Hap got a to-go container for Anastasia and walked to the area designated as the 'mech stables. He could see that his Griffin's armor looked whole. He wondered if the tech's had been able to fix the hatch. He saw that the right torso for Mag's Jenner had a new clean looking piece of armor, it needed to be repainted but it looked whole. The leg of the Firestarter had been prepped and the broken edges had been cleaned up, and it looked like all the tech's had left to do was re-cover the foot and the lower leg actuator of the Firestarter.

Anastasia's Valkyrie was kneeled and had a wheeled staircase positioned next to it. There was also a set of stadium lights near the 'mech, but the sun had not quite set, so they were off. Hap could see the cockpit was open as he climbed the steps.

He climbed the steps to find Selene sitting calmly on her belly chewing on a large bone. Anastasia was at work behind the multiple monitors in her cockpit. She glanced up as he came to the top.

"Hey you." Anastasia said as Selene glanced up at Hap for a moment before returning to her bone.

"Hey. How's it going?" Hap noticed Anastasia's braid was in good shape and she seemed comfortable.

"It's going very well. At the risk of evoking superstition, we're exceeding my expectations." Anastasia said. Hap could see she had an open three ring binder in her lap that looked like a technical manual for her sensor system. She also had a smaller journal with hand written notes. "I think my father considered doing something like this."

Your dad was working on ECM?

"It's more likely it was something he may have considered. This sensor package was meant to be a test platform, so he designed it to be easy to modify. I thought I would have to alter the configuration of the sensor's antenna grid, but it appears I can make all the changes we need through the software.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Sorry. I feel like a young girl all over again, sitting in my father's workshop. Learning scientific truths and theories that most of the inner sphere had long forgotten. "

"How does an eccentric genius teach his young daughter and protégé?" Hap asked as he squatted next to Selene and passed the to-go container to Anastasia.

Anastasia looked up at the darkening sky. "I don't remember how it started, I know my father liked to show me something practical and then explain the science behind it. One of the first times I remember learning in his workshop was when I was five or six, and I was hiding from my grandmother, probably because she was insisting I speak French, and I was feeling a little stubborn."

"I thought you loved the French language" Hap said

"Oh I do, it was my grandmother that was the problem. Honestly so much of my interactions with my Grandmother really came down to her and I trying to prove which of us could be more stubborn. Mother said it was an inherited trait, so I suspect our daughter will likely be quite stubborn."

"Don't you mean our child?" Hap asked, "We could have a son."

Anastasia shook her head, "We could, however no woman in my family has had a son in so many generations that it defies probability. My grandmother tried to convince me we had been cursed by a gypsy sometime around the fall of the star league."

"I see why you and her didn't get along."

"She was more than a little superstitious. However, she's generally remembered as a good leader, a worthy Countess, and popular among the people of Hazlehurst, but yes even young Anastasia knew she was going senile in addition to being a superstitious old bat." Anastasia said as she opened the container, "Oh my. That smells quite interesting." Selene stood up and leaned into the cockpit and sniffed the soup.

"Yeah it's a mix of our rations and whatever the Compact had handy. It's pretty good though, albeit a little strange. I'm not sure what all the vegetables are, but there's a lot of them. It also has mushrooms, canned pork, canned beans and cheese." Hap said as he handed Anastasia a spoon and napkin.

Anastasia nodded as she took the spoon and scooped out a large hunk of pork and flicked it at Selene. The Coyote easily caught it and swallowed the pork whole.

"Selene, asseoir mademoiselle." Anastasia commanded the Coyote and she immediately sat down, while watching Anastasia expectantly.

Anastasia stirred the soup and took a careful spoonful. "Hmmm, that's interesting." She then coughed, and added, "and quite spicy."

"Yeah, here." Hap said as he passed her a can of the ginger soda. "I think this is the same drink we got from that guy sellin' fried squid across from the embassy." As Hap spoke he easied himself closer to Valkyrie's cockpit. He let his legs hang over the edge.

Anastasia took the can and opened it and took a long drink, "Ah, merveilleux! Merci, mon amour."

"You're welcome." Hap said almost like a question.

"See you're learning," Anastasia said as she took another bite, "Somehow I got away from my grandmother, and made it to Daddy's workshop. He would always smile when he saw me and he'd say something like, 'Annie, you ever cook a sausage with just electricity?'"

"Then he took two wires and pushed them into a sausage and it subsequently exploded. Then he showed me how to wire in a dimmer switch and explained Ohm's law and resistance and some electrical safety. Then we cooked a few more sausages and we had lunch. With him it was always practical, mixed with the science."

"This was when you were five or six?"

"I might have been a little older, but not much. My Grandmother died when I was eight. However, I'm not saying I mastered Electrical Engineering as a six year old, rather I was the most fortunate child that had this enigmatic genius that would teach me scientific facts and let me play with technology, and could answer almost any question. He was also insatiably curious and encouraged the same in me. Young 'Annie' was taught by doing, and experimenting, and fun lectures with her father."

