Chapter 17

May 6th, 3025

Jack's Rack Shack

Alshayra Continent

Suk II

J.J. walked into the packed restaurant knowing he would smell of delicious smoke and meat for the better part of two days if he didn't find a shower. He was fairly certain anyone who ate here walked out with a visible scent trial behind them if anyone had the right tools to observe that. The restaurant itself was actually built into a hollowed-out tree at least half a millennia old. The rings of the wood were visible in many parts of the main room, and there was a small display about it off to the side. It was a little warmer than he was already used to, despite being acclimated to the more tropical climate of southern Alshayra/Northern Gimli.

More tropical than normal, anyway, he thought. Even up in the VTOL previously, the breeze would still feel warm. Comfortable, even. In here, where the smokers and ovens were below-ground to allow the aroma to fill the entire restaurant, it felt like a sauna. His coveralls he borrowed from a 'mech tech didn't help much. It was a well-known fact the "Rack Shack" was known for ordering more bottled water than the entire House of Parliament every month. The customers didn't mind. They said it was "part of the charm of the place."

He grabbed a seat at the end of the bar, nodding to his neighbor, who simply shrugged and continued with his ribs. The bartender finally got to him after a minute and handed him a menu. "Welcome. First time here?" J.J. simply shrugged, trying to draw as little attention to him as possible.

"I'm told the man working the greeter station is here tonight. The man who talked to the RoughRider who went missing on April 22nd. May I speak with him?"

The bartender bristled a bit at that. "You're lookin' at him. Who wants to know? The cops, Double-R Intel spooks, they all talked to me for hours." RoughRider intelligence, whatever they were called, if they were called anything, J.J. assumed. The RoughRiders became a household name in this establishment, seeing as they most of their business since the fighting started last season.

J.J. simply slid a few hundred C-bills and a tiny piece of paper his way before asking. "Eh, never mind. I'll just talk to the cops, then. Thanks anyway. Here's my tab from last night. Sorry about that." He got up and walked out, waving across the room at nobody in particular.

The barkeep pocketed the money, taking a look at the note.

Ten times this amount is yours if you answer some questions at The Green Flamingo when you get off your shift. Please come immediately after your shift. Destroy this note immediately.

The barkeep figured eh, what the hell. I could use a few thousand tonight. He threw the note in the very wet trash can and went about his business.

J.J. waited in the hotel room with the holovid playing a nondescript late-night talk show. A hand rested on a silenced pistol he got on loan from Mr. Orlianne, using some of his contacts in the Militia. As the door knocked, he checked the thermal goggles for anything behind the door, the person knocking, and the parking lot behind it. Nothing for a least a few hundred meters Opening the door, he shook the hand of the barkeep/witness and motioned for him to have a seat.

"Hey, please put that thing away, man! It's just me." J.J. obliged for now, holstering his weapon. "So, what do you want to know? I mean you could probably get all this info from the cops for free. Why pay me so much?"

J.J. said nothing for a moment. He turned up the conical white noise machine sitting next to the bed. "Let's just say the man you talked to is part of some global conspiracy to sabotage 'mechs moments before The Langley Affair and all the other treatment plants. We don't know who, and we were hoping you could help shed some light on our own private investigation. It's best you don't know who we are, for your own safety." He pulled out a thousand c-bill note to get him talking. "More where this came from. Tell me about him."

The barkeep accepted the money with a big grin and nodded. "Came in at least a few times a week with his usual group of friends. Nice tipper, which is why I remember him so well. The other guys were pretty rowdy and didn't tip that much. Anyway, a guy in a suit, shades, shaved head and a dark brown goatee walks in and asks me to flag him down. Said his name was Takashi, gave me the description, and paid me fifty C-bills to go find him. By the time I get back to the podium, guy was gone and the phone was ringing telling me to wait. Maybe they had some kinda miscommunication and didn't mean to show their faces, I dunno. Either way he was gone, and the phone rang right as we both got back to the podium. Was real creepy, man. I didn't like it, but what could I do at that point?"

