Chapter 2

By Cliff

Fact Checked and Sanity Checked by Drakensis

Editor (that I at least sometimes listen to, so the screw ups are all mine) Drakensis

Blackwell compound, New Valencia

Federated Suns

End of Feb 3025.

Franko Demos turned off the image displayed for the rest of the room to see that was a part of a wrecked dropship cargo bay now long since cleaned up. He looked around the room at the eight other members of this mission's support staff that he could currently draw on. "Okay what do we know, and why?" It was time to put his mission commander's hat on and get this puzzle put to bed.

Franko was not just another member of the larger Wolf Net group hidden under the skirts of the Wolf's Dragoons. He had been a freeborn member of Clan Goliath Scorpions until he reached the ripe old age of 21, around the time volunteers were solicited to reinforce the Wolf Dragoons in their 3019/3020 supply run.

With little chance of becoming a Seeker due to his freeborn status, Franko had jumped at the chance. It had taken only a year in his Clan's touman to make it clear that his only future there was to be a bullet sponge for a trueborn. The only question was whether he did so now or after rising to be a junior officer.

Half a decade later, his inquisitive nature had taken Franko (who adopted the last name of Demos on joining the Dragoons) out of the line regiments and into WolfNet. He had not been thrilled at the assignment, until he had read the second and third reports that this 'mis-jump' had generated within Wolf Net.

It was amazing that only one man, that was not even a House Lord or Khan, could generate so much effort. Franko had only arrived on this planet two days ago, and as luck would have it, the subject of all of those reports had just come out of a coma all on his own and without the use of any drugs being needed by the medical staff to help the process along. That had been more than a major surprise to the medical staff on shift, even after the second time it happened. The report even said that he came awake early when he had been given drugs to buy more time for the day shift medical support team to arrive.

The team's second-in-command, Roger Donlon quickly looked around the table before coming back to Franko. "We have some ideas and a starting point for finding out who we are dealing with." It sounded like he was very thrilled to be dealing with this problem, maybe overly so to Franko's eyes.

An image was now displayed on the hologram systems built into the middle of the table, and it was of a green ID card that started to slowly rotate in all three dimensions. "We have Master Sergeant Drake Mendenhall late of the United States Army as of 2020. He remembers having a backyard cookout with friends on Friday July 3rd of that year. He even gave the names of what we think that belongs to the other bodies that were found with him….. in a less viable state. So far, we have matches only to three of the bodies to ID cards that we were able to be recovered from that mess of biological material."

Franko nodded his head at the new information. "What about the outbuilding that was found with them inside the Mule?"

Cindy Smethurst was a young woman who was not Clanborn (a distinction she was hopefully only half-aware of - although she wouldn't have been picked for the Watch if she wasn't smart enough to have some clues) spoke up next. "It's a storage building, as we expected but mostly made of wood instead of plastic normally found on most civilized planets. We found colored lights for a few different holidays that match from what we know of that time period, along with yard tools, paint, entertainment disks of a mix of audio and images, and some hand tools. It's about mostly what you would expect from a suburb of a major city outside a military base.

The briefer rocked back in her chair, "We also found military books, books about combat equipment, military tactics, and a good-sized collection of physical paper copies of pornographic magazines." Cindy had a slight smirk on her face as she said those last few words.

Franko could not help but smile at the look of disgust on the face of Minuet (the only other woman in the room) at the last part of the statement. Franko quickly made his face bland so that he would not draw any kind of a complaint. "So, we did pull him out of our past. Will that cause us issues?" One of Franko's lesser-known hobbies was reading stories about hyperspace what ifs. It was one of the reasons that he had been sent here by his commander of Wolf Net.

Pietro Omodeo was one of the pure science people who had been helping out Blackwell with some hard science math until the issue at the jump point slapped everyone, looked very uncomfortable at the question that Franko had asked. "We do not think that he is from our past at all. Well maybe he is not from our universe, is the right term to use for this person."

Franko knew that a headache was in his future at that statement, but he needed to ask a question. "Why do you think this?"

Before he could ask more, the scientist started talking again. Pietro folded his arms in his lap and became prepared to defend his findings. "All of the books that we found in this outbuilding were inventoried - even the damaged ones. Once we started reading them to try to pinpoint his origins, we found dates that lead up to but don't go past 2020 - but so far, we cannot find any mention of a Second Cold War or a strong Western Alliance. We cannot even find one reference to the great battle of Moscow in 2013!"

The man shook his head. "We have found mention of brushfire wars in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and the Ukraine on his 'Earth'. Information on these little brushfire wars is not found in any books that we have been able to locate in the ComStar supplied material or any other database we have access to. That all matches what we found out from discreet questioning of this person - and the same for the assertions (whining really) that their space-faring ability is way behind what we think was available to Terra in that time frame, like they are stuck in low orbit, without the AS Altair. Our history of 2020 is very different - if he isn't from another universe then someone is doing a spectacular job of historical revisionism."

Franko might have been in over his head about the hard science of what had happened, but he knew people that might be able to help him out. He could tell that the people in this room believed what they had said to him. He also thought that the man in the medical room down the hall had more to tell them, it was just a gut feeling. He folded his arms onto the desktop. "You are going to need a dropship load of proof for anyone outside this room to believe you. Anyway, is the house set up yet?"

