CHAPTER 2

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

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The Colonel: The first few chapters would be mostly WTF moments since everybody had to learn the other's universe. It'll get better once everybody's informed.

Port Krin, Antallos,
Inner Sphere Periphery,
December 19, 3064

Trystan sat on the ground watching the stars, wondering if he would ever visit any of them again.

More than a year had passed since he arrived at Port Krin as a part of a trade to save the Blazing Aces from a massacre. The Blazing Aces, the mercenary unit founded by his grandfather, resurrected by his mother, and now supposedly his responsibility, decided to sell him and his battlemech to a pirate band, so the cowards that killed his mother could survive and assume command of the unit.

What a turn of fate.

Trystan's bad luck didn't stop there. The pirate band happened to be the Band of The Damned, whose base camp was Antallos, a periphery world at the border of human civilization. It was a place of wretches and villains that regular people would avoid on daily basis. Trystan's scrawny looks didn't appeal to the pirates, so they sold him as a slave. Yes, slave. Trystan couldn't believe that slavery still existed in the 31st Century. But it did, particularly in a world like Antallos. And as impossible as it was, he had been a slave for more than a year. The grandson of Duke Gideon Vandenberg, the heir of the mercenary unit Blazing Aces, now scraped food from the bottom of a pan as a slave.

But it could have been worse. Three slaves were sent to a mech hangar, and only Trystan showed aptitude toward mechanics. The other two were sent somewhere else to do hard labor, and Trystan had been working exclusively in the hangar, helping a local battlemech technician by the name of Lei Fong. Now Lei Fong was a different character. He was still tied to pirates and gambling mobs, but he was not abusive toward slaves. He taught Trystan basic mechanics of battlemechs, 10-meter-tall humanoid robots with weapons capable of evaporating a city block in minutes. And as the time went by, he trusted Trystan to do some repair and maintenance without supervision. Their relationship progressed from master and slave to supervisor and employee, but as a slave, Trystan only received food for his work.

But not a single day passed without Trystan planning for escaping from the grip of Band of The Damned. The hangar was full of battlemechs. He could steal one and made it to the star ports. Trade the battlemech for a spot in a dropship. Or just sneak out of the hangar on foot. With the busy traffic of battlemechs in and out of the hangar, nobody would pay attention to a scrawny little man slipping through the door. The problem was the pirates treated slaves violently. And Trystan had seen what the pirates did to slaves that failed to escape. The image of those human atrocities was enough to discourage him from executing his plans.

"You spend the better part of your free time stargazing," Lei Fong noticed Trystan's ritual at the end of each day. "If I didn't know you better, I'd thought of you as either an astronomer or a fool thinking of an escape."

"I am thinking of an escape, Sir," Trystan said matter of factly. He had been working with Lei Fong long enough to know that the master technician would not punish him for being frank. "And I believe all slaves are in the same boat with me, at least once in their servitude."

"Yet once they realize it's impossible to escape the Band of The Damned, they find contentment in their lives. You, on the other hand, keep the flame of freedom alive in futility. You're in much better state than most of the slaves here. Your work is easy. You want to be the center of attention? I can hook you up with an arena manager. Train as a gladiator and you'll hear your name spoken with awe and respect."

"I greatly appreciate your kindness, Sir," Trystan sighed, "but this is not the life I want."

"What is the life you want?"

"You'd laugh at me if I told you."

"What? Dentist? Podiatrist? Lawyer?" Lei Fong took a seat next to Trystan. "Nobody gets the life he wants. This is not the life I wanted. But this is what I get, and I get along with it. I make the most of it. I don't profit as much as I wanted, but I make something out of my life and do not succumb into manic depression like you. Maybe you should try it."

"But you are free to make choices, Sir. I don't have that luxury. I am held here against my will."

"What's the difference?" Lei Fong leaned back and gazed at the starry sky. "What's a choice if you're never gonna make it? It's just a slap in your face."

"Hope is what makes us alive, Sir."

"Hope is overrated. Work makes you alive. Hope gives you heartache, work gives you food. Instead of staring at the stars hoping you get to visit them someday, pack up your wrenches and arrange them by size so tomorrow you don't waste time looking for what you need."

"I already did that, Sir," Trystan replied without taking his eyes off the stars. "If you can go anywhere you want, where do you want to go?"

"I don't daydream," Lei Fong huffed. "But one day I wanna give honor to my ancestors."

"Is it Sian, Sir?" Trystan asked empty-mindedly.

"No!" Lei Fong unexpectedly tensed and sat right up. "Why do you think I'm from Sian?"

