpha and Beta, then I did a stint with Zeta
Battalion. I also worked with 7th
Kommando for a while.”
“Can I ask you what happened to your arm?”
“I lost it at Misery when a DEST unit dropped directly into
the HQ we were operating out of at the time.
Four of my friends did not make it off that battlefield. One of the assassins caught me out of
position and my arm came off at the elbow.”
“I am sorry.”
“You probably were not born yet when that happened. Do not be sorry for things you can not
control.”
“But that ended your career…”
“With the Dragoons, yes.
It also gave me the time to make a few friends and do some things I had
wanted to do, but I could not have done so without being injured.”
“Things like what?”
“I got to visit Terra, and the court of the Star League. I got into a lot of good trouble.”
“What is good trouble?”
“The kind of trouble you get into for the right reasons. Anyone can get into trouble for doing
something foolish. Getting into trouble
for another person…getting into trouble to ease the burden of another person,
to find a way to help them is always worth the trouble.”
“Like when?”
“Like the last time I had to punch someone in the face when
they tried to hurt one of the people I care about.” The car rolled to a stop in front of a
sprawling compound full of out buildings, shed, and what even looked like a mechbay.
She thought she recognized a couple of the cars. “You seem like a nice person, Miss Shields,
why do you want to be a mercenary?”
“My mother is ill, and the experimental treatments for it
are expensive. More expensive than
anything I could ever afford working a desk job back home, and I could not
handle medical school.”
“So you are going risk everything to take care of the ones
you care about?”
“Yes.”
“I can respect that.”
He smiled softly and slid the ring off his hand. “Do you know what this is?”
“Is it a wedding ring?”
“Yes, do you know what it is made out of?”
“Gold?”
He shook his head, but smiled again. “A good guess, but
no. This is made from an iron nickel
alloy that was used to make the ammunition for Gauss Rifles before the fall of
the Star League.”
“What?”
“This particular piece is magnetized because it was fired
from a Gauss Rifle during the final battle of the Liberation of Terra. It, and the ring that matches it are pulled
towards each other just like magnets. It
always helps me find my way to the people I care about.” He rolled the ring around in his open
palm.
“That’s something I guess?”
“You have indulged an old man, and for that I appreciate
your patience. Have you had dinner yet?”
“Not exactly.”
“Come inside, stay for dinner. Jaxun or Mackenzie will give you a ride home
after the meal.”
“Jaxun…Sokolov?”
“He is my adopted nephew.
I took him and his sister in.”
“So he is here right now?”
“Yes, we passed his car on the way in.”
“I will stay for dinner.
Thank you kindly for the offered invitation.”
“Bargained Well, and Done.”
He answered her.
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