Chapter 12
It seemed that there was always too much time on a JumpShip, and practically nothing to occupy it. Rather than making the time pass more quickly, Randi found that running laps on the grav deck only seemed to slow the clock. She suspected that running in a circle—and inherently infinite figure—might be the cause.
Aside from a short stop at Rochelle the previous week, there had been no change of scenery or routine For now, running and exercising was about all she could do for amusement. It was necessary, anyway, in order to avoid muscle atrophy from the zero-g environment of the rest of the ship. Gravboots only kept people from floating away, but did nothing to maintain the body.
The MechWarrior looked up at the clock on the wall, as she ran, waiting for another minute to pass. Five minutes seemed like an hour, but eventually, the oppressively mundane feeling she had was pushed aside by curiosity. She could hear someone approaching, gravboots clunking on the floor.
"Hey, how's it goin'?" asked Fred as he walked through the door. They had not seen much of each other over the past few days, as he had been rather occupied in dealing with their new employers.
Randi slowed her pace around the room from a run to a jog, allowing him to take off his boots and then catch up with her. "It is...going," she said. To say that things were good was a lie, and calling the situation bad seemed like an exaggeration.
"Heh, más o menos, amiga?"
"Um...?" Randi slowed to a stop, trying to figure out what he had said. "Nein...sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
Fred just chuckled as he trotted up beside her. "Don't worry about it," he said. "So, how's the exercise coming along?"
"Alright. It would be a little better if I could—er, uh..." She fumbled for her words a little, realizing what she had begun to say might not be the most encouraging remark.
"If you could what? Find somebody to spar with?" Fred shook his head. "Heh, you don't have to worry about hurting my feeling or anything if you don't want to spar with me. I'm probably not much of a challenge, and Harrison and Ned don't need any more reason to think we're canoodling," he said, looking rather embarrassed.
"Canoodling?" asked Randi, confused
"Uh, anyway," Fred continued, trying to change the subject, "I got in touch with Quikscell again, just to make sure everything is really-for-real straightened out."
Randi picked up her jogging a little. "How did that go?"
"Oh, they were...reasonable. Mostly. But everything is fixed now, and they transmitted an updated report to us. By the way, they said someone inquired about our employment status with Quikscell. I guess we must be more popular than I thought."
'But question is, did they want to hire us or hurt us?' Randi wondered to herself. "Did they tell you this person's name?"
"Um, I think it was... Kerr something. Nobody I know. Sounds Scottish, though—probably a Lyran."
She nodded. "I do not know anyone by that name, either. I guess that is a good thing, though."
"Why's that?"
"Because... everyone one I used to know would like to see me dead."
Fred knit his brow, frowning a little. "That's got to be a bit of an exaggeration... Right? I mean, don't you have siblings—I mean sibkin—still out there? They still care about you, I'm sure."
She shook her head. "I didn't defect, per se... but they probably all see me as a traitor. Well, the ones who know I left the Clan, that is. Only a few of us graduated to be Warriors."
"Oh... That's pretty tough. Were you close to any of them?"
"Not really..." she said quietly, looking away. "I was friends with some of the others when we were very young, but all of them tested into different Castes. Only about a dozen of us made it to Warrior training, and I ended up competing a lot with the others."
Fred chuckled a little. "Yeah, I know how that goes. I used to get into fights with my brother, Frankie, all the time when we were kids."
Randi shot him a curious look and pointed to the faint scar on the vaguely crooked point at the bridge of her nose. "Lana, one of the ones I was always competing with, did that to me when we were teenagers. We got into an argument, and when it came to blows, well, she put me down pretty fast."
"She broke your nose? I never would have noticed. It looks fine."
"Now, it does—after a few surgeries. She also broke my left arm and two of my ribs, not to mention all the gashes and bruising. I only got off as well as I did because one of my other sibkin managed to pull her off of me," she said, now rather tired from running. 'I never did find out why Akela helped me then...' she thought.
Her friend still looked plenty energetic, though rather surprised at her account. "That's...pretty intense."
"She was an Elemental. A skilled Clan MechWarrior can sometimes stand up to one in a Circle of Equals, but when you get tackled by someone who outweighs you by about forty kilos, you don't have much change to fight back." She slowed to a stop and leaned back against the wall to rest.
"Sounds like you had it pretty rough growing up..." said Fred, leaning against the wall beside her.
The former Clanner nodded a little at looked back at him. "What was it like for you as a child? I've always sort of wondered how it is for Spheroids."
"Well," Fred mused, "I guess it was...pretty good. Frankie and I used to play together a lot. Tag, hide-and-seek, pretend games... I remember there was this big tree in the woods that I always used to pretend was my Atlas. Frankie wasn't quite as good at climbing, so he got to have the little ornamental tree that we said was a Locust," he said, chuckling.
"Is he a MechWarrior, too, now?"
"Nope. He's an accountant," explained Fred. "It's a quiet, boring job with lots of math. He always liked math. It seems like we don't often have much in common, but we get along for the most part."
"That sounds nice," Randi said. "Say, why did you never mention that you had a brother, before?"
"Honestly," Fred replied, "I sorta forgot. Frankie is pretty boring."
