DC Heroes: MechWarrior I
By: Christopher W. Blaine
e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: All characters and situations contained in this story are ©2002 by either DC Comics Inc. or WhizKids and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment purposes only. No profit is made from this story. This original story is ©2002 by Christopher W. Blaine and may not be reproduced either in part or as a whole without the express permission of the author.
Chapter 13 Justice City New Gotham Gotham Commonwealth January 27, 3032Jim Gordon put out his fifth cigarette since arriving, throwing a cautious glance to the Archon-General as he reviewed the video message that had arrived earlier via the official courier of Guardian Ganthet of GreenStar. On the General's viewscreen was the visage of Larry Lance, station chief for Oracle on Solaris. Jim listened for what seemed like the hundredth time as Lance explained the situation concerning the wayward heir to the Commonwealth throne.
"…most respectfully regret to inform you that at this time, apprehension of the man local GreenStar agents identified as being the prince is not possible at this time. If we try to move in, no matter how subtle, we fear that the prince's identity would be revealed and he would be in immediate danger. Agent Lance, my top operative and most trusted confidant, is maintaining surveillence of this Matches Malone. She is being assisted, per your agreement with GreenStar, by Corpsman Stewart of the 15th Green Lantern Corps. We hope to be able to secret the prince out within the week."
Alfred turned it off and spun his chair slowly around. "First Selena runs off to elope and now Oracle wants to play footsies with GreenStar." Jim noted that there appeared to be more grey in the General's hair. The weight of his responsibilities were aging him. "Does anyone in this bloody government remember that I am still technically in charge?"
Jim wasn't sure how to answer. Selena had become a trusted advisor to the General in the months since the prince had run off to Solaris; Jim saw their relationship as becoming like father and daughter and the Oracle man saw that Alfred Pennyworth regretted greatly having never settled down to have his own children. In fact, her running off to marry , along with the letter of resignation concerning her commission, stunk of "piss-poor judgment" as the General had put it.
Her loss was putting undo pressure on the General and Jim had no idea how to deal with it. Selena had been the last person he had expected to do something like this and he shared the same horror that Alfred had experienced. He could only put it to the prince's disappearance. There was no doubt she had been attracted to him and he had seemed to return the attention. His abrupt leaving must have shaken her more than anyone could have guessed. "I realize it, sir."
Alfred nodded but did not smile. "He got them, you realize that?"
Jim inhaled, savoring the nicotine rush. His position in Oracle allowed him to get cigarettes made on Terra itself and the taste always calmed him down. "I suspected he used his charm."
"Indeed; damn his mother! Why couldn't he have inherited Thomas's boisterousness?" The General stood up and walked over to the window. He looked down on the lawn where his Firestarter had sat over a year before, a present for the man he considered something akin to a son. "What assets do we have in the area? I dislike being indebted to GreenStar."
Jim pulled out his personal noteputer and typed in a command. The device vibrated slightly as it accessed the files stored within it. Every morning, his secretary would update the files for him prior to his arrival. "I'll be damned," he muttered.
"Well?"
Jim turned and popped his cigarette back in his mouth. "The JumpShip Gotham Star is currently recharging in the Solaris system. It has several DropShips of the 3rd Order of St. Dumas onboard." The Order of St. Dumas was one of the Commonwealth's more mysterious military units. Three regiments strong, it was generally rotated between any of the border planets with the Free Atlantean League and New Gotham. New Gotham always had one regiment, at least, of every major military unit on planet for security purposes. It was the first official policy of Alfred's reign.
"Who is the senior officer?"
Jim checked. "Colonel Francois Napole…career Dumas warrior. They have a Special Task Company with them."
Alfred considered all of the ramifications. If he did nothing, then it was likely that Oracle would pick up Bruce within the week and have him on his way back to the relative safety of New Gotham. There was the slight risk, however, that during that week, the traitors would inform their master or masters on Solaris that Oracle was on to them. There was even the remote chance that the traitors knew that Matches Malone and Bruce Wayne were the same person.
By sending down House troops to remove the Archon-Prince, Alfred would be violating the pact all of the Houses had signed with the government of Solaris. Technically, Solaris was a member of the Commonwealth and he could put troops there any time he wanted, but it would probably cause undue economic havoc for the planet and all of the worlds that survived supplying Solaris with such simple things as foodstuffs. He had no doubt that the Thangarian nationals living on Solaris would take great offense to the placement of House Wayne forces on the planet.
