Chapter 5: All In

April 16, 3025

Unclaimed Space

Bellerophon

High Orbit

Donavan was still no closer to re-naming the Marauders. Instead, he found himself back in the Command Center, but instead of standing by the contract display panel, he was a handful of steps away in front of the navigation board while Sumire Meyer input additional information into the plot.

"So, Sumire, I'm making the rounds. Got a minute?"

She looked up from the chart and shrugged. "Sure."

Donavan took a seat. She didn't. "The decision to look for uncertified contracts… does that satisfy your concerns?"

Sumire frowned. "My concerns won't be satisfied until our creditors have been paid and the loan sharks are off our backs. But… it's a step in the right direction, and that makes me happy. Look Dona—er, Commander, I'm not blind to the risks that uncertified contracts entail. I know what we're doing is dangerous, but I still think it's the right call. It's the best chance we've got to dig ourselves out of this hole."

Well, that was fair enough—he felt similarly. "Glad to see we're on the same page then. But now that I'm in charge of this outfit, I'm trying to get to know the team a bit better. Finally put my lone wolf image behind me, I guess. So if you don't mind, tell me a little more about yourself. Where are you from?"

She gave him a measured look. "I'm from a noble family, like you. We were old money—made our fortune out in Rasalhague before the Draconis Combine conquered it, then repatriated to the Periphery in the Taurian Concordat. That's where I grew up. I'm not sure if this is the kind of stuff you were looking for, but we can talk about whatever. I'm not shy."

Donavan smiled. "A Taurian, huh? I bet that makes you a lot of friends out here. What part of the Concordat did you grow up in?"

"On New Vandenberg. It's a nice enough place, I suppose. Do you like birds?"

Donavan blinked at the non-sequitur. "Uh… sure, I guess."

"Then you'd like New Vandenberg. It's basically one big aviary. Something like two-thirds of the native fauna has feathers, flutters on the wind, and splatters its excrement across every available surface." She sighed. "Naturally, the original colonists adopted the feathered little monsters into the culture, and those of us that came after were kind of… stuck with it. Statutes, fountains, murals, you name it. Just a giant, feathery pile of screeching alien birds. If the system had a motto, it'd be 'squawk.'"

"That sounds… messy."

"You have no idea."

"So… is that what inspired you to learn to fly a Leopard?"

Sumire rolled her eyes. "More like what drove me to escape. I enrolled in the Taurian Naval Institute on New Vandenberg. Well, among other places. It's a big campus. The low-gravity training station orbiting Lompac was my second home for a time. TNI flight training isn't usually open to civilians, but my parents had good credit back then, and they could name-drop Protector Calderon. That'll get you pretty far in the Concordat… for a while, anyway."

Donavan whistled. "Impressive."

"Yeah, but it also caused problems on occasion. The other cadets in my class weren't especially happy sharing air with a civvy, but they couldn't say much. I was a noble and they weren't. Everyone sort of kept me at arm's length, so I had plenty of time to concentrate on my studies. I got my certification in both DropShip and JumpShip operation in four years. I even tried working on a commercial jump crew for a while, once upon a time."

"Oh yeah? And how did you like that?"

"Well, the people were fun, but it wasn't for me. The ratio of flying to violent jump sickness skewed hard in the wrong direction."

"So, how did the noble House Meyer react to all of this?"

Sumire grimaced. "I was just fine with it, and as for House Meyer, well, you're looking at it. My parents are both gone—blood cancer and heart disease. Both treatable, but they were out of money at that point, so into the ground they went. Ditto my brother David, who ran off to serve in the Third Succession War and never came back."

Ouch. "Ah… I'm sorry. I know how hard it can be to be alone."

She shrugged. "The galaxy was at war for nearly two hundred years, Donavan. People died. You don't need to apologize for it. And…" she hesitated, the first sign of discomfort he'd ever seen from her. "Truthfully, I was never really all that close to any of them." She paused for a moment and looked out the viewport as the stars slowly drifted past. "David was thirteen years older than me, and a foot out the door before I turned three. And my parents, well… they raised me by proxy in the traditional noble fashion. There was no real bond there, even when I was young. None of this is to say that my folks were bad people. They weren't! They were just… doing what they knew. Their upbringings had been outsourced, just like mine was. Anyway, that's all I've got to say about my family. They're gone, I'm here, the end. Next question."

