Chapter 7
Captain Daventry nervously fingered the open hatch of his Scorpion tank. He, along with his lance and two platoons of infantry had been ordered to surround the Fed Com compound and arrest one Captain Samuel Gibson on charges of 'breach of the peace.' It has seemed simple enough at first, except the Fed Com Ambassador had refused to say where the Captain was, had refused to allow Daventry's troops to search the compound and generally refused to cooperate in the slightest. Then reports started to come in of a firefight in an abandoned steel mill, followed by tales of a mech duel in the streets of the industrial district. Rumours were rife, but now the radio had gone strangely quiet, nobody was answering his requests for information, instructions or reinforcements. He suspected someone had screwed up royally and that his little command was now sitting in a very dangerous spot.
"Boss, you'd better come see this." The report came from the tank pair guarding the rear approach to the compound.
"On my way." Daventry responded as he directed his driver to head towards their position. He soon wished he hadn't. Daventry had been on enough raids to have seen Battlemechs in action and he was no longer bothered by them in the same way that they unsettled many of the younger warriors in his command. That said, if he was going to be bothered by a mech, the Battlemaster approaching his position would be the one to do it. It presented a hellish vision, black armour rent and torn, it swaggered as much as walked down the street, the decapitated head of a Centurion grasped in its left hand.
"Nobody fire, nobody fire!" He shouted down the radio as he picked up his loudhailer and took a deep breath before speaking with confidence he hardly felt.
"Captain Samuel Gibson, by order of the Governor of Baltazar, you are to power down your mech and submit yourself to arrest."
The Battlemaster stopped and turned to face Daventry's Scorpion. For a moment it stopped as if considering its options before the silence was broken by its own loudhailer, Gibson's voice coming through loud and clear.
"Given that your military has recently kidnaped the Ambassador's son and tried to kill me." The Battlemaster stepped forwards and threw the Centurion's head at Daventry's Scorpion. The head bounced once and came to a rest just in front of the tank. "I'm going to have to go with, make me."
Inside his mech, Gibson weighed up his options. He had to admit the situation had gotten a touch out of hand, ideally he needed to calm the situation down and start talking. After all, the Wyvern pilot had revealed that the kidnaping was the work of Cirion's faction, hoping to use their hostage as leverage against the Governor. Presumably therefore he could 'trust' the Governor's men. The problem was he didn't trust any of the Black Warriors and he was currently sitting inside the greatest remaining concentration of military power on the planet, with no particularly good reason to relinquish that position.
Outside, Daventry also weighed up his options. Quite frankly his orders were now impossible and attempting to arrest Gibson was out of the question. That Battlemaster could easily destroy his lance of Scorpions and likely wipe out their sister lance that was conspicuous in their absence. Once they were gone there was no significant force left to defend either the city of the planet. He could call for the support of his own sides Battlemechs, but it looked like they had already been defeated if not destroyed. Ideally he would like fresh instructions but no one at headquarters were responding to his requests, leaving him in the uncomfortable positions of having to make his own decisions and justify them later.
"Captain Gibson, I am Captain Daventry of the Black Warriors, if you have evidence of your accusations against our forces we would be willing to discuss them, if you power down your mech and come with us."
"Give me one good reason to trust you Captain."
Daventry paused, to be fair he didn't have a particularly good one, he had a nasty suspicion that the foreign mechwarrior was telling the truth and a faction of the Black Warriors was behind the kidnaping. The splintering between groups loyal to the President McIntyre and those loyal to Michael Cirion had become more and more pronounced of late and if he was telling the truth he would be very foolish to trust his safety to Daventry and his men. His radio squawked.
"Err Boss, got another Battlemech at the front gate. FWLM Thunderbolt."
The purple Thunderbolt picked its way carefully through the perimeter of Black Warriors, following the bemused infantry's directions to their captain. "Captain Daventry, I am Captain Max Rivers of the FWLM, may I suggest a solution?" Despite being fresh from the fight Max managed to sound calm and reasonable, a notable contrast to Gibson's aggression. "I will stand here as a guarantee of Captain Gibson's good conduct while we await the arrival of your governor. He has agreed to an emergency meeting with the Federated Commonwealth and Free World League Ambassadors to resolve this unfortunate situation."
Daventry's mind raced. The governor was going to be here, in person, with a potentially hostile Battlemaster running loose. Was he just supposed to allow that, how was he supposed to stop it?
"It has been suggested that the three of us take joint responsibility for the meetings security, to prevent any further embarrassing incidents." Max continued.
"Yes, yes, that would be satisfactory." Daventry latched onto the idea with the desperation of a drowning man. "My men will provide an outer cordon, if you both provide the inner." He added, trying to retain the illusion of being in charge of the situation.
"I agree." Gibson replied simply and switched off the loudhailer. He pinged Max with a laser line. "Your work I take it?"
"Thought I'd take advantage of the chaos you caused. I gather the Governor wants you and your mech as far away from here as possible as quickly as possible and is willing to offer some serious concessions to make that happen." Max replied over the same link.
Gibson smiled to himself "Gunboat diplomacy at its finest."
Max laughed. "That's one way to look it."