Chapter 12: The Argo

September 5, 3025

Deep Space

Donavan woke up in the cramped medical bay of the DropShip unsure of how he got there, which was never a good sign. His body felt like it had been run over by a tank, but it was a muted feeling, and his head felt syrupy. Pain killers?

He took a slow breath and wiggled his fingers and his toes. He breathed out with relief—everything seemed to be working and accounted for. And with that knowledge he looked around cautiously and was surprised to see Sumire standing at the bedside.

"Sumire?"

"Welcome back, Donavan."

"Hi… um, it's good to see you. What happened?"

Sumire sat in the single folding chair left beside the bed, squeezed in by the bulkhead beneath a well-secured medical cabinet. "We won—you won. I dropped off the lance just out of sensor range on Weldry. You moved in and quickly broke into the prison, but a whole lance nobody expected was inside. You kept them stuck inside their hangar despite their superior firepower while the APC's moved in, then held on until Lady Arano came to your relief just as your Blackjack was knocked over, but the prison was secured. You accomplished the mission."

Donavan took a moment to process all this. "I… remember bits and pieces. Is Miranda alright?"

"Yes, she actually got back up on her own. It's Medusa who got hurt." She pointed to the next bed over, where Medusa was lying asleep. "He took a few anti-tank rounds from the infantry that were meant for the APCs and fell over, but he's in better shape that you."

That was good news. "And, uh, did you… carry me at some point?" For a second he thought her face colored slightly, which was absurd enough he chalked it up to the drugs.

"Dr. Harrin was called in the moment the Icebox courtyard was secure, and I joined her in the APC. We pulled you out of your 'Mech and got you back here for treatment."

Donavan felt his eyes begin to drift closed again. "Thank you, Sumire. Thank… you…" And he was gone.

The next time he woke up it was Dr. Harrin standing over his bed with her handheld computer taking notes. She looked over once again and noted his open eyes.

"Ah good, you are awake Commander. How do you feel?"

He considered a moment. "Better, I think. My head is a little clearer. I still feel kind of fuzzy though."

She nodded. "You are still on a significant dosage of painkillers. I judge you are stable enough to be informed of your injuries. You were seriously injured, Commander. Your command couch was unable to withstand the impact as your 'Mech fell and snapped. You landed on your left side, breaking your arm and at least three ribs. The internal bleeding has stopped and we have set the arm, but you require significant time to recover; I estimate at least three weeks. Your skull sustained a significant impact, but your helmet prevented damage beyond a concussion. The impact was severe enough to destroy the helmet."

"So… you expect a full recovery?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, Commander, if you follow my directions. You were fortunate I was able to reach you quickly."

"I have no complaints there. You know, in all my time with the company I don't think I've ever asked you how you learned all this stuff."

She unlatched a cabinet and began sorting through various bottles of medication. "If by 'this stuff' you mean earning an advanced medical degree, then for your edification I studied at Magistracy Medical School on Canopus."

Maybe it was the painkillers, but he couldn't hide his surprise from the severe woman, and she gave him a small frown. "To use the trite but occasionally useful phrase, Canopian women aren't all high ladies or whores. The Magistracy has well-respected educational and medical facilities, Commander, rivaling anything you will find in the Inner Sphere."

"I see. Sorry, doctor."

"Just follow my directions, Commander, and leave it at that."

"Yes, ma'am."

September 12, 3025

Deep Space

It took Donavan a week before he was allowed to walk around gingerly and only then because he was in charge of the outfit. While he'd drifted in and out of consciousness Darius had resumed command, overseeing the recovery of their mangled 'Mechs and withdrawing from the planet and the system. The massive explosion hadn't left much in the way of salvage, and they'd intended to go their own way again, but an encoded HPG signal from Lady Arano had redirected them to meet with her back in the Lyreton system in deep space.

Donavan was curious but hesitant—Kamea's last adventure had come very close to getting them all killed.

At last they arrived, homing in on Lady Arano's signal, and Donavan couldn't help but whistle as the Argo came into view, growing ever larger out the viewport with a single union-class Dropship, the Cormorant, docked to her. "I still can't believe they got her flying again. You forget just how huge she is."