Fair enough. Of course, he was in no hurry to mention that he hadn't had that experience—his family had been too poor to afford an extra-system boarding education, and they'd brought in tutors like Sir Raju instead. It might sound odd to an outsider thinking of them as poor while they held onto the BattleMech, but selling that was dropping out of the nobility altogether. And, frankly, there hadn't been any takers at anything remotely like a fair price.

"Changing the subject then, how was Rasalhague before the whole relocation?"

"As my parents told it, we were landowners on Pomme de Terre. It's an agricultural world, sort of the breadbasket of the Draconis Combine… and yes, before you ask, I know that Pomme de Terre means 'potato.'" She sighed. "My ancestors came from the planet potato. It took some time for me to accept that, but hey, here we are. Anyways, moving on, House Meyer's holdings were meager, but the value of that land was astronomical. For minor nobility we were actually quite wealthy. And then the Third Succession War broke out, and the political rhetoric got ugly. House Meyer didn't want a single part of what was happening, so my ancestors emptied their accounts and ran. As a rule, House Kurita takes a really dim view of nobles who cut and run. Words like 'traitor' and 'defector' start getting thrown around. In the Combine, you really don't want to be on the receiving end of allegations like that. I wouldn't be standing here today if House Calderon hadn't granted them asylum in the Taurian Concordat. In all likelihood, House Meyer would've been wiped out before I was even born."

"Yeah, I've heard that House Kurita can be a little… harsh."

Sumire rolled her eyes. "Vindictive and stubborn, more like."

Donavan was all out of conversation topics, so he decided to call that enough for the time being. "Thanks for being willing to talk, Sumire, but it's about time I got back to work."

Donavan made his way briskly towards the 'Mech Bay already in his battle dress of running shorts and coolant vest to meet the rest of the team. Given just how far out in the middle of nowhere they were, there was only a single contract available that would pay enough to be worth considering, and that was from the planetary government.

Normally he'd be quite wary of being hired by the people he'd just attacked, but this wasn't exactly a 'normal' situation. First, if anyone was going to have a lively respect for their ability to dish out the hurt, it was the people on the receiving end of it. And second, the locals didn't really have anything to betray them with. And, of course, he was desperate for cash.

He moved through the 'Mech Bay dodging machinery and techs with practiced ease until he stood at the foot of the Blackjack and pulled up the workstation specs. Yang and his crew had worked quickly to replace the armor plating he'd lost in their last outing, but they were still a ways from replacing the Spider's arm.

Everything looked good so he grabbed the ladder's rungs and made his way up towards the cockpit. The mission was simple enough—escort the government's troop transports and their two locusts to the last holdout bastion of religious zealots. They'd been pretty adamant with Darius that they wanted the base intact, so they weren't going to participate in the base assault itself. From the sound of it, the locals were hoping that when the zealots saw that much metal coming at them even they would cut and run, but only time would tell.

It meant a lower payout, but very little risk of damage. It was probably all they could afford, anyways.

He dropped into the command chair, popped on the neurohelmet, and plugged into the BattleMech.

"Lance, Wolf. Ready checks."

He turned the whole thing over in his mind one last time as the lance's call-ins washed over him, then shrugged. They were committed now.

The Leopard swooped in low over the arid, dusty terrain a healthy distance away from the government's forces. The Leopard itself bristled with weapons, almost certainly carrying more firepower than the rest of the planet combined, but it was the single absolutely essential element of the mercenary unit that couldn't be replaced. And it was also their home. He wasn't going to take any risks with the Leopard if at all possible.

The 'Mechs unloaded briskly and Sumire quickly zoomed the Leopard back up into the sky and to safety while Wolf looked over the plot. The locals had rustled up several replacement tanks to form a semi-respectable armored column—or it would have been if they weren't so obviously old and broken down. They were being watched over by a Locust, but there was no sign of the other one—it must have broken something in its quick retreat the last time they'd met.

"Well, they're at least where they're supposed to be. Keep an eye on them though—we were shooting at them not that long ago." Wolf switched comms channels to the provided government channel. "This is Wolf for Colonel Raichel."

A gravelly masculine voice responded immediately. "Wolf, this is Raichel. I'm not going to pretend I'm happy to see you after you killed my people. But… I also know that it wasn't personal, and though I hate to admit it, you could have killed a lot more of us if you'd wanted to. So you're not going to have any problems from us, Commander. Let's get this done."