Perhaps warn the man that something didn't feel right, J.J. thought to himself. He said nothing and kept his arms crossed, leaning against the wall. His glossy, straight black hair had grown way out of regulations since his liaison began with the Coyotes. He was taller than most man of Japanese descent, but still shorter than this man. His normally baby-smooth face had a haggard-looking goatee with flecks of grey, early for his age of forty. He never had the chance to really grow it out, so he enjoyed it while he could.

The barkeep took the silence as a cue to move on. "Aaaanyway, the phone rings, and he starts

swearing into the phone. Something like 'I already did it,' or something. Guess he was in somebody's pocket for a while. Lots of casinos between here and downtown. I like to call them a fishing net, catching nature tourists migrating up and downstream on this highway. I imagine some of the Double-R's like to piss their money away here, too. There aren't any gangs or anything in this area so I figured it was all gambling related."

The man went silent. J.J. simply pulled out another 1k C-bill note and handed it to him. Funny, I figured they would always do that "I can't remember any more," and then they get more money and go "oh hey, it's coming back to me now." The taller man continued, sitting down on the bed with Kerensky knows how many invisible stains on it. "I talked to his friends, said he was definitely stressin' out about money, and once one of the other techies started into this story about how his work was a little weird and the chief tech would have to double-check his stuff, then another guy slapped him on the back of the head and he shut up."

I wonder how many people they got to do RoughRider, mercenary and militia gun cams across the planet simultaneously. This is bad. Getting organized crime involved seems like it fits the bill, but what do they gain by sabotaging literally every force on this planet? Who the hell had that kind of pull, and would also benefit from it?

"…And then he just walked outside and nobody heard from him again. It sounded like he was flat out denying whoever he was talking to that he was even the right person, but he walked out anyway. I dunno man, but that's all I know."

"Thanks for your time. I'll escort you to your car." J.J. took his thermal goggles off the bed and scanned one more time in the parking lot. A small blossom of heat was showing up on a low hillside on the opposite side of the parking lot. Very small. Like someone laying prone for no really good reason at all. Sweeping the opposite side through the wall and adjoining room didn't give him much to go on, and there was only one way in and out of here. The front door—which was likely covered by a sniper at this point.

"I hate to break it to you, but someone doesn't want you passing around info to unknown people. I'm sorry this happened, but whoever's involved has fingers in a lot of pockets. There might be someone waiting to kill us across the parking lot, but we can't get out. Any ideas?"

The barkeep thought about it for a minute. J.J. didn't press him, because time was the only thing on their side at the moment. "I can call my trucker friend and he can have a pretend breakdown on the road over there. He owes me a tab and if you're willing to cover it, plus another five thousand C-bills for putting my life in danger tonight, I can make that happen."

J.J. nodded. He didn't have a lot of room to negotiate, and he could always just charge the Coyotes or Militia for any extra expenses at this point. For the next ten minutes, they mimed a conversation and let the white noise machine do the rest. The thermal signature didn't move. Within another five minutes, the barkeep's friend showed up, conveniently blocking the line of sight between them and the possible sniper. J.J. handed him everything in his pocket, a few thousand more C-bills.

"Don't go back to work. In fact, find a new job. I'm sorry my new friend, but your life is in way too much danger, now. I have set up a dead-drop with 10,000 C-bills to help you get off-planet until this whole thing…blows over. I was hoping I wouldn't have to use it, but here." He passed a piece of scrap paper showing the location of a dumpster in Mach 'Beh with the money. The barkeep looked almost…disappointed. "You're damn lucky I'm single. Can't you just go take him out?" he said, frowning.

"Sorry you didn't get to see an exciting gunfight or see someone get their ass kicked in less than two seconds, but most espionage isn't what you see on the holovids. It's almost one hundred percent of your time spent staying out of trouble." J.J. sounded more like a scolding parent, but just let it go and shook his hand and they left the motel in opposite directions.