For the first time he was able to really take in the Argo. She was like nothing he'd ever seen. The front end was a roughly spheroid shape, almost like a union-class DropShip, only five times bigger. Then there was a thin connecting section that held three large pods that rotated around the ship's core to generate gravity, but folded back in while under thrust. Then at the rear was a cluster of three primary engines.

But it was so big—it was almost a mobile space station.

Sumire carefully eased them in, using the Leopard's small maneuvering jets to clamp onto a docking collar. The air pressure equalized with a hiss and the hatch unlocked. Two heavily armed marines looked inside before allowing the Wolve's command team of Donavan, Sumire, and Yang aboard.

Donavan looked around with interest. The ship was obviously a work in progress with the deck still scarred by weapons fire and missing overhead panels exposing wiring. They were quickly escorted into a small conference room where Lady Kamea Arano stood tall, and Donavan noted Lord Alexander Madeira's absence. The soldiers sealed the doors behind them.

"Donavan, Wolves, welcome aboard the Argo. I have little time, so I will be brief. As you are aware, the political landscape is shifting rapidly, and not in ways I anticipated. I believe that someone on my end is leaking information. A lance of BattleMechs this far from the front lines, especially a lance terribly unsuited to the local windy, low-visibility environment, suggests some sort of last-minute transfer due to a tipoff. At first, I considered the Magistracy, but that changed in the aftermath. Despite the speed of your assault, a number of key prisoners were killed, the video recordings erased, and specific portions of the central computer system records, including the lance's assignment here, were also erased."

She paused a moment, gathering herself, then plowed ahead. "Only someone within my own command staff would have the access and control over my own troops to do this without my knowledge. This betrayal has forced me to change my plans. Until I locate and eliminate this leak, my operations are compromised. The one thing I can be almost sure of is that your end is secure—the effort to eliminate you and your people was too convincing, too close to succeeding, for me to believe otherwise. In light of these circumstances, I've made two decisions. First, I have already announced myself and publicly declared the beginning of the Restoration movement. The Directorate is already aware of us, so there is no advantage to remaining hidden."

She looked straight into Donavan's eyes. "My second decision I am making now, and that is to place my complete trust in you. I am explaining my concerns and objectives because I am relying on you to act on my behalf even when I am unable to relay instructions. I am also committing to you my most valuable physical asset—this ship."

Donavan's jaw dropped open, utterly dumbstruck. The Argo was literally priceless, a relic of the Star League. And she was going to entrust it to him? He was just him, a commander mostly by default of a small, struggling mercenary company that at this moment consisted of half a lance of functional BattleMechs—this type of thing didn't happen to him.

"I have a small number of aerospace engineers that will train you on the ship's basic capabilities and remain aboard to keep things running under the command of the person who knows the ship best—Dr. Farah Murad. I am still gathering new recruits and preparing for our next move, which will take time. Your assignment for now is to recover your strength, continue operating and running missions until I send for you. I will do what I can to funnel as many resources—BattleMech and otherwise—to you as I can. Do what you can to harass the Directorate, but you are free to do other work as well. Gain strength and prepare for the fight to come."

She paused for a moment, looking each of them in the eye in turn. "I am taking a terrible risk, and against the advice of my own advisers, but I feel I have no choice. In a very real sense, the fate of the Restoration is in your hands. Good luck, all of you. Farah, I leave it to you."

She stepped forward, shook each person's hand, and headed out, flanked by her bodyguards, for her DropShip.

Farah Murad was a woman in her mid-thirties with the mixed skin tone so common across the galaxy. She wore a dark short-sleeved jacket over her blue shirt that transitioned seamlessly into a tight head scarf. "Hello again my mercenary friends. Before you officially take possession of the Argo I wanted to introduce myself in person—we never really got a chance to meet properly on Axylus. So, uh… hi. I'm Doctor Farah Murad, or just Farah if you prefer. It's nice to meet you all face to face."

Yang waved hello, instantly more comfortable with a fellow tech head. "Nice to meet ya, doc, and I have to say it was impressive work you did getting the Argo flying at all, not to mention under some pretty hostile conditions. Between you and me, I had my doubts."

She grinned. "Honestly? I did too. You should've seen what the Argo's interior looked like after a couple hundred years of pirate occupation. Actually, I take that back." Her grin slipped into a grimace. "If you'd seen what I saw, you would never have wanted to step foot inside. Take it from me, the ship has been deloused from bow to stern and every meter hosed down in industrial-grade disinfectant. And that was after most of it was vented to space. The ship is clean enough to eat off, I swear."