He had tossed the idea of going to the Solaris government and requesting their aid, and there was no reason to think they would not grant it. Solaris was, after all, a loyal planet of the Commonwealth that just happened to cater to the needs of the rest of the Inner Sphere. Going to leaders of Solaris, however, would force him to let even more people in on the deception he had been weaving since the prince ran off. The deaths of John and Mary Grayson still hung over his head. They had not been given a proper state funeral and their young son could not be handling things all that well being locked away here in the royal palace.
Alfred had briefly considered sending Richard Grayson to the court of Emperor Alexi of the Metropolitan Suns. Though the two realms were rivals, he believed that Alexi would take the boy in as his ward. Alexi had no desire to see the Commonwealth break down into chaos and if it meant that he had to help keep the façade that everything was fine, so be it. The Luthor's wanted to conquer the Commonwealth as it was, not inherit a mass of planets on the verge of a complete breakdown.
Jim seemed to sense the thoughts going through the Archon-General's mind, but he supposed that was his job now since he was the newly appointed Commissioner of Oracle. "If you want my advice, send the troops in. Bruce needs to be shown that this personal crusade is endangering the Commonwealth as a whole. He has put too many people in difficult positions so he can go about his merry way."
Alfred sighed and moved back to his desk. "I want you to develop the operational plans with this Colonel Napole; this will be a joint operation between Oracle and the military."
"If the local security forces give us trouble?" Jim asked.
"Under no circumstance is deadly force authorized," Alfred ordered in his most stern tone. "Those are Commonwealth citizens protecting a Commonwealth world. They will be treated as such."
Jim nodded and then bowed before turning to exit the room. Alfred watched his friend leave and then sat back down in the chair that had once been occupied by a man who had instilled great loyalty in him. He wondered if Thomas would have approved of his looking away as Bruce traveled down the dark road of revenge. There had been no way to stop the boy and if he forced to wait until he assumed the throne, then what would have happened?
Slowly, Alfred saw that the Gotham Commonwealth was being eaten away from the inside. Some was not so much corruption as a political movement instituted by House Steiner. Alfred, being only a regent, could not battle such a foe, so he concentrated on eliminating the dead weight from the government. His hope was to turn over an administration ready to work with the young Archon-Prince as he brought the Commonwealth to its former glory.
His eyes fell to the dossier marked "Kyle, Selina" and he picked it up. Selina's decision to get married and join up with the quasi-religious group led by Maxie Zeus had been so out of the blue it had nearly knocked him flat. Had she really been that lonely? He thought back to all of their conversations and realized that she had mistakenly put all of her hopes in Bruce and Bruce had let her down.
Wasn't he doing the very same thing now?
It really didn't matter; Bruce Wayne was the Archon-Prince and, by God, he was going to start acting like it.
"Merde," was the only comment that Francois Napole could think of as he read the classified HPG transmission. Looking at the time and date stamp on it, he realized that Oracle must have spent a sizable amount of G-Bills to get it to him this quickly. He handed the message over to his executive officer, Major Jason Steiner.
"Call me Suzy and screw me running," was the response to the message.
Francois nodded and regarded the major. Tall, well-muscled and possessing the good-looks of the Steiner name, Jason could have been anything he wanted. The Steiner name carried a lot of weight in the Commonwealth, especially in the last decade with House Wayne on the decline. Jason, however, had opted for religious life, albeit a religious military life on the order of the Teutonic Knights, but it was a far cry from what he could have been. Because of the sacrifices he had made, his opinion mattered greatly to Francois.
The commanding officer, on the other hand, had started life as a Darkstar, a mercenary in the employ of GreenStar. He had become clued in to Christianity while stationed on sacred Terra and had found the doctrine of GreenStar lacking. The Order of St. Dumas, the only surviving remnant of the Vatican Military Forces, offered him the chance to pursue something noble. Both men took their jobs seriously and the contents of the message assured them that the fate of the entire Commonwealth was now in their hands.