J.J. opted to carjack something on the far side of the motel and went south, back to Firebase Yankee, and towards Langley. He wasn't a demolitions expert, but getting up close might show who, from his own people, specifically who was responsible.

Camp Bow Wow II

Mercury Metals and Mining District

New Syria

It was nice to wake up to a breeze that didn't come with its own sweat. And it was nice to wake up inside four walls and a ceiling. Even just the ceiling felt like a luxury at this point. Emily awoke and looked around the small stucco house she shared with Pearl, Martin, their admins and chief 'mech tech, and the Militia liaison. She got up from her cot, laid out alongside Pearl's, and stretched. She always needs an extra hour. I'm damned lucky I only need five to function normally. I could never do this job if I needed that much time like some people do. She could barely sleep anyway. The adrenaline from the entire operation, the salvaging aftermath and the trip back to the mining district back with all their new "loot" had her all giddy. She'd be lucky if she could call that a nap.

Walking to the tiny kitchen, or at least tiny for the number of people in the house, she started some coffee and opened the data pad containing their acquisitions from yesterday. First on her little review of the morning, which she had already looked at least half a dozen times since last night was an almost fully intact Catapult C1. Sixty-five tons of long range missile launching fury, with a handful of medium lasers once those ran out.

She stared at the cabinet in front of her in deep thought as the coffee machine gurgled. This version had jump jets, so it could fit our doctrine, but was pretty slow in comparison with the rest of the remaining company. Still viable, just tricky. Maybe once our Urbie's up we can set up a slower-moving rear guard or something. Grabbing a few bagels out of the cabinet, she sat at the table to think about what to do with the other two captured 'mechs from last night.

The Dervish was brought back on a flatbed, sans head and a good amount of its armor around the shoulder area. It laid on its back on the flatbed parked between some of the major offices and some of the housing in the mining district. Virtually everyone saw the gaping crater where the head had fused and melted into itself, leaving mostly a solid congealed mass of metal, circuitry, fabric and human remains. Nobody wanted to go near it, yet.

Knowing the pilot had become literally fused into the 'mech itself until the entire mess was extracted was creepy, to say the least. It's like the damn thing is haunted. Would anyone be willing to pilot it? She shook her head at that one. Of course someone will pilot it, haunted or not. The lure of being in a 'mech is too great for most people, even the superstitious. Most MechWarriors would rather be cursed than dispossessed. Most, anyway.

Her word association made her think of being possessed vs. being dispossessed and seeing a half-melted Dervish on one side of a scale. Being bored and drunk at a bar rested on the other side. It made her chuckle into her bagel. The headless Dervish weighed the scale firmly on the ground. She continued reading while some of the other people in the house started getting up.

A Warhammer. Just like Leutnant Topeni's. Same variant, same tube-PPC's for arms at the elbow, same SRM/LRM launchers up top, same everything. Just a different color, mostly. And the cockpit probably smelled different. Seventy tons of humanoid stomping power, if the human was a swimmer with a tiny waist, broad shoulders and no neck. But I can't use it! Damn thing has no jump jets! She was seriously considering trading the RoughRiders the 'Hammer for another medium to replace her lost Enforcer and some other light or a huge pile of spare parts or credit toward current and future repairs.

It was extremely tempting to keep it. An almost pristine 'Hammer in terms of battle damage started at around six million C-Bills on the open market, though it needed a little maintenance from normal combat use on its working parts inside. Most medium 'mechs would start around three million. And she had pilots that needed new rides. It seemed almost decided for her already.

She had a Fire Javelin that needed a brand-new leg. Fortunately, with Romeo's bruised ribs being whipped back and forth against his restraints from the fall, he wouldn't be driving it for a week or two, so there was time to get that done. Replacing the leg was easy enough though, with access to some of the Militia's light 'mech supplies. Their Spider and Falcon should be back up and running within a week, but Vi and McIntock, Archangel and Granite, as their new callsigns went respectively, were still pretty messed up. She needed to arrange a VTOL to transport to Firebase Yankee to see how they were doing later today.