She glanced at the others. "Right. Back to the briefing. Ahem. After my short overview, we'll have breakout sessions with each of you covering your assigned portions of the ships. The Argo is a unique class of DropShip of which only two were ever made. The Argo was built in 2762 by Boeing Interstellar, massing in at 97,000 tons, and…

When Donavan's head was so crammed with information he was sure he'd need another half-dozen repetitions to remember, Farah had them take a break by leading a walking tour of the Argo. Despite its rough condition, the ship was almost too much to believe. The cockpit was downright palatial compared to the Leopard, and the MechBay even more so. In fact, there were three of them, all next to each other, though if they tried to get more than one running they'd short the entire power system and trigger the emergency systems to kill the engine to prevent it from overloading. Engineering was equally impressive to his unsophisticated eye, but Yang's jaw nearly hit the floor when Farah started talking numbers with him. And then there were the pods, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Each was intended as a mostly self-sufficient living quarters, each equipped with its own medical bay. The specs showed that Beta pod had hydroponics and a low-g gymnasium, and gamma pod had a recreation deck.

Unfortunately, pretty much all of it had been destroyed and the folks at the Lyreton shipyard had only barely gotten the Alpha pod back online. They'd dropped off the rest of the command team at their new stations as they went, leaving only Farah and Donavan as they made their way through Alpha pod to locate his new quarters.

They came to a halt outside the door, and he turned to face the engineer once more. "Doctor, I'm not afraid to admit I'm a little overwhelmed. I keep waiting for me to wake up, or for Lady Arano to change her mind about all this. So give me the bullet point version. How is the Argo?"

"I understand the feeling. I still feel that way, and I've been working on her since we recovered her. But maybe this will help make it all real to you, Commander—the Argo is a mess. I'm not sure which is more terrifying, the Argo's power system or its internal structure. By my calculations, so many support structures were compromised or stripped that the thrust from the main drive should have severed the spine of the ship when it pulled away from the crash site. I think it's actually the external hull plating holding it together. We've reinforced it some, enough that I'm confident going up to one gravity of acceleration, but it's still in a bad way. As for the power, getting even a minimal level to the ship's systems without constantly tripping the breakers and suffering blowouts is a minor miracle. So yes, she's a marvel Commander, but she needs lots of time, resources, and money to keep her going, far more than for a single Leopard."

Donavan blinked. "Strangely, that kind of helps. But if you'll forgive me, doctor's orders require that I get a lot of rest, and I'm about ready to turn in. Darius and Yang will handle getting the pilots and MechTechs sorted."

"I understand. Goodnight, Commander."

She turned to go, and Donavan entered his new quarters so exhausted he barely registered anything that wasn't the bed. As he plopped on the newly replaced mattress his last thought was of how sad it was that humanity had had so much like this destroyed just to deny it from anyone else.

September 14, 3025

The Argo

Deep Space

Donavan stood in the special feature of Pod Alpha, a small observation deck. The stars very slowly moved by. They were under way to the jump point now, so the three habitation pods had stopped rotating and instead were folded back against the side of the ship, receiving gravity from thrust instead of centrifugal force. And so far nothing had fallen off, which was a good sign.

He was still trying to come to grips with the Argo itself. It was originally built as an experimental prototype, a self-sufficient mobile base to support exploration ships, hence the docking collars and the unusually generous housing accommodations. Only two were ever made: the Argo which went missing at the start of the Amaris Civil War that destroyed the Star League, and the Myrmidon, which was never finished.

It also explained why the mind-bogglingly expensive ship had very little armor and only a handful of lasers for defense. It was 320 meters long and 215 both wide and high, making it almost five times longer, four times wider, and ten times higher than the Leopard nestled alongside it, yet in a straight fight the Leopard had something like double its firepower and a hell of a lot more armor.

After a lot of thought, he'd boiled it down. On the upside, aside from being an incredible piece of Star League technology, it had what had once been an incredible 'Mech Bay with twelve ready stalls, so they could keep a lot of 'Mechs ready to go, especially if you threw in the Leopard's storage. But on the downside, in their current state the engines weren't going to move any faster than the Leopard's one gravity, and it required much, much, much higher maintenance and fuel costs. A lot higher than even a Union-class DropShip, which had the same number of 'Mech stalls. The difference was, the Argo would be far more comfortable for extended deployments, and have far, far better technical support… assuming they could get it all working again.

