STRIKE HARD! STRIKE LEVEL! AND RUN LIKE THE DEVIL!
A Battletech Novel by RougeBaron
Author's Note: The idea for this story came when I was collecting minis for my Ryuken-go units. I bought a few Jagermechs to make a sub-unit within the Ryuken-go, but Jagermechs were not molded in the same scale as every other mechs, so they looked weird (kinda like Hobbits in an Elven combat unit ;) ). I don't want to sell them, so I built another unit around these Jagermechs. Thus born was the Lexington Legends.
If you're a fan of baseball, you'll enjoy the many references to baseball in this story.
Battletech / Mechwarrior and all its components are copyright of FASA, Wizkids, Topps, Catalyst Games, ActiVision, MicroProse, and Micro$oft Entertainment.
All rights reserved.
BOOK I
CHAPTER 1
Redmond's Bar & Grill,
Lexington, Kestrel Combat Region,
Crucis March, Federated Suns,
March 3, 3073
Visiting local taverns had been a ritual for Neptune, especially after a rough day at work. The background music was relaxing. On good days there were live music playing at Redmond's, but since it was only an early evening on a regular workday, only generic recording was available. But it was enough to accompany the drinks. The drinks were wonderful, though. The bartenders were surely well trained to satisfy patron's demands.
Construction job could get rough some times. There were always mid-level managers eager to climb corporate ladder at the expense of blue-collared laborers and hourly workers. Neptune was neither, but somehow, he always found himself at the mercy of workplace felons. Luckily, there were places like the Redmond's that flushed all the grimes away.
"Rough day?" Carissa, the dark-haired bartender, greeted him with her big round eyes and cute smile.
"Another day another c-bill," Neptune downplayed his condition, although he didn't think it would work. Carissa knew too much about him. "I'm just in the mood for AC/20, on the rocks."
"Come on, Neptune, how long have we known each other?" Carissa threw a dirty glance as she prepared the cocktail. Her reaction was just like Neptune expected. "I know what you think. I know when you're happy and I know when you just want to take the 12-gauge and blow someone's head off. I know how you feel before you even say anything."
"If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were married to me," Neptune didn't want to drag his friend into his mess. "It's just another day at work. Nothing that a glass of cocktail can't do."
"Mech giving you hard time?" Carissa slid the cocktail on the table.
"No. The Shugosha is legit. I never have problems with it."
"Must be the 'horrible bosses' then," Carissa shoved her face a few inches in front of Neptune's. Even with their height difference (him being 6'3" and her being 5'5") she had no trouble leveling up her expressive brown eyes with those of Neptune's.
"Well," Neptune took a sip of his cocktail. "Have you ever thought of having a different line of work?"
"What's wrong with bartending?" Carissa blurted.
"Nothing's wrong with bartending. I was just thinking what I would have been if I were not a construction worker." Neptune took a large swig, sweetening his mood. "Maybe a journalist. Or a salesman. Or a businessman. I want to travel, see the stars, go to places shown in books and magazines. Maybe I can be a mech broker and work at Solaris."
"If you want to travel, joining a mercenary unit would be a good start," Carissa muttered halfheartedly. "Most young'uns seem to want to be mercenaries these days. Although, there are not much to see out there anyway. The Word of Blake had turned the better part of Inner Sphere into nuclear wasteland."
Neptune chuckled. "Do you think I could be a good fit?"
"Well you're a construction mech driver so you're halfway there."
As the two were talking, a few customers at the opposite side of the table became increasingly impatient. One of them started banging on the table and called Carissa with loud voice. "Hey Bartender! Where's my drinks? I'm not paying you to socialize over there!"
"I'll be right with you, Sir," Carissa replied politely. She returned to Neptune with mischief bleeding from her eyes. "If I were not a bartender, I'd take whatever job that doesn't have to deal with assholes like that."
"You should probably call security," Nelson stole a glance at the rude customer.
"Nah, he'll shut up once I give him his drink." Carissa gave Neptune a wink before walking toward the loud group. "Don't go anywhere. I'd like to finish that conversation."
