Dropship Roger Young
High Orbit, Solaris 7
Lyran Alliance
October 3066
On most dropships, sickbays are usually nothing more than staterooms with medical equipment. But due to the cramped spaces of the Roger Young, it sometimes doubled as an impromptu briefing room as well, despite being inhabited by patients in some instances. It was one of those times.
"I think the worst is over. It looks like she will pull through." The man in the white coveralls said after examining the young, red-haired woman lying on the sickbay bed.
"Thank you Doc. Can Ronson and I talk here for a minute?" Kelly Ravin asked.
"Sure thing, I'll be back later to check on her." With that, the doctor left the room.
John Ronson dug his hands into his fatigue pockets. "I ain't really comfortable talking about this you know."
"Look Ronson, I'm gonna have to make a report to the Colonel exactly what happened and how we got into this mess. Let's just get it over with okay?" Kelly Ravin was senior to Ronson both in rank and experience. She had the certain patience and coolness that was essential in leaders.
Ronson looked down at the metal floor and then looked up at her. "I… I don't really know where to start. It's just that I did get lost in a Periphery world out there in the boondocks and the next thing I know all hell breaks loose."
"Let's start from the top okay? How did you meet this girl?"
"I didn't met her, she just sort of popped in. I was able to make it from that Periphery hellhole to New Syrtis where I was just shooting the breeze, waiting for you guys to pick me up when all hell breaks loose. Victor decides to retake the Commonwealth back from his sister."
Kelly Ravin's green eyes focused on the young woman in the bed. "Go on."
"Well, the whole city erupts in chaos. Lootings and general lawlessness everywhere. I try to mind my own business until I saw her being chased down the street by armed men. She looked so helpless; she was wounded in the leg and had nothing on except a tank top shirt and shorts. She looked like she got beaten up. I was observing her as the men surrounded her, they didn't look like typical gangbangers but rather professional soldiers made up to look like a gang. Do you know what I mean?" Ronson asked.
"I do, please continue."
"Well it looked like she was a goner for sure cuz they had cut her off and cornered her in an alleyway and I felt she was dead before I could get to them. But she gave a hell of a fight, when the first guy tried to grab her she side stepped him and broke his neck with one with one flick of her elbows. She was pretty quick, almost too quick. And this was even when her left leg was gimpy. Never seen a technique like that before."
For a split second, Kelly Ravin's eyes defocused in deep thought, then it went back to normal again. " I have heard of a technique like that. It's a lost martial art, something called Jeet Kune Do. Nobody I have heard knows how to teach that style anymore. Not since the Star League days anyway."
"Okay, but then it looked like the goons learned their lesson cuz when they came at her a second time, they came as a group, not as a mob but as a combat team. They were able to almost hold her down when I was able to knock out the closest guy to me with a rabbit punch on the back of his neck. That's when two of them turned around to face me and one of them pulled out a vibroknife." Ronson continued.
"And then?"
"Well, I was able to take one of them out but the guy with the knife cut me on the side of my chest. Deep wound. I fell sideways and he was about to slice me up and then. And then…"
"And what?" He had Kelly Ravin's full attention now.
"And a figure came out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to move as fast as the girl but with better coordination. He was carrying a hand-held gauss rifle in his arms and he just shot it like he was cradling a toy. The slug hit the knife guy dead center in his chest and blew a six inch hole in it."
"What did he look like?" Kelly Ravin inquired.
"Couldn't really tell. It seemed like his body was in shadow half the time. His silhouette seemed that he had shoulder length hair and he was wearing fatigues with an armored vest. His arms had huge muscles on them and he cradled the gauss rifle casually, like it was an ice cream cone." Ronson kept going.
Kelly Ravin didn't need to goad Ronson into continuing. The young man kept talking. "You wouldn't think that with all that hardware and that thick body of his he couldn't move quick but he was the quickest I ever saw. He took down the rest of the thugs before anyone knew he was there. I was starting to black out and the last thing I saw was that he was checking on the girl and then taking the thug's wallets."
Kelly Ravin said. "Hmmmm… Sounds like a brigand. A highwayman. Did he take your wallet?"
"No, that's the weird part. He didn't take anything from me and left me there with the girl. We both recovered a few days later and the only thing she would tell me was her name." Ronson again looked confused.
"Which is?"
"That's another weird thing. She can't seem to remember much of her past. She said her name was Karen and that's all she knew. She didn't know why the thugs were after her or who that Brigand was either." Ronson said.
Kelly Ravin had one more question. "Hmmm… Now how about that battle we pulled you out of?"
"Oh yeah, that. Well, I got my mech out of the storage bay when the Loyalist attack on the planet started and was making my way to your ship's beacon when I noticed that Karen had stolen another mech, a Hatchetman from the hangar. Since two mechs are better than one I shrugged it off and made my way to the outskirts of the city with Karen right behind me. That's when they hit us."
"Who? Loyalist forces?"
