The Cairo Saga, Book 3: Legacies of War
Chapter 3: The waiting game
Tukayyid City
Tukayyid
Free Rasalhague Republic
The converted warehouse was a hive of activity: Cairo had, despite McKinlay's orders, refrained from ordering his pilots to their Mechs. Instead they sat around in small groups, cooling vests on and neural helmets ready, trying to relax before the impending battle.
He sipped his now cold coffee and looked over at the Tech's who where making the finishing touches to Dancer's old D9 Centurion. He was more than a little upset that Sinead had talked Rob into lending her his old Mech: it had been put into storage onboard the Wataru when the Irregulars had been formed. It still had the Clan weapons that McCoy had installed back on Huntress, but after a few years inactivity, it was in need of a good cleaning.
Cleaning her hands with an old rag, Sinead walked over to him, "Getting your hourly caffeine fix I see?" Cairo just nodded. Sinead sat down next to him, "You'll still angry that I lied to you." Cairo shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. Sinead shook her head, "If I had told you the truth you would have gone back to the HPG and tried to fulfil that oath you made."
Cairo looked at her, "They detonated the nuke Sinead: 500,000-people are dead because of me."
"Yes, and no-doubt more will die because of you actions, but they would have detonated the bomb anyway. Then they would have had you."
"You don't know that, no-one does. If I hadn't tried that stupid plan of mine this might never have happened."
"Damn you Steven: if you'd given up, everyone here would be dead." Sinead waved her arm around, motioning to the other Irregulars.
"Doesn't make me feel any better." Cairo shrugged, "I should have known that they'd use the nuke anyway. I just didn't think."
"I saw the look on your face when you saw the transition, I know what that expression means: you don't think when you're like that, you just act."
Cairo was about to respond when his pager went off. He unclipped it from his belt and scanned the small LCD screen. One word: GO.
The coffee cup fell from his hands and shattered on the hard concrete floor of the warehouse. The Irregulars looked over to him, and as one, started running to their Mech's. Sinead stopped briefly to kiss him on the cheek, than ran over to the Centurion and climbed up the rope ladder.
Cairo's heart was pounding as he clambered through the hatch and into the Templar's cockpit. He still wasn't used to the OmniMech's controls, but he had spent a large part of the last two days going over the systems in the simulators. He took the reactor off standby and powered up all the primary systems. The radio was filled with babble as the Lance commanders got their commands ready.
He smiled slightly as he activated the company wide channel, "Irregulars, move out!" He moved the throttle forwards, and felt the ground shake as the 85-ton Mech started to move towards the now open doors.
Everything was simpler from the command-couch of a Mech…
TBC…