The Argo had hydrogen collectors which would help with the fuel costs, but it was an energy and time-consuming process to freeze it down into liquid H2, so they'd probably still need to buy fuel. So… a much higher potential long term, but in the short term it was going to squeeze them even harder.

The hatch opened and he glanced over to see Sumire. "Hey. So, I guess we're fully in bed with Lady Arano now." He gestured to the ship around them.

Sumire shrugged. "She's rich, that's about all it takes to be a client in my books. There was a time when I'd find working for a Centrella unthinkable. The Magistracy of Canopus doesn't have the best reputation where I grew up. But in the grand scheme of things, childhood prejudices are no match for economic necessity. Hell, I'd work for Stefan Amaris if he paid well enough."

Donavan blinked. "Amaris, huh? How… mercenary of you."

"Yeah… I kind of wear it on my sleeve, don't I? I just choose to be honest about it."

"So, what do you make of our new ship?"

She moved to stand next to him and looked out at the stars. "It really is an impressive ship… assuming we can keep it flying."

He winced. "Yeah, I know. I suspect, or maybe just hope, that Kamea and the Canopians will shore us up for the time being. They almost have to, given how much effort they've gone to getting it all set up. And forgive the stupid question, but who's currently flying the ship?"

"The Argo is. She actually has a full auto-pilot, if you can believe that—but before you panic, we didn't just take on Farah and her engineers—Lady Arano provided two other pilots as well, and one of them is keeping an eye on things up front for me."

They stood awhile in comfortable silence until Sumire spoke again. "If you don't mind, I've always been curious about the history of your Blackjack. What's its story?"

Donavan considered that for a moment. The story wasn't exactly a secret, but most 'Mechs were so tightly tied to their family of noble pilots that the 'Mech's history was essentially his family history. Then again, he wasn't ashamed of his past, and if he couldn't share it with another last surviving member of her House, who could he share it with? And, he discovered, he wanted to tell her.

"It was made back in 2780 in the General Motors production line on Kathil in Federated Suns space, just before the Star League disbanded. But with the unsubstantiated rumors of problems with the Blackjack's feet they offloaded her with and a bunch of other Blackjacks to what was left of the Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers who'd been disbanded. By the time the unit had pulled itself together they were too late and too far away to join the SLDF's exodus from known space, and instead became mercenaries hired by the Capellan Confederation."

"My distant ancestor, Donavan Arvanites, was a MechWarrior with the Rangers at the time who'd lost his 'Mech and was given the Blackjack as a replacement. He named it after his wife, Amanda, and she's had that name ever since. He helped take Outreach from the Terran Hegemony for the Capellans and held the line against the Federated Suns offensive during the First Succession War."

"He piloted it until 2795 when he retired and handed it to his daughter Kendra Arvanites. She fought in the Capellan counterattack into Federated Suns territory and helped take the planet Caselton. She was killed in action during a raid in 2813 when a BattleMaster punched her, and it passed to her brother Helam until her daughter, Elise, turned eighteen in 2818."

"Elise piloted it until the disastrous attack on Emerson in 2830 where she was killed by an LRM to the cockpit. You can still see some old carbon scoring in the cockpit from the hit that killed her. Her sister Jasmine piloted it until Elise's son Basil came of age in 2840, who defended the Tikonov Commonality against FedSuns raids until the offensive in 2860. The Capellans' Jade Castle defense plan may have been effective, but it was costly, and Basil was killed in a fall when the jumpjets were damaged in a fighting retreat and he crash-landed in 2861. His son Erik piloted it shortly but was killed in the last months of the offensive in 2862, after which his sister Alice Melodan piloted it until Erik's only child, Ivan, took it up in 2878. Unfortunately for Erik, he was in a field medical treatment center on Las Helles during the Capellan offensive there when it was hit by artillery and he was killed."

"At that point Amanda went back to Alice and continued down the Melodan line. Alice lived long enough to retire and pass the 'Mech down to her daughter Alisha in 2894. However, after twenty years of fighting, Alisha was fed up with widespread corruption in the Confederation that had spread into the Rangers themselves and left, taking up residence on Hastur, where they stayed for the next hundred years or so up until a few years ago. The Magistracy hung out my family to dry then shipped me off to the Aurigan Reach. And you know the story from there."