A placid smile eased over Akela's face as he stood before the view screen, awaiting the fury to come. The screen faded to life, glowing softly, and the system began to run its startup procedures. The connection information scrolled past on the screen: technical jargon that was the mysterious language meaningful and/or useful only to those who serviced these devices. For users of the system, it was simply an indication that something was happening between the time the "on" light glowed green and the time the transmission began.
After a moment of this, the scrolling jargon ceased and the solid color of the screen faded to the familiar image of Helina Kerensky. Akela opened his mouth, but she was the first to speak.
"Well?" was the Star Colonel's short but probing question.
Her short hair was slightly matted with sweat, and her face was streaked with grease. The oil-stained tank top she wore exposed the tattoo on her left shoulder—a fierce wolf's head colored to appear as a patch of frost growing on her skin. Her atypically casual appearance made it clear that she had been in the middle of some metalworking when Akela interrupted her. It was little wonder then, that she sounded so exceedingly grouchy.
Akela gave a short chortle of a laugh, trying to soothe her anger. "It is good to see you, too."
The older woman pursed her pink lips into a thin line. "You know, I would appreciate it greatly," she said, a scathing note in her voice, "if you would address your communiques properly in the future." She spoke again after a moment, when her subordinate made no remark. "You spelled my name with two L's..."
'Hell-ina? It seemed fitting,' he thought to himself. Akela just smiled innocently and shrugged. "You know spelling never was my finest point..."
"Liar," she huffed. "And you have no excuse for not using the spell-check." Helina gave him a stern look. "Now, then...back to my original question..."
"I believe it was, 'Well?'" he replied. "And the answer, dear ovKhan, is that I am working on it."
"Unacceptable. Would you give that sort of flimsy answer to the Galaxy Commander? To the kaKhan? No, you would not dare to do so, nor would you dare to sit idle. So, do not dare behave that way with me!"
The younger Warrior simply nodded. "Aff, ovKhan. However, if you would allow me to expand on my previous statement, you will find that I have not been idle. You should have more faith in me, really..."
Helina seemed rather perturbed at this comment. "You know that I have faith in you, Akela. I am trusting you to act in my stead on this mission. If I had any less confidence in you or your abilities, you would be back at your desk pushing papers, while I took care of this mission myself," she said. "You should consider this task a privilege."
"That I do, ovKhan," he replied. "And now to my point...it seems that I was correct in my theory that your little toy was here on Solaris. The previous holder seems to have been killed, but not before possession was transferred—either by will or by force, and more likely the latter—to another MechWarrior, a mercenary."
"And where is this mercenary? Still on Solaris?"
"No. She and her partner left a few weeks ago. I have—" Akela cut himself short at the sound of approaching footsteps in the hall, and glanced to the side to see the door slide open. Marcus eased open the door and walked into the room.
"Oh, hey," he said. "Don't mind me. I've just got some report logs to check over."
Akela nodded to the Spherer and turned back to his commander. "Ah, this is Marcus Prewitt. He's been kind enough to help me make travel arrangements, Auntie."
There was an instant of stiffness in Helina's face, startled by Akela's odd (though technically accurate) choice of address. However, her agitation was all too brief and subtle to be noticed by anyone save for those who knew her very well. She understood the game, and gave a small but warm smile. "Oh, yes... So, this is the friend that you spoke of earlier? A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Prewitt," she said, nodding towards the man.
Marcus waved casually. "Likewise," he replied simply, and then sat down at the computer on the far side of the room.
"Back to business," Helina said, addressing her subordinate again—this time in a much warmer time of voice. "When do you leave?"
"I am not yet sure of that. We are attempting to get some travel arrangements set within the next few days."
"...'We?'"
"Yes. Marcus happens to be bound for the same destination. Considering this, it seemed beneficial to travel together."
She nodded in understanding. The moment that Prewitt turned his back, she shot a blazingly fierce look to Akela. The Star Captain understood her message exactly: "Make sure the freebirth does not interfere."
"I hope you can handle the trip without succumbing too heavily to boredom..." she said, continuing the conversation more innocuously.
Akela grinned widely. "Oh, don't worry, Auntie. I have plenty of books to keep me occupied."
"Well, then...You seem to have everything in order, so I suppose I had best not keep you from your travel preparations. I need to get back to work, as well," said Helina. Then, continuing her part flawlessly, she admonished, "Just please remember to contact me if you do need anything. You know how I get concerned for you, Nephew..."
"But, of course. I will let you know immediately if there is any trouble." He smiled warmly. "Au revoir, Auntie." The transmission ended at this, leaving Akela to stare ahead at the blank screen. 'Helina? Concerned? Pfft.' A part of him found amusement in his commander's acting skill. However, another part of him felt a little bitter over the very fact that it was acting.
"So," Prewitt said, interrupting his thoughts, "we got everything packed and ready?"
"Yes. We should head out..." Akela replied. "I contacted Quikscell earlier, and they confirmed that they have Fred Acosta's company in their employ." He rubbed his goatee in thought. "It will be close, but I think we can make it to Oliver ahead of them."
"Oh, you got that figured out already?"
"Yes. You booked our flight, correct?" the Clansman asked just a little tersely. 'This Spheroid has wasted enough of my time. Though I admit he has been useful, he has also slowed my down greatly. I feel as though he is stalling,' he thought to himself.
"Uh, yeah. I took care of it. So... I guess... we're ready to go?"
"Yes."
"Great..." said Marcus hesitantly. "That's...really great."