"The Archon-Prince himself," Jason said after whistling. It was ironic that a Steiner was now going to be trying to save a Wayne. Not too ironic, though; House Steiner craved to assume control of the Commonwealth, but their resolve to do it legally was ingrained in every member of the family no matter how remote. "We'll need a diversion in order to cover our entry."
Francois nodded and both men moved over to a holographic image table in the center of the command and control center of the DropShip. The Justice League had possessed giant holotanks that allowed command personnel to step into a virtual world based upon information relayed back by engaging forces. The technology had been lost sometime during the 1st Succession War.
"Two lances of Batmites should be enough to get him, if we can catch him outside his 'mech. Information says he's piloting a Batman in the games under the name of Matches Malone," Francois said as he read from a page of supplementary information.
Jason shook his head. "What the hell is he doing here? This isn't where I would go if I wanted to hide."
Francois smiled. "You're not the Archon-Prince either." A yeoman walked up and handed Francois a current readiness report. "God help us."
Jason took the report and scanned it quickly. It was as much as they feared. "Most of our heavy stuff is down for maintenance. We have three lances of medium 'mechs and the Batmites."
Francois pointed at a small dot on the map being displayed. "There is an Order training center right here. No 'mechs, it's meant for light vehicle training. It was here long before any agreements were made. If we dropped our three lances of medium 'mechs here and made a stink about security…"
"Then the local security forces would respond in kind to tell us to leave." Jason looked down at the latest intelligence estimates for the Solaris Security Force. In order to respond appropriately, they would have to pull units off of their Thanagrian Sector in Romanus. "Chances are they'll send their heavies, too."
"We can sneak the Batmites in on another DropShip, paint them with Free Atlantean League colors," Francois said. Jason raised his eyebrows; it went against the Order's standing orders to disguise itself as another military force. "Fine, we'll paint them black."
Jason was satisfied with that. "We'll need to secure transportation for the prince to get him back to the DropShip." He checked and saw that they had no civilian transports available.
The commander nodded. "I'll take care of that; we apparently have a friend in GreenStar. The local garrison commander is helping out with this matter."
"No doubt hoping that Ganthet will be able to get his wrinkled hands in the Wayne cookie jar," Jason said with disgust. Like most members of the Order, he found the worship of technology to be blasphemous.
"Not every member of GreenStar is a true believer; some find it a noble purpose to try and salvage man's works," Francois stated. "Believe me, for a time I envisioned myself hooking up with the Green Lantern Corps."
Jason frowned. "Such talk is not productive, we need to be preparing the men. When do we start the burn for the planet?"
"Six hours. On maximum burn we'll get there in three days. Word is that the gaming stable that the prince is in is set up for a non-sanctioned match against the Legion."
"The Grey Death?" Jason asked.
"No, the other one," Francois said with a smile. "I doubt that Grayson Carlyle would allow his unit's reputation to be sullied in such a way. Undoubtedly someone has gone and pissed of Major Val…again."
Jason returned the smile. Major Val of the Legion was the biggest hothead in the entire Inner Sphere. He was an elitist who belonged to an elite, yet small, mercenary unit. He was one of the top hand-to-hand fighters in the Inner Sphere and all of that did nothing but add fuel to the fire of egotism that raged in the man's soul. He had never met the man personally, but his reputation preceded him by light-years. "Does the Solaris government know? Maybe we can put a stop to it."
"Won't do any good; unsanctioned, secret matches happen all of the time. Mostly it is to weed out the lucky ones and keep the truly skilled warriors. Sometimes its just an excuse to fight." He tapped the marker for the Romanus spaceport. "The Legion just put another DropShip down on the planet surface. That would most likely be their 'mechs."
"A lot of bribe money had to be paid…"
"Unless the government allowed it. The agreements signed between the Commonwealth and Solaris only forbid unauthorized military forces." Francois rubbed the stubble on his chin. "That's why the Green Lantern Corps are allowed there. It would be nice, however, if the Archon-General put a little pressure on the government to just let us in."
"If the prince wasn't there in secret, maybe he would. Did you read about the assassination of John and Mary Grayson on Blackgate?" Jason handed over the third part of the message. "They believe that it was an attempt to murder the prince."
"They could have sent him anywhere but here," Francois answered after reading the paper. "It doesn't matter. Prepare your men and equipment. In three days we touch down and you, Major, will go get our leader back!"