"Acknowledged." Wolf wordlessly entered commands into the tactical net, spreading his 'Mechs into a loose screen around the column as it ground into motion. The long march was tense but uneventful, aside from twice calling for a halt when a tank broke down. After two long hours the base came up on scanners and, lo and behold, at least some of the defenders were running in a motley assortment of personal and military vehicles.

"Colonel Raichel, Wolf. This is where we get off. We'll wait here until your attack is underway, then we're withdrawing."

"Understood and appreciated, Wolf. Raichel clear."

The 'Mechs slowed to a halt well out of range of the settlement while the tanks spread out from their column into a wide net and accelerated. The settlement mounted a handful of light laser turrets which opened fire, showing at least some of the defenders had chosen to stand their ground. The tanks returned fire, launching auto-cannon shells and lasers back.

Wolf felt vaguely unsettled in the cockpit of his Blackjack, watching the furious exchange marked by the occasional flash of light that served both as pyre and memorial for the men and women dying in them. The comms channels burned with rapid-fire communications, orders, and screams, but none of it reached him; for once, he was outside looking in.

He watched a few moments longer then disconnected the channel. "Lance, it's time to go. Head to the pickup zone. Sumire, we'll see you in ten."

Donavan emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, his jumpsuit already on, scrubbing at his short black hair with a towel. They were heading up to orbit, then from there on to the system's designated jump point to wait for a JumpShip to take them on to the next system.

Surprisingly, the Leopard's intercom crackled to life. "Commander to ops, Commander to ops."

The man in question shrugged and turned from the door to his cramped (but private!) quarters and headed over to see what Darius wanted, taking the towel with him. By the time he arrived the others were already there—Yang in his orange jumpsuit, Sumire as stern as ever, and Darius, who took the lead.

"Alright everybody, the Commander's here, so gather around. After our last talk I bit the bullet and started fishing around for uncertified contracts, and I might, I repeat, might have caught us something."

"Who's the client?" demanded Sumire immediately.

Darius grimaced. "Unknown—she wouldn't ID herself in the message, but she claims to be a member of the Canopian elite. She says that she's got a big job lined up and she wants us for it. Us, specifically. As in, and I quote, 'the mercenary group led by Donavan Melodan.'"

All eyes turned to Donavan, who looked back at them steadily. "I don't know. The Canopians put my family in a lose-lose situation then shipped me off to the Aurigan Reach in what was supposed to be a nice gig, so I'm not especially fond of them, but I've been quiet enough, and far enough away, that I can't think of any reason they'd be gunning for me, either."

Yang leaned forward on the box he'd perched on. "This all sounds perfectly legitimate and not at all suspicious. You're certain this 'client' of yours isn't really a bounty hunter out to repossess the ship?"

"Hey, you wanted off the books, this is what you get. Look, I'm not certain about any of this—that's why the Mercenary Review Board was made in the first place, but I can confirm that she's rich. She reached out to us with a priority HPG message, and those things ain't cheap."

Donavan cut in. "If she's saying she wants to hire us and she's got money, then that's exactly what we asked for, Darius, and you delivered. We all know the risks of doing a deal like this, but we don't have a lot of choice here."

Sumire nodded. "I agree, and I say it's worth the risk. We take a chance now, or we watch it slowly fall apart around us."

"Yeah," muttered Yang, "let's just keep our fingers crossed they don't vent us into space the second we show up."

Darius shot Yang a look. "Thanks for that delightful image. As the Commander said, this is sketchy as hell, but it's the best we're likely to find. If you don't like this, you should see some of the ones I turned down. But for now, all we have to do is talk to the people.

Donavan nodded firmly. "Then it's decided. It's…" he checked his watch, "getting towards evening local time, so I want a good night's sleep for the whole command team and we'll call them tomorrow morning. Dismissed."

April 17, 3025

Bellerophon, Frontier

High Orbit

Despite his gung-ho attitude, Donavan was anything but sure about their present course. All he was positive about was that he couldn't think of any other choices they could make that didn't doom them to dismantlement. The hours drug painfully by staring at the ceiling above his bunk, and eventually he gave up to wander the ship.

At length he found himself in the cockpit, where to his surprise Sumire was sitting in the pilot's seat. The cockpit was much less impressive looking than a BattleMechs, he decided, as he settled into the secondary seat in the small sectioned off room from which Sumire guided the Leopard. It looked more like a computer server than a starship.

Sumire glanced at him curiously. "Commander? Couldn't sleep?"

