INTERLUDE 4

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Ulquiorra9000: I think she has been through a lot, so she deserves getting 'pampered' by somebody who knows 'pampering'


Ryuken-go Base Camp, Halstead City,
Halstead Station, Ashio Prefecture,
Dieron Military District, Draconis Combine,
June 27, 3074

"Aw, look at you!" Noloty cackled as she waddled through the makeshift mech hangar, slithering her way in between war machines getting repaired. The grinding of metal and the crackling of arc welding drowned her voice. Dead ahead was her Sagittaire, fully repaired, with half a dozen paint robots dancing around it, coating the mech in Ryuken-go paint scheme. Standing in place of the rusty-brown color was macabre dark gray with faint urban-camo tint. The result was nothing short of spectacular, and Noloty couldn't take her eyes off it.

Noloty hadn't seen her mech since she returned from Davion space. Tsagoi mentioned something about getting an 'upgrade' and Scarlet gave chief tech Keiichi the green light to bring the Sagittaire up to speed with any means necessary, but that was about all she had.

"I bet you can't wait to get back to the cockpit," Chu-I Keiichi blurted as Noloty chuckled by herself. "I gotta tell you, this is by far the most cantankerous, ill-tempered battlemech I have ever worked on. Everything is difficult. Wrong parts were installed because the right parts wouldn't fit. I don't know how those idiots at Robinson Standard BattleWorks could produce something like this. I wouldn't be surprised if their protocol is 'two wrongs make it right', so just do as many wrongs as possible, they'll sort each other out eventually. No wonder people keep getting killed driving this thing. This mech is a walking disaster."

"That's what people said about him," Noloty replied halfheartedly. "Yet I had nothing but good fortune. We escaped dire situations twice. He performed like a 95-ton assault mech should, and I'm still alive."

"Well then, don't push your luck," Keiichi shrugged.

"So… did you fix him?"

"Fix?" Keiichi threw a sarcastic laugh. "I don't know if such thing is possible, in short time at least. No, I didn't fix it. I replaced non-standard things with OEM parts, as many as possible. There are some Fed Sun units that carry Sagittaire spare parts and blue prints around here. One of them also had progressive suspensions, which performs much better than the original. That's about the only mod I did. Everything else is stock."

"Tsagoi-kun says you are a genius…"

Keiichi looked at Noloty funny. "Who?"

"Uhm… I mean Tai-sa Sandokan," Noloty stammered. Her face turned completely red. "Anyway, thank you. Thank you for everything you did. This mech means a lot to me, and I greatly appreciate your effort."

Keiichi shot a dumb stare at Noloty, but he decided to let it pass. "I have something for you. Follow me."

Noloty followed Keiichi as he turned off the painting robots. He led her to the elevator and took her to the cockpit of the Sagittaire. He opened the still-wet hatch and let her in. Noloty went straight to the command couch. Her hands roamed free from the joysticks to the throttle, touching everything within reach, like a kid sitting on a driver's seat for the first time. Everything was exactly the way she remembered it.

"I miss this so much," she giggled. "I've been deprived from proper battlemech for so long, I thought I forgot what it felt like."

Keiichi snickered as he pressed the start button. The mech whirred to life, running through initiation process. A woman's bot narrated the startup until the main screen showed all system nominal, until it announced 'Please enter password'. Then the screen went dark and everything froze.

"I reset the password sequence," Keiichi gave an external mike to Noloty. "Go ahead, make it yours."

It took a while for her to comprehend Keiichi's suggestion. A litany of phrases, mostly from The Art of War, flashed through her mind. Some quotes from legendary mechwarriors came into the surface, along with references from literatures. But in the end she settled with the only one that was most appropriate, "To Thine Own Self Be True."

"Password accepted. Welcome aboard, Mechwarrior Noloty."

"Shakespeare?" Keiichi snorted.

"Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3." Noloty leaned back on the command couch, savoring the feeling of contentment and the smell of fresh paint. "That sums up my life, really."

"I didn't know you were a nerd."

Noloty replied with a soft mirth. "How long can I stay here?"

"Let me finish putting up this last coat. After that, you can stay here as long as you want."

"Five more minutes?"

Keiichi sighed. "Alright. Don't forget to seal the hatch when you leave. You don't want paint all over the cockpit."


Markham's Marauders' Base Camp,
Ashio, Ashio Prefecture,
Dieron Military District, Draconis Combine,

July 11, 3074

The shadow of the 100-ton Ragnarok preceded the battlemech coming out of the Leopard-class dropship, emblazoned with Word of Blake sword on the bay doors. Two Excalibur mechs sandwiched the massive battle wagon. They scurried down the dropship and marched with pomp until they stopped a few meters apart from Dultom Markham's Bull Shark.

Like the Bull Shark, the Ragnarok was of a rare sight, scarcely seen through the Inner Sphere outside Word of Blake units. But unlike the Bull Shark, the Ragnarok had not been christened in real combat. Commanders that rode a Ragnarok had shied away from mech-to-mech confrontation, and used the beast either to discourage the opposing force, or to attack fortifications, things that didn't require a lot of maneuver to shoot at.

The smorgasboard of weapons, thick armor, and exceptionally Blue Shield PFD made the Ragnarok a name that even the most experienced mechwarriors broke in sweat. But not Dultom Markham. Dultom enjoyed good duels. He slayed many mechs before, some of them were better armed than the Bull Shark, and he wondered what would happen if he went head-to-head against the Ragnarok. The Blake mech had the advantage on weapons, but his Bull Shark was faster and more agile. He chuckled at the thought that his 200-years old battlemech could outmaneuver something just rolled out of the production line. Added to that the inexperienced of the mechwarrior that had never taken the Ragnarok against another battlemech, and there was really not much competition there.

"Do you enjoy double dipping?" Dultom opened a comlink with the Ragnarok.

"Are you concerned that I would find out you missed a spot?" Precentor Mordecai snarled from inside his mammoth mech.

"You can audit my work. I believe you're just going to waste your time and money."

"I have not had the head of Duke Nikolai Jansma yet."

"That is not specified in the contract. Markham's Marauders are not here for head hunting. We are here to clean up the resistance and present Ashio to the Word of Blake in immaculate condition, so you can steal our credit, and parade through the capital as the conqueror of Ashio."

"Your job is not over until Duke Jansma is dead!" Mordecai growled.

"You want Nikolai Jansma, you write a new contract, and throw in more money on the table." Dultom was sure Mordecai was going to open fire out of rage, so he activated all weapons and aimed them at the Ragnarok's midsection. His armor might not hold against the Ragnarok's firepower at point blank range, but at least he went down firing, if it had to come to that. "Markham's Marauders are not your slaves. We don't work on a whim. As far as I'm concerned, we are done."

"You are not done," Mordecai's snarl reverberated through the comlink, a combination of rage and disgust. "The Draconis Combine is sending a retaliatory task force to reclaim Ashio. If it joins forces with Nikolai Jansma and whatever troops he could rally, we are going to have a tough time subduing them. Your contract does state that you have to keep Ashio free from resistance until Word of Blake is done with its operations." The Ragnarok heaved its Gauss-laden arm, aiming it at the Bull Shark's cockpit. "You have not finished your job, Mercenary!"

Dultom let out a long chuckle. "Of course they would," he said. "You stole their planet. They're gonna want it back."

"I station my Level III near Iscariot. I do not trust you to finish this job."

"Like I said, you're only wasting your time and money," Dultom backed up. "Let the Kuritans come. Let them join forces with Nikolai Jansma. None of these will change." He lined up his crosshair with the head of the Ragnarok. "We are the apex predators, and they're just presenting their broad side for our taking."