They stood in silence for a while, watching the stars go by, as Sumire processed his story. "Does it bother you, knowing so many of your family have died right there in that cockpit, sitting in the same seat?"

Donavan shrugged. "Not really. I'll admit that it can be a little strange, and I do tense up when LRM's come in, knowing what they did to the cockpit once before. But if anything, it's a much greater connection to my past than most people can claim."

Sumire glanced over trying to read his expression, and Donavan smiled. "Pilots get that a lot. It's hard to explain, but there's something special about being a 'MechWarrior, beyond just the mystique and bravado. When you pull on the helmet, you don't just pilot the 'Mech, you are the 'Mech, in a real sense. You see through its sensors, control its limbs as your own. There is no greater feeling of empowerment, no greater rush, than the moment you sync with a 'Mech you know well. It makes us go back out, time and time again."

She gave him a crooked smile. "Maybe we're not so dramatic about it, but Leopard jocks are pilots too, you know. Maybe we don't get to punch things, but we do tend to live a little longer to enjoy our success. And I wanted to bring that up with you, actually. You might want to consider hanging back a bit more in battle."

Donavan turned to face her squarely, concerned and a little irritated she would question his tactical decisions. "Why?"

Sumire rolled her eyes. "I'm not questioning your skills or courage, Donavan, nor your decision-making on the grounds. That's your area, not mine. What I am saying is that you are the Commander here. I know there are no guarantees on the battlefield, but if you go down out there, not only is the rest of the lance in trouble tactically, but we're all screwed strategically – Darius is a good executive officer, and has great contacts, but he's no commander. All I'm saying is, consider leaning more towards the fire-support role. Your controlling the battlefield and shooting your autocannons from afar is worth giving up four medium lasers in the fight."

Donavan bit his lip, unsure, and Sumire pressed her advantage. "Think about it. We're in a delicate situation here, where personal relationships are worth as much as contracts, at the start of what's looking like it could be a full-scale civil war. Kamea's biggest advantage is she somehow managed to get ahold of our debt. Us, and in some ways, you,are her biggest threat against the entire Directorate. They will be gunning for you, specifically. What happened on Weldry might have been a fluke, but I suspect Lady Arao is right in thinking it wasn't, and we can certainly expect ambushes to try to take you out in the near future. I, along with everyone else on this ship, can't afford to lose you.

The Commander nodded slowly. "You're right, as usual. I'll think about it and see what we can do."

September 15, 3025

Aurigan Directorate

Weldry

The HPG hummed and Lady Ana-Maria Centrella appeared before Alexander.

"My lady, I take it this is urgent?"

"Yes, it is," she answered brusquely, not bothering with her usual charm.

"I'm afraid I don't have much time. Lady Arano will return shortly."

"Then I will be brief. What happened?"

Alexander took a moment to reign in his anger. "Lady Centrella, when I approached you and offered to give you access to Lady Arano, we both agreed that it was in the interests of both the Magistracy and House Madeira that the Restoration movement be a small-scale, controlled effort. I warned you not to give her total control over any military assets, and especially not over BattleMechs; she's volatile enough to think she can change the whole periphery when she's in the cockpit of her 'Mech."

Lady Centrella frowned coldly. "Just as House Madeira's interests do not always align with that of your Aurigan Coalition, what is best for the Magistracy is not always what is best for House Centrella. And for a man as slippery as you, eliminating some mercenaries shouldn't prove difficult. In fact, I believe you already made an attempt, if those rumors of an imminent pirate raid on Weldry that House Madeira miraculously stumbled upon and shared with the Directorate are any indication. Fortuitously, the warning gave the Directorate just enough time to slip in a lance of BattleMechs, but not enough to bring in firepower from offworld to actually threaten the Restoration movement. What I want to know is why your efforts failed."

Alexander paused a moment, reassessing. Her implied threat to reveal him was quite clear. "It would have succeeded if not for Kamea personally intervening in her BattleMech. But if you will forgive him, I must return to overseeing the remainder of your troops and ensuring they remain closely supervised. With the mercenaries out of my hands, at least for the moment, it is more important than ever that our remaining resources remain properly directed."