Donavan tossed his wandering thoughts aside. "Something like that. So, Sumire—talk to me about tomorrow. I'll admit I've never had to think much about the flying aspect of the outfit, so give me the simple version. When we light that transmission up and they're in system they'll be able to spot us—what could we run into?"

Sumire considered the question. "In theory? Almost anything. In practice, we should be fine."

Donavan blinked. "Uh, could you explain that?"

The pilot rolled her eyes dramatically. "Groundpounders. Alright, back in the Star League days they took space combat seriously. Today JumpShips are too important, and too expensive, to put into combat, so they don't bother to arm them. But back then, they developed an even more expensive jump drive and put it into a ship that could actually maneuver, then armed them to the teeth. Thing is, they're unbelievably expensive to build, and just as hard to maintain. There might be a few warships still out there, but if there are, I doubt anyone knows how to fix them. And even if they did exist, there's no way they'd reveal their existence, much less put one in harm's way, for people like us."

She shrugged. "And with the warships gone, there wasn't much point left in aerospace fighters. There was nothing left to shoot in space, and they aren't as effective in atmosphere as your everyday conventional fighter, which are a hell of a lot cheaper to make and maintain anyways. A Leopard can hold two aerospace fighters, so it's possible they hop out of a Leopard to get us, but I've never seen a Leopard that hadn't modified those holds for other purposes, ours included. That leaves other Leopards as the most heavily armed things in space, and even that is only because we have to make hot pickups on the ground."

Donavan nodded slowly. "So… except for major powers that hang onto aerospace fighters to jump anyone that tries to hijack a JumpShip, if anything is waiting for us, the trap won't be with weapons."

"Exactly. If a major power, or even just a Periphery power like the Magistracy, wanted us dead, there's nothing we could do about it, but nobody else is likely to have anything that could bother us."

Donavan leaned back as far as the seat would allow to think, running through scenarios in his head. The chances were very low they'd hit an aerospace fighter, much less a warship, and if they did there was nothing they could do about it anyways. Yeah, any way you cut it, they were probably safe. Probably.

He sighed. "Remind me again why we're in this business."

Surprisingly, Sumire answered the rhetorical question. "Because we love it."

Donavan glanced at her. Whatever he had expected, it certainly wasn't that.

She shrugged. "The sense of freedom you get when you hold the controls in your hands, the feeling that you are in command of your own fate. At least, that's how I feel."

Donavan smiled. "Well, you're not alone in that, Sumire. You're not alone in that."

After all the concern, no mystery starships or alien death rays appeared to blast them when they arrived at the coordinates and broadcasted the requested signal. Almost immediately they received a heavily encrypted comms call on another channel. Donavan nodded and Darius accepted the call, putting up the signal on the main display in the center of the cramped ops room.

On the screen, and in full video no less, appeared a woman of about forty, though it was hard to tell as she clearly took great care of her skin and made use of subtle, artfully applied cosmetics. Her black hair draped with a perfectly casual air to her ears, framing a striking dark brown face with bright green eyes. Their color was accentuated by accents of the exact same shade of green on the otherwise white outfit of House Centrella, the royal family of the Magistracy of Canopus.

Donavan felt a conflicting mess of emotions at the sight and forced himself to hold still.

The woman immediately commanded the conversation. "Mr. Oliveira, thank you for honoring my request to meet. I am Ana Maria Centrella. You've heard of my family, I'm sure." She looked across the room, extending the rhetorical question to all present.

Sumire held herself well under control. Yang looked a little uncomfortable but was making an effort to look unimpressed by the noble. Darius gasped in shocked surprise, probably because he had the clearest idea of just how unusual this was, while Donavan managed to restrain himself to a tense nod.

"L-Lady Centrella, this… is a surprise." Darius quickly got a grip on himself. "I wouldn't expect a member of the Canopian royal family to even know who we are, let alone approach us in such a… non-traditional manner."

Brutally honest there, but Donavan approved—he wanted this communication to be as clear as possible. No room for false airs of importance here.

Lady Centrella nodded regally, every move polished and refined. "This is not a traditional contract, and I don't need ComStar asking questions."

Donavan and Sumire shot each other worried looks at that. The last thing they needed was problems with ComStar.

"And there is no reason to involve the Review Board—I already know that I want to hire you. Have I piqued your interest, Commander Melodan?"