Anastasia continued to eat as Hap explained, "Yeah I had a similar childhood, but it was in a 'mech bay, and fixing 'mechs. Of course one of the differences was my dad tried to encourage an insatiable work ethic in me. He taught me a lot of practical methods to fix a 'mech, but not a lot of scientific theory. Young Hap might have known 'lefty loosey, righty tighty', and definitely where to find any tool dad asked for. Also it wasn't usually fun."

"What do you think your father would have reacted had we met?"

"I dunno. He'd be impressed with you. He'd probably think you were too smart, too noble, too beautiful, and too good for his son." Hap said as Anastasia made a contrary sound,

"It's not that my dad didn't like me." Hap said, "You have to understand, he spent his whole life scrimping, saving, piecing together a Griffin, and keeping a 'mech garage running. He made sure his children were fed, and his employees and bills got paid. That was success for him. Getting me a 'mech and me earning a scholarship into Albion, that was almost more than he could have hoped. He thought anything good had to be earned, and took time or hard work, or both. The idea that a beautiful noble woman would just drop into my lap-"

"Technically you ran into me."

"You eventually fell into my lap."

"I maintain that you running into me, caused you to fall into my lap."

"Be that as it may, my dad was also a man of few words, so he'd probably just ask you, why did you marry me, and no matter what you said, or how much you gushed over me, he'd just nod and then look me in the eye and tell me 'don't ruin this'. After that he'd go back to watching a game or out to his garage to fix something."

"He wouldn't ask me if you had impregnated me outside of wedlock?"

"No, he'd ask me that later. He was a little old fashioned. He wouldn't question your virtue, at least not publicly. He was also the sort of man that didn't pick fights with nobility. He was content to live a quiet life turning wrenches."

"Well very good. If you met my father, and after you were done gushing over me, would you care to guess what Daddy would ask you?"

"Did you impregnate my daughter outside of wedlock?"

"Certainly not. He'd let Mother pry that information from me. What He'd say to you is, 'Hey Harry, you ever cook a sausage with electricity?' " Anastasia said in a deep voice. Both Hap and Anastasia laughed.

"So that was your Dad, always teaching?"

"No, he was a mad genius eccentric who enjoyed his sausages fried by passing an electrical current through them." Anastasia said as she resumed typing, "I'm just kidding of course, he wasn't mad, or at least no one ever definitively proved it." She tried to suppress a smile.

"You know when we were getting to know each other-"

"After you ran into me, and fell into my lap."

"Right. After that. You described your childhood as being generally lonely, but you had your Dad, Aunt Marlene, your Mother, the house staff, and Freckles and Squints. It doesn't seem that lonely"

"We only visited Aunt Marlene, and Freckles and Squints once, maybe twice a year. They lived on a different planet. Father and Mother were quite busy and the house staff were employees. With the exception of the head cook whose maternal instinct compelled her to pity me, like I was her granddaughter, the rest of the staff were polite but ensured their relationship was professional. There were also tutors, but again, they weren't friends or family. Perhaps my childhood wasn't as lonely as I implied, but I craved time with my parents, especially my father."

"Never enough time with your parents?"

"Never enough." Anastasia said. She finished her stew and left several large chunks of pork and put the leftovers near Selene. She greedily gobbled the leftovers as Anastasia returned to her work. Anastasia alternated between typing and referencing the books in her lap.

Hap watched her work as Selene picked up her bone and dropped it in Hap's lap. The Coyote laid her head on his lap and used one paw to pin the bone to his leg so she could continue to chew on her bone. "How long do you think this will take?"

Anastasia glanced sideways and smiled, she tugged on the bone and the coyote growled as she asked, "Are you talking to me or Selene?"

Hap scratched the Coyote between the shoulders, "You."

"Almost done." Anastasia said as Tasja came up the staircase.

"You guys need anything?" Tasja asked.

"I don't believe so. I need to test my modified target and tracking system and see if it can disrupt other sensors and radars. I think I'll need Hap to fire up his Griffin and see if he can track me. Although if we start marching our 'mechs around we may draw unwanted attention."

"We have radar guided man-portable SRM launchers. Would one of those work?" Tasja asked.

"Yes. I didn't know you or the tech team normally carried those."

"Yeah, the Commander insists we have them for defending any forward repair or rearming point. He'd often tell us that if we encountered a 'mech all we had to do was pop off a few SRMs and inferno rounds and it would 'discourage' most smart mechwarriors."

"That is more true than you know." Hap said as he recalled the swarm attack.

"Can I trouble you to employ one of those in a test configuration, and try to engage my Valkyrie?"

Tasja nodded and started down the stairs as Hap rose and said, "I'll help her out." He pulled a small handheld radio out of a belt pouch. "I'll tell you what we see."