"Oh? You're not a Liao?" Trystan was taken aback by Lei Fong's sudden intensity.

"No! I am not a Liao! What, you think all slant-eyed gooks must be Capellans?"

"What? No! I did not say that, Sir!" Trystan shot up, wondering why their innocent conversation turned into a racially-charged argument.

"You don't have to say your ignorant white-trash prejudice! I can smell it reeking from your mouth!" Lei Fong suddenly exploded into a tirade. "Every Nip's a Kuritan! Every Kraut's a Lyran! Every Jockie's a Skye!"

"I am sorry if I insult your heritage, Sir, but it was never my intention to do so," Trystan tried to defuse the situation, but Lei Fong's face had turned so red with anger that Trystan thought he would start a fistfight. "All I did was sharing dreams of the future."

"Sharing my ass! What do you feel if somebody told you 'Sorry for the loss of FRR you Slavic asshole, but KungsArme can do no shit!'"

"Then I will not take it seriously because it is just an honest mistake," Trystan replied slowly as not to aggravate Lei Fong further. "And in the light of your point, I am Nordic, Sir. Swedes are Nordic, not Slavic."

"Nordic, Slavic, Pelvic, you people all look alike!" Lei Fong huffed curtly. He walked in circles and kicked some boxes on the floor. After a minute or so, he calmed down but was still visibly upset when he went to talk to Trystan, "Sweep the floor! I want it clean by the morning! And don't you ever, EVER, call me a Liao! Like there are not enough Chink's names in the Inner Sphere!"

"Yes, Sir," Trystan stood dumbfounded until Lei Fong exited the hangar. He spent some time scratching his head, wondering which part of his conversation insulted Lei Fong. Was it just because he mistook him as a Capellan? It was an honest mistake, and he didn't even say it the first time. He said it only after Lei Fong goaded him. But regardless what he did, he considered himself lucky Lei Fong didn't go any further than firing a full-blown tirade. Lei Fong could send him to a factory for hard labor, or worse, beat him up as a disobedient slave.

So Trystan started sweeping the hangar, a thousand square meter behemoth hosting a company of battlemechs. Most of the technicians had gone home but left their tools scattered on the floor. They were particular about their tools, and expected to find the tools exactly where they left them when they came back the next morning. It made his job harder to clean the floor without removing the tools.

But Trystan was used to it, so after an hour of cleaning he covered half of the hangar. He walked outside and took a break, again, gazing at the stars. He wondered if one of them was Elidere System where Ander's Moon, the home of the Blazing Aces, lied. There was no way to tell; the star arrangements were so much different from this side of the Inner Sphere, he couldn't recognize any of the systems anymore.

As he submerged into his own world, his eyes caught something spinning in the sky. There was not enough light to reveal the entire shape of the object, but as far as Trystan could see it looked like an organism, changing shape every second. The object became bigger and bigger, and as it grew, it whistled more. Once in a while it fired blinding light, much like jet streams from a rocket.

"What in the world is that?" Trystan muttered.

The object continued to grow and soon Trystan recognized it as Aquarius, the Star-League-era gunship. The Aquarius was falling down and using its jets to stabilize itself. But it was obvious that the Aquarius would crash land in the middle of city. Trystan ran inside the hangar to pull the Emergency lever, but one quick glance at the falling Aquarius convinced him that the aircraft would crash right into the hangar. Trystan reversed direction and ran away from the hangar as fast as he could, as the Aquarius' whistle grew into an unbearable screech.

Seconds later a powerful shock threw Trystan off his feet, so powerful he slid on the ground for a few meters. The Aquarius slammed into the hangar, taking out half of the dome-like structure as if made from wooden planks. The deafening perforated his eardrums, or so he thought. Debris of all shapes and sizes rained down on him. He balled up into a fetal position, covering his head with as much body parts as he could use, and hoped that nothing bigger than pebbles would fall on his head.

When the debris stopped raining down on him, Trystan pulled himself up, and gasped in disbelief upon the carnage spread in front of his eyes. The hangar he just swept five minutes ago now laid a ruin. Only a small portion of structure was still intact. He walked slowly back into the hangar. Most of the battlemechs were knocked over; half of them were savagely mutilated. Limbs and weapons scattered everywhere. Sparks crackled from electrical conduits, threatening to ignite the coolant and jet fuels and other fluids at the floor of the hangar. And the Aquarius, or what was left of it, rested on the center of the hangar, covered by debris from the hangar and battlemech parts.