Donavan managed to keep the grimace from showing on his face at the summary dismissal of Darius, who was very well respected in his field. He'd found her, after all, even if it was becoming rather clear that she'd wanted to be found.

Donavan took a small step forward. "Fair enough, Lady Centrella. But the Mercenary Board was instituted to protect us as much as it is to protect clients."

"And yet, it was you who pursued a contract beyond their protections. I suspect that means you are rather desperate, I'm afraid."

Donavan blinked. Canopians. Well, if she wanted to play this game, then he'd play it. He put on his best noble voice and responded. "I acknowledge the point, Lady Centrella, yet allow me an observation of my own." He ignored the surprised looks from his team and pressed on. "The Magistracy has its own 'Mech Warriors, and more prominent mercenaries available to you closer to home. Beyond that, the royal family, however distantly related," he emphasized slightly, "is far removed from the daily travails of mercenaries and are intelligent enough to leave military matters to the military. This suggests that your mission involves politics more than tactics, and that we are your best political choice, whatever our other shortcomings may be. That you are personally involved I suspect is to impress upon us the importance of the job and ensure we agree to it, which means you are perhaps as, let's say determined, to hire us as we are to be hired."

Despite the impropriety of disagreeing, however politely, with a noble of such staggeringly higher social position, and the barb thrown in about her distance from the crown, Lady Centrella allowed herself a momentary grin that, for a moment, looked completely natural.

"I think I'm going to like you, Commander. Unfortunately, you are correct that some aspects of this assignment are political, and politics requires my presence elsewhere very shortly. You are to travel to the coordinates I am now sending you and make a ground insertion. Once there you will secure an object and clear the way for a recovery team. Politics prevent us from making use of our own forces, as you surmised. I believe it goes without saying that the job must be done quietly."

"We may be able to do that for you. We will require more information, of course, including compensation."

"Of course. In exchange, I will pay down the interest on your rather sizable loans and provide you the breathing room you've been after. A fair deal, wouldn't you say?"

Donavan kept his face straight with some effort. She was vastly overpaying for them—for that amount she could hire them for a year straight, or pay for a company-sized mercenary company for whatever job she had in mind, and she was paying upfront. There was a lot more politics in this job than he'd feared. Favors were being exchanged, big ones. But by whom? For what?

"And the target?"

Lady Centrella let out a delicate sigh as he declined the bait. "This."

Her image was replaced on the screen with a grainy image of an enormous, grounded DropShip, though it was unlike any he'd ever seen before. Ramshackle structures had been built up alongside it like barnacles on a rock. A moment later Lady Centrella's image returned.

"She's a derelict vessel, an Argo, one of only two ever made. For over two hundred years she's been lying on Axylus, a pirate moon in the heart of the Frontier. I want her, and you are going to bring her to me."

Yang spoke up, at least in part to show he wasn't intimidated by nobility even of such towering heights. "And how, exactly, are we supposed to do that? I mean… that's a big ship, and she looks half cannibalized for parts. You could see her ribs in the photo. I'm as enthusiastic about money as the next guy, but I'm a 'MechTech, not an aerospace engineer. There's no way I could get that thing flying again."

Lady Centrella turned to him with a smile that would do a shark proud. "Relax, Mr. Virtanen."

Yang visibly shuddered at learning she knew his name.

"I have engineering staff on hand to attend to the Argo. Their leader, Dr. Farah Murad, has built quite a reputation for herself in the Frontier. You will find a JumpShip waiting for you at Alloway. It will carry you to the pirate moon where you will clear a path to the crash site. Dr. Murad and her team will go to work on the derelict, and you will protect them until the work is done. This should be well within your capabilities, Commander Melodan. Do the job well enough and there may be more work waiting for you on your return."

Donavan nodded. For all his talk that the Canopians needed him as much as he needed them, that didn't change the fact that they would never find this good of a deal elsewhere. Of course, that was because this deal was far too good to be true. But it was also the sort of deal you didn't get to turn down.

"We'll be there."

"Very good. I will forward the contract to Mr. Oliveria. You know Commander, not everyone in the Magistracy agreed with the way your family was maneuvered. Consider this a token of our… regret. Farewell."

The communication cut and Donavan let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Sumire was already typing furiously into her portable computer. "Commander, I'm not seeing a moon called Axylus in the Alloway system, or anywhere else, for that matter."

"Just get us to Alloway and we'll see what the Canopians have in mind, Sumire. And let's all keep our fingers crossed on this one."