"I'm not exactly sure, I mean they had the insignias of the Ridgebrook CMM but I just think it was a ruse. I mean, the mechs were way too advanced like they had a Spector, a Devastator and even a new Uziel. No way those were militia mechs. Even their tactics were different. My guess is that it was the same person who hired those thugs to take us out in the alleyway."
"And that's when you lost your mech?"
"Hey! There were three of them against me! I took out the Spector and dented the Devastator's armor somewhat but the sheer volume of firepower tore both my legs off. Thank God for Karen, she took out the Devastator's head off with the hatchet but the Uziel blasted her from behind. I think she suffered her concussion from the feedback from her neurohelmet from that. But She took out the Uziel by a precise headshot from her autocannon as she was going down." Ronson looked up again.
"That's one remarkable-" Kelly stopped in mid sentence.
A groan came from the figure on the bed. Karen stirred.
The first thing Karen noticed as her eyes swam back into focus was two figures standing over her. She was in a bed and her head felt like a nail had been driven through it.
"Karen, can you hear
me?" The brown-haired woman with the green eyes asked.
"Yes." Karen's voice came out light
and raspy.
"My name is Lieutenant Kelly Ravin. You are in a sickbay of a dropship orbiting Solaris 7." The woman continued.
But Karen wasn't paying attention anymore. The moment she heard the planet Solaris mentioned a jumble of memories began to flood and overwhelm her senses.
Kelly Ravin stopped talking. She sensed that the young red haired woman wasn't listening anymore. Ronson was observing this as well as examining Karen's physical state. What struck him the most was that Karen seemed quite young based on her general appearance. No more than 17 years old he suspected. But the muscles underneath her medical gown showed that she was in superb shape. But it was the eyes that confused him the most.
She had the stare. The thousand-yard stare that doctors say that soldiers acquire through constant combat. It was the sleepy look. The look of an executioner.
Dropship ???
Location Unknown
November 3066
Anyone who knew him called him the Gentleman. Like his partner, no one knew his real name. His actions and deeds earned him the sobriquet and the reputation. He was a gambler, an arms merchant and a lover of women. He always traveled in a stealthy Union-class dropship of indeterminate origin. Such was his reputation that when he made planetfall women would swoon to him and traders of all sorts would bargain for his wares.
In the usual sense, he was always carefree and had an animal magnetism that would make one either cringe with fear or bow down in reverence. But on this day, this hour, he was troubled.
Dressed in the finest clothes of a bygone age, the Gentleman sat in his luxurious stateroom, where solid metal walls were decorated with rich tapestries and artwork from a lost epoch. Sitting in an ancient chair once used by mariners of Terra's oceans and pouring over reports on his solid oak table, the Gentleman arched his brow and brooded.
"The fighting in Tharkad and New Avalon has gone up to fever pitch. It looks like Victor's Alliance will carry the day." A seated figure on the far side of the room commented.
The Gentleman did not look up. "Yes, but we have other, more pressing worries to deal with."
"By that you must mean the Bounty Hunter?" The heavy tapestries that partly hid his face in shadow obscured the figure.
"Yes. It seems that he has begun to make his move." The Gentleman scratched at his left pork-chop like sideburn.
"Then we must act. Bring your dropship to Solaris 7 so that I may secure the replicant."
"My intelligence reports are saying that the Falcons will hit Solaris within two weeks time."
"Why? Solaris 7 holds no strategic value."
"Khan Marthe Pryde suspects something is amiss. She may have some inkling as to the Bounty Hunter's intentions there."
"You mean as to eliminating the replicant?"
"No, the replicant is nothing more than a luxury to the Bounty Hunter, that's why he has not committed his own forces to kill her, rather he was using mercenaries hired through third party intermediaries." The Gentleman answered.
"What then? What could the Bounty Hunter possibly want in Solaris 7?"
"It's a matter of sentimentality, my dear Brigand."
The Brigand leaned over so that his face came out of the shadows. "I don't understand."
"Just before Snord's Irregulars began fighting in the civil war, they reached a mutual agreement with the Solaris government on transferring a few of their relics from their museum on Clinton to the Battlemech Museum in Solaris City for safekeeping."
"And?"
"Think about it. What artifact would warrant the Bounty Hunter's attention?"
The Brigand leaned back as if he had finally gotten the picture. "The Amaris throne."
"Correct. The throne is on display in a glass cage on the upper-left wing of the museum."
The Brigand's fist clenched. It was as if he could break rocks. "We should destroy it."
"We'll let the Falcons do that for us. Khan Pryde is quite angry at being tied down by Victor's strategy that she wants a little bit of revenge. But I have already instructed the crew to alter course for Solaris 7."
The Brigand was puzzled. "What for then?"
"Why, to secure the replicant of course. As you suggested." The Gentleman gave a wicked smile as if saying a private joke to himself.
-From Meridian's Journal
I once gave a lecture to our newest graduates of that term. They were an advanced class of splicers. Of course, most were young and therefore full of energy and boundless enthusiasm. But being so full of prime does have its disadvantages, such as an inherent feeling of invincibility, much like a child seeing the outside world for the first time, one sees nothing but opportunity and is blind to the dangers. It is rather a pity then that the perpetrator must be made an example of to serve the many.
