Well!! IT's coming along. Thanks for all the reviews!! I really appreciate the insight. Thanks also to the Beta's Sullimike, and TasmanianTiger!!.
Sorry it's going slowly ;) I am attempting to finish up some Jericho stuff I got started on. But I am still progressing :D I got Chapter 3 (Of this) about a quarter done already.
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Yawning sleepily, Grant Prien rolled over in his bunk, and glanced blearily at his clock. 05:00 hours. He rolled over, intent on going back to sleep.
However 15 minutes later, he was fully dressed and stepping out the door of his dropship compartment, unable to break his habit. For the past 11 years, he had never slept past 5:20AM standard time except once. And that was in a Lyran hospital.
Walking down the halls, he made his way to the grav deck's gym.
Stepping into the gym, he slipped off his magnetic shoes, and replaced them with his normal combat boots, which he left in the gym while the dropship was in space. Looking around the gym, he noticed only three other occupants, which was unusual considering his unit's rule that all members, regardless of job, remained in utmost physical shape,especially during spaceflight.
"Little quite in here isn't it?" he asked the nearest woman, the same one who had accompanied him to the bar 3 days previously, and his second in command.
Kenna looked at him amusedly, "It is only 5:30. Outside the four of us, very few of them are ever here."
As she returned to her workout, Grant looked around at the three occupants of the gym, all from his lance.
Alexandre Helo. Born in the Free Worlds League, he was of Greek Descent, of which he was quite proud of, proclaiming it at any conveniant time. In his late 20's, he had been a part of the Raiders for 6 years, joining during a time on the FWL's periphery border. Tall, and relatively skinny for his weight, with a roguish mustache and black hair, he had a habit of being a ladies man, albeit without any of the talents, and thus success of one. His skill in his Grand Dragon was thankfully better though, and was a valuable member.
He was sparring with his second lancemate, Edward Beck, who also happened to be kicking his ass. A former member of a backwater Lyran Alliance militia, he had joined during the Clan invasion. He was aging, one of the oldest members of the unit at 45. But in spite of the salt and pepper hair, he could pilot his Quickdraw with the best of them. Although a skilled pilot, he turned down a number of offers of promotion to lance commander, instead preffering to remain on the command lance.
Last of all his eyes fell onto his second in command. Although she was second in command, he retained her to his personal lance due to her fighting style. After fighting together for 10 years, in the same two Clan battlemechs, his Madcat and her Ryoken they could both anticipate the others moves, and were a deadly combination.
Kenna Carns, a former Star Captain from Clan Wolf, was undoubtably the most fit person in the gym. Six feet tall, and weighing a 180 pounds, she was easily lifting a set of 150 pound weights. Long black hair, tied back in a ponytail, with a curving figure, it was easy to forget that she was still his bondsman, taken in 3052. Although time eventually won out over his initial distrust of clanners, and he had elevated her position in the unit to second in command, even now, she still retained the small red bondscord around her wrist.
After thinking about the other occupants of the gym, his thoughts turned to himself and the unit he had built up. How he had changed in the 13 years he had been in the Rasalhague Raiders.
When Grant had joined it in 3050, he had been 18 then and it had been known as Hells Blazes. The planetary militia he had been a member of, on a backwater Rasalhague planet, had been nearly annihilated with only himself and one other member being rescued by the mercenary company and taken to friendly lines.
After two thoroughly screwed up years on the Clan front, the units CO, along with the top third of it's ranking officers were killed in a Clan ambush, and he had become it's leader/owner and renamed it the Rasalhague Raiders, in honor of his nearly devoured nation.
Since then, his unit had taken various contracts, mostly planetary civil wars, perephery pirate hunts, and occasional garrison contracts against clan raids.
Even so, he had built the unit from it's two half strength companies in 3052, to it's current roster of two demi-battalions of battlemechs, and oversized battalion of Armor. Although he had to go into debt to do so, he had also expanded his units support structure, purchasing (over time) three dropships, and adequate repair facilities. Although he still owed because of it, he considered it a fair trade-off, in exchange for his unit not depending on sometimes unreliable planetary sources for transport and repair.