Neptune took a few more gulps from his glass but paid close attention to the rude customer. Contrary to Carissa's claim, he didn't shut up even after Carissa gave him his order. Neptune didn't know what Carissa said to him, but the guy became violent. He grabbed Carissa's arm and rudely yanked her toward him, forcing her to hunch over the table. He muttered something unintelligible, but by the look on Carissa's face, he must've said something offensive.
Usually there were security guards preventing accidents like this, but for whatever reason no guards was around. Carissa was left to defend herself against a bigger, stronger, meaner, and more violent drunken man. Neptune couldn't let it happen. He rushed to her aid, knowing that things might end up ugly but he wouldn't let his friend suffer alone.
"Hey! She's working, man!" Neptune yelled at the guy. "You got what you want! Let her go!"
"Neptune back off!" Carissa warned him. Her face contorted from the pain, but she still had the willpower to keep Neptune out of trouble. "Go back to your seat! I'll deal with this!"
But the man took Neptune's interference as a threat. He turned around, flaunting the muscles and a tattoo Lexington Legends crest, a mercenary company indigenous to the world of Lexington, on his chest. He stood a few inches shorter than Neptune but twice as wide. He packed some muscles, and he was not alone. Two other guys stood behind him, although they didn't seem to carry the mercenary insignia.
"Well well, what do we got here?! Some roughneck lowlife trying to be a hero!" the man let Carissa go and zeroed in on Neptune. "Do you know who I am?"
Neptune was aware of the Lexington Legends. It was the premiere mercenary unit based on the world of Lexington, mainly supporting the Federated Suns. The rude guy was obviously a member of the unit, and a proud one at that, since he got the mercenary insignia tattooed on his chest. That explained his behavior. Being a member of a highly-revered combat unit (at least in Lexington) gave him the right to do whatever he wanted.
"Look, I'm not looking for trouble," Neptune tried to stay calm. "I'm just helping a friend to do her job."
The mercenary answered by shoving Neptune violently. Neptune wasn't expecting such aggression, so he stumbled back, flat on his back. He clambered back up, tossed his satchel on the floor, and took up a fighting stance.
"You'd better go back to whatever hole you came from, dumbass!" the mercenary taunted him, then launched a high spinning back kick at Neptune's face. Neptune raised his arm to block but the boot slipped through his defense and grazed his temple. His head snapped back, and his body followed. He crashed onto a table, knocking ashtrays and coasters that were neatly arranged.
"Stop! Stop! Please stop!" Carissa helplessly tried to stop the mayhem. She started punching on buttons on her comset while the mercenary and his friends mugged Neptune. The other customers immediately scrambled out of the bar lest the fight escalated to destructive level and caught them in crossfire.
Neptune was still gathering himself when the other two guys picked him up from the floor. They held his arms while the mercenary smashed an empty beer bottle on the edge of a table. He held the broken bottle by the neck, aiming the sharp, jagged edge at Neptune's face. Neptune didn't know which one looked worse, the reflection of the light from the sharp-edged glass, or the murderous grin of the mercenary's face. He tried to broke free, but the two muscular men outmuscled him.
Running out of ideas, Neptune raised his leg and slammed his heel on a guy's knee as hard as he could. The leg bent inward with a loud crack, and the guy's scream drowned the background music. As his grip loosened up, he yanked his right arm free and stabbed the other guy in the eye. The guy quickly turned around, wailing while pressing both palms on his eye. Blood seeped between his fingers.
The mercenary made a roundhouse swing with his bottle, but Neptune ducked and slammed home a short uppercut to the mercenary's ribcage. The mercenary groaned, then attacked again, this time with a full-body thrust like a spear. Neptune used the mercenary's momentum to his advantage. He rolled on his back and grabbed the mercenary's arm, then used both legs to catapult the mercenary to the air. The mercenary cartwheeled in the air and crash-landed onto another table. He lost grip of the broken bottle, which stabbed his side, slid in between his ribs, and shredded his spleen to ribbons.
