Chapter 12
April 22nd, 3025
Raymond Bache Memorial Spaceport
Mach' Beh
Suk II
I've got to get out of here. I've got to get out of here. I've got to get out of here. Ron Walker kept repeating his mantra in his head as he stood in line at customs at the Spaceport, just on the northern edge of Mach 'Beh. He kept his head low and his hands in his pockets, despite the amazing view any spaceport offered.
Since the vast majority of dropships were of the cargo-carrying variety, they remained parked along their various pads across the ferrocrete. Endless fire-blackened patches peppered a highway of gray that seemed to go on forever. Reinforced ferrocrete girders helped deflect the blasts from ships coming and going and let the ships nestle for whatever business of the day was coming their way.
Many of these mostly spherical and egg-shaped ships were making cargo runs, from one hundred ton battlemechs or various parts to keep any of them running, to crates of sparkling "filtered" water to be sent to the more posh estates around the Inner Sphere. It all depended on what the ships were customized for, and what kind of cargo was available.
I'd be happy curling up in a box, in someone's storage closet on the dirtiest, nastiest freighter on that tarmac if it meant I got out of here sooner. Hell, give me a spacer suit and strap me to the outside of the nose if you have to. To him, it felt like the guards up ahead at the customs office seemed determined to make everyone in line wait as long as physically possible.
The 'mech tech, or at least up until about two days ago, knew what he had done had helped lead to the deaths of so many. He wasn't even sure exactly what he did. He normally worked the upper-halves of the 'mechs for the RoughRiders. Weapons, electronics, gyros that kept the walking war machines upright and in-tune with their pilot's senses, you name it. He did all manner of things in that area. Was damn good at it, too. High marks all around. Wasn't afraid to pull overtime to get jobs done.
The line crept along at about the speed of a minute hand on an ancient gear-driven watch. He continued to keep as neutral of a profile as he knew how to. His mind went back to the senior tech who had given him the order. "Just replace these old couplings underneath the cockpits. Should decrease the lag between the neurohelmet and the weapons by about two percent. Nothing to write home about, but it'll get them a little closer to the same condition they came off the assembly line in."
If an army marched on its stomach, a 'mech marched on its parts. And parts wore down over time. Techs with less experience might twist a myomer bundle the wrong way, putting a kink in a 'mech's muscles somewhere. An actuator might grind down within any part of an arm, leg, in some cases even a hand. Moving parts are everywhere on a battlemech of any size, and they all need the same attention and care a tech can give.
Generally, someone piloting a 'mech winds up piloting it for a while, so they become attached to it in many ways. Some want to know every minor detail that gets changed in their 'mech. Some don't. But either way, with a tech's full schedule in a time of conflict, it's almost impossible to get that information to them. So, the techs will usually stick with the most important stuff when telling the pilot.
It had to have been those couplings. They looked completely different, even though they fit in perfectly. They could have had the program or virus or whatever it was that infec—" his thoughts were interrupted at the sink by a pat on the arm, and a sharp pain there as someone passed by, already halfway to the exit. Shit.
Someone got to him. He had no idea how long he had left to live. It could be one of those kinds of poisons that takes several hours and makes it look like natural causes, or a heart attack, or anything else he'd already seen on the cool espionage holovids. It could be a few seconds from now. All he knew is someone got him before he could get away. His hands started to shake. From the poison? Walker wasn't sure if it was him being in shock from knowing this was his last day above ground or whatever he was pricked with.
He looked again at the exit. Whoever got him was already long gone. He wagered he didn't have long, and the message he sent back at the HPG station was likely intercepted anyway. He decided to enjoy however long he had taking in that view he'd denied himself while waiting in line.
Walking to the glass near one of the passenger boarding gates, he was treated to a Mule takeoff. Looking more like a giant metal melon sliced in half that grew big engines out of the bottom, the light and sound created, even from so many kilometers away from the glass, lit up the horizon. Massive clouds of smoke rolled up from underneath it, deflected by the blast shields.
Within seconds, the more than eleven thousand tonner spat at gravity and what most people would say was "good common sense" and rose on jets of flame that drew the attention of anyone who had a pulse. As it climbed higher and higher, the massive engines created a second sun brighter than Suk itself, at least for now. Walker put his hand on the tinted glass, mesmerized by it despite years of seeing the exact same thing so many times before.
The ship climbed into the blue-grey clouds hanging low over the spaceport, creating a nice hole for people to see the blue-green sky of high noon. The smoke slowly rose as if to fill the gap left behind by the ship.
And then the seizure came. And another. And another. Until there was nothing.
April 22nd 3025
Jack's Rack Shack
Outside Firebase Zulu
Suk II
"Best ribs on the planet," the billboards said up and down the highway between Firebases Yankee and Zulu. Needless to say, the location and such a bold claim meant the modest restaurant was so packed every day with off-duty RoughRiders that the owners brought in help from the big city with lots of chairs and tables outside.
The waiter motioned to one of the techs across the hazy room, making eye contact. A small portable phone wiggled in his hand over his head. The tech froze momentarily, then slowly got up from his table full of laughing friends and shuffled over to the front desk. Slowly putting it up to his ear, he heard a garbled voice. "Corporal Takashi Utamo?" The voice croaked.
"No, who is this?" He answered meekly.
"Quit fucking around, Takashi. Excuse yourself and go out the front door. Say its administrative business or something. There's a hover taxi outside. Get in it and don't ask questions." The young Corporal had so many gambling debts it was a wonder his CO didn't know about it yet. And apparently it was time to pay the bill one more time.
"Bullshit. I already did what you wanted." He slammed his finger on the "end" button of the phone as hard as he could, almost breaking it. He walked outside anyway, needing some air, and saw the taxi waiting amongst all the other vehicles. A man with an old-fashioned Gatsby hat in the driver's seat casually pulled out a needler with a very large clip sticking out of the bottom and nodded at Takashi. No one bothered to look, most were half or all-the-way drunk, and there were other cabs there.
Takashi merely shook his head and slowly got in the cab, which drove away to the north, to pay the rest of what he owed with his skills. Living through it was optional.