The thought of it all gave him a grim smile. Although the Clan invasion affected nearly every person in the inner sphere, he knew his life would have been massively differant. He would probably still be serving the Rasalhauge Militia as a iClint/i pilot, training on the weekends, while working during the week at the firearms and gunsmithing shop that had been in his family for a couple dozen generations, possibly married...
He snapped out of his thoughts as revellie sounded on the dropships communications system. At his orders, 6:10AM standard time each morning, the vintage Terran tune was played to wake every person in his command. Another of his unit rules was that members became used to early rising, early exercise and breakfast eaten. Often allowing them their own scheduale the rest of the day, he nonetheless wished to instill a sense of discipline into his normally lax mechwarriors.
As he stood from his excercising he realized how much time had passed. 40 minutes had gone by in the gym and he had not even noticed it, or the various excercises he had done. He shrugged it off, he always did that when excercising, made him barely even notice it.
As they entered the hall, his lancemates turned in the direction of the mess hall, while Grant went the opposite way.
As he left he called behind him, "I'll meet you guys in the mess. I'm gonna check over my mech."
The others mearly waved him off, knowing it was a ritual with him. A habit stemming from the early days of the unit when the mechwarriors worked on their own machines alongside techs, due to the lack of funds to hire additional ones.
He made his way down endless passages, now becoming occupied by various crewmen and women, making their way to the mess hall and with the night shift coming off and heading to their bunks.
Finally he reached the mechbay and the machines that occupied it. Walking along the clamped mechs he finally reached his.
Looking upward, Grant smiled at the massive war machine. The Clan Madcat always seemed as if it were crouched and ready to leap forword, devouring everything in it's path. It had the standard dull gray paint with speckled black paint scheme that was common to his unit. Since enough clantech weapons had become available to refitt it as he wanted, it had been extensively modified from the "Standard" (If a omnimech ever had that name) model common to the clans.
The ER Large Lasers had been removed and replaced with a pair of ERPPC's, gaining heavier punch, with only a minimal increase in heat and weight. The Machine guns and pulse laser had been removed and a additional pair of ERMLAS's added to make a total of 4. The LRM20's had been replaced by two SRM6's in the left weapons pod, and a LRM10 in the right. With what weight was left Jump Jets had been installed, allowing 90 meters of jump capacity, and a pair of clantech double heat sinks added. It allowed him a good long range punch, and then a complete switch to close-range weaponry once melee had been attained.
Grant still couldn't believe that he had this 'Mech after all that time. Back in 3050 when the Clans began their invasion, he was still young and inexperienced in combat. He had gained a great deal of it going to defend his homeworld, but lost a good portion of his heart and comrades in the aftermath. This Madcat was all that was left of that past.
"Oh it's you," a voice behind him interupted his thoughts. He turned and looked at the voice's occupant.
"And here I thought you might actually go a day without lookin' at that blasted mech," The man said it in a ridiculing tone, but as he did his beard rustled and his eyes gave away the fact he was joking.
The voice belonged to Marvelous "Merlin" Macgregor, the Raiders chief tech. He had been in the unit since the 4th Succession war, before it was known as the Rasalhague Raiders, and even before it was known as Hells Blazes.
He was a wiry Scotsman that was anywhere between 60 and 190 years old, but still in top shape, even with his nearly excessive smoking and drinking ("Bah, what do doctors know? 4 cartons of cigarettes a day, six pints a bitter and a good notch'a whiskey a'day and still fit as a fiddle" as he said). Born away from New Caledonia, he didn't have the thick accent common to them, but aside from that he was a spitting image of a fiery Scot. Standing 5' 6", and only a 140 pounds, his beard was as large as half his body, his mouth and chin unseeable under the thick mass of white whiskers that bristled out in the common Scot appearance. Nonetheless he was a topnotch mechanic on any machine with a engine in it, fusion, diesal, gasoline it didn't matter, gaining him his nickname of Merlin, seeming to have mystical powers when it came to repairs.
"Hey Merlin," Grant said as he turned away, "Not yet...Probably look at it every day until I die, or she gets blown away to nothing."
"Prob'ly b'de same day," the tech commented.
Grant smiled at that then turned to leave, "You're probably right." He replied.