"Oh crap…" Neptune cringed, seeing blood splattered on the floor and disintegrated table. He didn't mean to hurt the mercenary. He just wanted to subdue the jerk. He went over the mercenary to help, but security guards stormed into the bar, mistakenly thinking that Neptune was still trying to attack the bleeding mercenary. They mercilessly tackled Neptune and pinned him on the ground.
"No! No, he's my customer!" Carissa unsuccessfully tried to pry Neptune off the guards' iron clutch. "He's protecting me from harassers! He's doing your job! This is not the way you treat customer!"
But the security guards didn't budge. "We're taking him to the cops!"
"Carissa, that's alright," Neptune said as the guards hauled him away. "This is just a misunderstanding. I'm sure the truth will come out and I'll be out before you know it!"
Lexington Police Department,
Lexington, Kestrel Combat Region,
Crucis March, Federated Suns,
March 4, 3073
The cell was cold and damp. The cot was thin and stuffy. The wall was drab with no access to the outside world – why would you entertain delinquents with panoramic view of the city anyway? – creating a macabre atmosphere of a maximum security prison.
Neptune's argument of self defense didn't go quite well with the police. The fact that the mercenary and his friends were gravely injured and in need of intensive care put Neptune in a hotspot. It didn't matter that he had half a dozen witnesses vouching for his 'innocence'. It was a brutal display of violent behavior, and the cops were not about to turn him loose without more investigation.
And it didn't help that one of the injured was a member of highly-esteemed Lexington Legends.
Neptune was nurturing his rash on his head when the main door jangled. A man and a woman, escorted by a police officer, approached his cell. The man was of generic look with medium build and military-style buzz cut. The woman wore a wolf tail on the top of her head and two braided locks on the side of her head. A small, barely visible patch adorned her jacket. It was very unassuming and Neptune would've missed it if he hadn't seen the blown-up version of it as the tattoo of the mercenary.
Lexington Legends insignia.
"Five minutes," the officer said before turning away.
"Mr. Neptune, I am Company Commander Korra, CO of First Company, Lexington Legends mercenary unit," the woman spoke firmly. "This is Lance Commander Drew, my second-in-command. I take it you know the reason we are here."
Of course Neptune did. Retaliation.
"Ma'am, I didn't mean to hurt your friend," Neptune stood up but stayed away from the bars. "He was harassing my friend, the bartender. I merely asked him to stop. Then he tried to hurt me."
"Rattler is an asshole. I have been looking for a reason to fire his ass. Thanks to you, now I have one."
Neptune didn't expect to hear that. "So… you'll leave me alone?"
"Not so fast, roughneck," Lance Commander Drew scoffed. "We're glad to get rid of Rattler. But there's a problem. We're supposed to go on a mission to New Macao at FedSun-Capellan border tomorrow. With Rattler out, we're one man short. You're responsible for Rattler being cut off, so you have to pinch-run for him."
"You want me to join your mercenary band?" Neptune thought the entire building collapsed on him. "I'm not a mechwarrior! I don't have military background! I am a construction worker, a law-abiding citizen!"
"The thing you did to Rattler and his goons. What do you call that?"
"Self defense. Rattler initiated the violence. I merely tried not to get killed."
"I call it years of hand-to-hand combat training."
"Yeah, well, my employer offers an afterwork self defense class as a benefit. I enroll just for fun."
"Do you know how to pilot a mech? Any mech?"
"I am a construction mech driver. I drive Shugosha for five years."
"Good enough. Six weeks of gunnery crash course should turn you into a mechwarrior."
"We are offering you a contract-for-hire position with the Lexington Legends, Mr. Neptune," Korra interjected. "I already put a bail on you. If you agree to pinch-run for Rattler, you can walk out of the cell right now. You'll join our mission to Capellan border, do what you're asked to, and return safe. Just like working in a construction site. Be there on time, follow procedure, do your job, and try not to get killed. When you return, you can reevaluate your position and continue as a full-time member, providing we're happy with your performance.
"If you reject, then we'll walk away, and you can stay here until the police investigation concludes, which by the time we return from Capellan border, will still be going on. So what is it gonna be, Mr. Neptune?"
Neptune didn't see any choice in the matter.