There were about 40 splicers present in the classroom, seated in the audience area. They seemed to be quite enthusiastic, due to the fact that rumors had filtered on down to the student body that our Leader had finally decreed that we would make our presence felt all across both Clan and Inner-Sphere space.
And this group had every reason to be excited. For these splicers were the first of the batch in the successful fusion of the Kerensky and Amaris bloodlines. It would be a curious mix of the Kerensky aptitude for tactics and leadership with a sprinkling of Amaris cunning and guile. Each student, though only in their late teens, were conditioned to kill human beings in the fastest, most efficient way possible. Each one had already killed over 150 slave fighters in hand-to-hand combat before their twelfth birthday. However, one can only judge an experiment a success upon testing it.
I discussed the essence of the faults of the first Star League and why it had fallen. This lecture was primarily focused on why we needed to liberate the Inner-Sphere from the clutches of the Star League. I had highlighted the superiority of a society with no feudalism and no castes. There would be no war, no poverty, no traumatic events that would destabilize the lives of ordinary people.
"The original Star League had created a symbol of unity for all humanity, or so the League publicists would have you think." I continued. "Yet they had to commit several hundred SLDF regiments on 'peacekeeping' operations in the Periphery which caused the lives of millions of people."
"So the bulk of humanity was united, but at what cost? Is the abuse and exploitation of 800 million justified in order that 150 billion would live in prosperity? Did the Star League stop war? Has the new Star League abolished war? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no."
"The only answer to lasting peace and prosperity for all mankind is the complete abolishment of the Star League and its power base, namely the Great Houses and their respective militaries."
One of the students, a young man, raised his hand. "What of the Clans?"
I answered. "The Clans of Kerensky are nothing more than misguided children who have reverted into something far worse than barbarism, they have become an abomination that must be completely destroyed. A caste-based society that is ruled by psychopaths with every excuse to start a conflict? How completely ridiculous. I may hold the Great Houses in much contempt but these Clans are even less than maggots on flies. Only an insane individual who was ravaged by brain disease could have envisioned that type of society, and I think even less of those that had accepted it."
"Nevertheless, do not underestimate them. A pack of cowards are just as dangerous as a single well-trained individual. They may outnumber us now, but we have the advantage of surprise as well as a superior cause." I continued.
"Unlike the Clans, we make use of every tactic, every piece of technology. Our assassins are the best infantry troops in the galaxy. While Clan elementals use powered armor, our assassins use a combination of stealth suits and personal force shields. This branch of science was abandoned a long time ago by their idiotic scientist caste as being un-Clan like. But of course based on our mutual experience, there has never been nor will there be any rules in war."
I held up a death wand for all to see. "Another one of our innovations. The death wand was in the experimental stage in the SLDF laboratories as a way of harnessing dark matter. Little did they know at that time that we have at last perfected this science as a most lethal handheld weapon known in existence."
With a flick of my wrist, I activated the wand, letting loose a twisting beam of black matter that swayed and curled with the movements of my wrist. "This black beam will cut through any known metal in a matter of milliseconds. Science such as this will enable our assassins to achieve a five to one kill-ratio against opponents in powered armor. This beam can bend around walls, even curl up a spiral staircase to kill its target. Of course, one must be trained from birth to use this weapon because one is liable to cut a new hole in himself as much as the enemy."
The audience erupted in laughter.
Another young man stood up. "Then nothing will withstand against us. Why doesn't our Leader unleash us now? Let them tremble before our might!"
"Easy my young pup." I countered. "You are young and still do not know the full extent of our strategy. Why bother to commit our forces now when we can let those fools pound themselves into oblivion. We shall bide our time, only when it is right do we strike."
"But we are the most advanced soldiers of all time. You yourself had said that we are the pinnacle of science!" The young man would not be silenced.
I remembered his name now. "Voldoss, what if I were to tell you that you are not the pinnacle of science?"
Voldoss stood in silence until his anger overwhelmed him. "I have beaten everyone in this class. I am the best."
"A splicer is not the ultimate in evolution Voldoss. Only when you have achieved replication can you consider yourself as among the 'best' as you say." I was smiling now.
"Replicants are inferior." Voldoss said haughtily.
"To be a replicant is the ultimate honor. It means that you have achieved the pinnacle of your evolution. Why bother to splice your genotype with another when you are already perfect? With combat conditioning and memory implants, you can create hordes of perfect, proven soldiers."
"I don't believe that." Voldoss replied in anger. Apparently he could not fathom that he was not the ultimate warrior.
"Then this will be your hardest lesson Voldoss. Not just for you but for your class as well. For I am a replicant."
Voldoss registered only a slight surprise as I unleashed the black beam of the death wand and sliced off the top part of his forehead.
It was a hard lesson, but the rest of the class learned it. No one dared risk angering me again.