I've never had to let go of such a shiny ride, though. It's a bummer, but totally worth it in the long run. She had to be sure to send a little thank-you present to the Leopard pilot of the Militia. He was the pilot of the only combat-fit dropship the Militia owned. He agreed to do one "hot drop" and only one, so they made it count for maximum wow-factor in order to get that lance to surrender. Except that damn Orion pilot…she looked back at the living room and Pearl starting to stir awake. He almost got her. She decided would be happy to trade what was left of the Orion as part of their ten percent salvage agreement to the Militia. She would be happy if she never saw another Orion again.

By now everyone had come to terms that their CO and XO were an item, and they've learned to accept it. And probably fantasized about it daily. Hourly, even. That made their loyalty to Emily and Pearl almost unanimous. They were winning some of the Militia over as well with their last performance. The tank commander wanted to work with her again but given they had used their "freebie" surprise factor, any remaining forces in that area were now on to them. She didn't want to risk local lives for her own gain unless it was a sure thing.

So, we got a free Cat out of the fight, a free 'Hammer, and almost a whole Dervish. Not a bad trade for about four to five tons of armor and a new leg for a Fire Jav. Approximately ten million C-bill profit overnight, give or take a million. She could barely contain herself with how well that went, but also grimaced inwardly at some of her requisition forms on her datapad. Armor was expensive on this planet. Getting another seventy tons or so really took a chunk out of their balance sheet, which was currently sitting at about seven million C-bills. She also had to double the amount of LRM's that was already on order just to keep her Griff, Treb, Shadow Hawk, Valk, and two Fireflies firing, now that they added a missile-hungry Cat to the mix.

On the bright side, when the extra order comes in, that's about ninety-five LRM's in a single volley we could theoretically fire at a target, she thought while chomping into the plain bagel dipped in coffee. They hadn't had much time to settle in at their new base of operations, so the little things like the sweeteners and creamer weren't a priority. Well it sure as hell is now. She kept making a face as Danek shuffled in, making a few quick bows in worship towards the coffee maker. He hadn't bothered to get dressed yet. At all.

"Morning, and thanks. Where'd you get the boiled bread?"

"In the cabinet over there. Just going over some of our loot from last night. It feels just dirty and wrong to trade off a Warhammer, but we'll be slightly better than where we started this year if we do."

"Mmm." Danek only seemed half-interested until the caffeine started going through his veins. "Did you sleep?"

"Hardly. I'm still all bouncy. Any updates on Romeo?"

"Coffeeeeeee," was all Danek could manage. "I'll check in on him when I get all awakey and have the whole clothing thing going on." It just occurred to Emily that Martin was buck naked in the kitchen with over half a dozen people about to wake up. Buck-ass naked in front of his superior. Man, some habits really die hard. Given the company he kept, it was rarely an issue. Now that there was a lot more company in their company, she felt had to at least say something.

"Uh….Martin…about that clothing thing…" She pointed below his waist.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess it's a little weirder now. But with all our new employees, think of how much I could make if I started charging admission."

Emily simply laughed. "I'll buy you some damn underwear if you wear it more often. Okay?"

He held an awkward silence for a moment while he chugged a local yellow citrus juice out of a bottle. The whole liter. Finally, he grinned and said "Okay, okay. Gonna go shower myself in coffee."

Over his shoulder, he half-shouted "nice job yesterday, boss-lady. We might make a profit after all this year. Wakey wakey eggs and bakey, everybody!" while sauntering down the hallway showing everything his mother gave him.

Emily grinned and went back to her data pad, coffee and boiled bread rings while looking up the contact number for Leutnant-Colonel LaPointe. He should be happy about this little business offer she had for him.