"Lei Fong! Lei Fong, Sir! Something just happened…" Trystan called for Lei Fong while turning off the main switch of the hangar, cutting out the electricity. "An Aquarius just crash landed at the hangar. Everything has been laid waste… Sir? Can you hear me?" He tapped his personal comset, but the thing was dead, either from the impact when he fell down, or some kind of magnetic interference caused by the Aquarius.

Trystan was about to pull the Emergency lever when he heard some noise from the crash site, almost like deep guttural sound. He came closer to investigate, and the noise became longer and more labored, almost like somebody struggling to breathe. It couldn't come from a man because it was deep and low. No humans made that kind of noise.

Curious, Trystan walked closer, but then the pile of debris shook. He took several steps backward and grabbed a long pipe, holding it as a cudgel, as the top part of the debris moved. Concrete blocks and metal structures rolled down until the top canopy of the Aquarius was uncovered. The canopy popped up in a hissing sound, and Trystan didn't blink for a minute watching a girl, without proper pilot suit and gear, jumped out of the Aquarius.

It was almost inconceivable, and Trystan wouldn't believe it if he didn't see it with his own eyes. How could she survive such a violent crash? With no proper gear? The girl looked confused; her knees were shaking as she walked back and forth, seemingly trying to inspect the Aquarius while mumbling incoherently. But as far as Trystan could see, she was in no physical damage.

"Miss?" Trystan called for her. "Miss, are you alright?" The girl ignored her, so he tried to chase her while calling out to her. "Miss, are you hurt? You may have internal damages. Let me take a look…"

Just as he reached out to grab the girl's hand, the ground shook again, much forcefully this time. Suddenly the canopy of the Aquarius arose, followed by the entire body of the gunship. It was not an Aquarius at all. What Trystan thought to be the canopy of the Aquarius turned out to be the head of a very large animal like nothing he had ever seen. It had a pair of wings that spanned half the width of the hangar, a very long tail with purple tail blades at the edge, and right underneath the canopy lied a train of teeth.

The animal looked at Trystan and lowered its head, boasting its white set of teeth. A demonic growl escaped from between the teeth. A pair of curved beams on top of its head glowed in bright purple, and Trystan could feel the heat.

The girl looked at him for a while, then said, "Cease advance, or find head between Gilvy's teeth."

"What… what… what is this thing?" Trystan stammered. Sweat beaded on his forehead, a combined effect of the heat from the animal's glowing beams and nervous breakdown. "This thing is alive?"

"It's a zoid! Have eyes not laid upon zoids in passing days?" the girl replied. She turned to the animal, "Back off Gilvy. He caused me no grievance."

Like a puppy, the animal lifted the pressure of Trystan. The young Vandenberg took several deep breaths to compose himself. But soon his curiosity got the best of him, so he came at the girl again. "Where did you get this thing? A living, sentient… battlemech?"

The girl stopped in her track and turned to look at him. "Sentient… what?"

"Sentient battlemech, shaped like a… a…" Trystan had a hard time to find the words to describe the animal. "… a dragon?"

The girl looked at him for a long time, as if trying to digest Trystan's words. "Battle… mech?"

"Battlemech, yeah, like those you just knocked over when you crash landed ten minutes ago."

The girl turned to see the carnage, and for the first time she saw the battlemechs lying on top of each other. Her jaw dropped and her mouth gaped wide open. She turned to Trystan with panic bursting from her eyes. "What place is this? Where am I?"

"Miss, I think you have a concussion," Trystan tried to hold the girl, but the big animal started to move, so he stood still. "We'd better go to the hospital to get you checked."

"No, no, no, what is of this place?" the girl ignored him.

"What do you mean 'What is this place'? You crash-landed here and you don't know where you are? Did your Nav computer malfunction or something?"

"What place? What continent? What city? Set tongue to purpose! Where am I?"

It was hard enough to understand the girl's unreasonable inquiry, her accent just made everything worse. "This is the world of Antallos, home of the Band of The Damned, the most vicious pirate band in the periphery, as of today. The city is Port Krin, the only place within a few parsecs that still practices slavery and public executions. Beheading at 3 o'clock tomorrow, don't miss your chance to the showing of the condemned 15 minutes prior. But worry about that later. We have to get you checked at the hospital."

"Antallos? Antallos?" the girl's eyes bugged wide. Her body trembled, and she started to hyperventilate. "This planet's name is Antallos? This is not Mother Zi anymore?"

"Mother what?" it was time for Trystan to cock his eyebrows.

"How far am I removed from Zi?" the girl looked straight into Trystan's eyes.

"Zi? What is Zi? I've never heard about Zi before!"

"Oh no… oh no…" the girl sat on a pile of debris and buried her face on her palm. "Gilvy, I just killed us both!"