On the other side of San Angeles - within the compound that held the slowly growing grounds of Blackwell Heavy Industries - a house was being set up in a living area that supported the workers of that facility. The single-family home in question was in a preplanned middle-management zone, and it should have been ready this week for its mission, if Franko's first brief was correct.

One of the people connected with Blackwell security spoke up. "It should be ready within a week or so. There have been problems getting the storage building moved, repaired, and restocked. But there also have been a few delays in the wiring of the home with the best spy tech Wolf net could access on short notice." The spy tech wire chaser of the team spoke up.

Franko looked at the 'nurse' and doctor that would take care of Drake. "I think we can start letting the caveman know where he is. It will be your call on how much and how fast to tell him about the current time." He half-turned to look only at the Wolf Net agent that was acting as a nurse. The funny part was that she had been a fully trained emergency room nurse from clan space, before joining Wolf Net. "Are you still okay being his live-in babysitter?" Franko raised his eyebrow as he waited for her reply.

Minuet did not say anything for a few seconds, but she kept looking at the mission commander. "I am supposed to be on New Avalon by the end of the year, but I am okay keeping an eye on the caveman. I can use the time to finish my medical studies for my cover story instead of needing to do so during the deployment travel time. And if he gets a case of roaming hands with me? I can work on my hand-to-hand combat skills at the same time."

This last statement got a round of chuckles from the rest of the room. A base idea was worked on how to break it to the caveman some shocking news over the next hour. That he was a thousand years into the future, and on a different planet than the one he had been born on should be a little shocking, if it was true. Just in case two different rooms in the mental ward were set up along with drugs to handle him if he reacted… violently or not to this news. Franko and the rest were sure that this news was going to cause more than a few issues, for everyone even remotely connected to this.

Blackwell compound, New Valencia

Federated Suns

End of Feb 3025.

Ohhhh, god! I soooooo hate hospitals! Drake had thought that he was ready for this day, right until they turned on the TV fixed mounted on the wall. He had been asking for the remote every time someone new came to his room and had been denied until the doctor cleared it. He quickly found out that the local news was well the local news. He didn't recognize the power players or even the city names they were talking about, but his mind was still a bit scrambled after whatever happened to him. Oh, and so far, no one would give him a straight answer on that front also. Then there was the joy of only being awake for two days playing twenty questions with the doctors and nurses that would stop by had gotten very old.

Drake even had a problem with the daytime sitcoms that came on after the news shows had cycled off on the only channel he could use, but he rarely had to watch the daytime ones being in the Green Machine, so this didn't raise any alarm bells. Then came the cooking shows. Drake had no idea what they were cooking much less what they were cooking with, and it was like nothing he had seen while pulling head count at the unit's mess hall.

Drake knew that he was going to have to talk to a head doctor, if he didn't get a grip on his situation. With the way he was always being asked what he could remember, and by the looks on their faces they didn't seem to like what he was saying. Drake's experience said that he was going to have to deal with one of those jackwagons before he was going to be allowed to go back home.

Drake flexes his hand and tunes out the wall mounted screen and seeing the clock turn to the top of the hour. Drake was working on getting his game face on. "If this next doctor was not from VA or Tricare, I am going to have to ask for his phone. Oh, and why hasn't my TOP come to see me or anyone else from my chain of command?"

Just as the thought about VA and Tricare connected again, the head shrink's head and upper body popped into the door and entered the room. Talk about thinking much less speaking of the Devil and the SOB shows up right in your grill. Two of them walked right into the room without so much as a knock. "Jeez, I didn't even say your name three times while looking into a mirror." Drake could tell that the comment went right over their heads.

Then the pair of them lowered the boom on to Drake, trapping him on the bed - all while staying out of arm's reach.

The tall thin man had cold eyes and he was watching the odd man in the hospital bed very closely as he started to speak. "Mr. Mendenhall, my name is Doctor Wirth. Doctor Smith and I would like to talk to you."

Drake was on edge and not just from the cold dead eyes. It was everything about this man that was making Drake want to shoot him. "Well, it's not like I can run away from you." Drake did a little shake to make the exposed white plaster move a little. "But first question to you? Where are we?"

Alexis Smith could see that the patient was on edge as soon as they walked in and the displayed data on his heart rate, and blood pressure confirmed this to her. She mentally reviewed some of the notes on this case and thought that if she just pitched her voice right that the man would positively respond to her. "You're in a military hospital."

Doctor Niklaus Wirth fought to not shoot a look over to Alexis as she interrupted him. He was supposed to be the one that was leading this. "Yes, and we need to -"

Drake jumped back in with both feet as he fought down a smile as he added another point to his side of the score board. "This don't look like any military hospital that I know. Now. Where. Are. We. Really?"

Doctor Smith noticed that Niklaus was not looking at the vital signs as they leveled out but were still a little high and she fought back her own smile.

Niklaus Wirth didn't notice the sharp tone he uses on the patient. "Look! This is San Angeles, New Valencia. Now can we…."

Drake does a little head tilt and wishes that he could cross his arms. "New Valencia? So, Mexico…. Panama….. Yeah, seems like somewhere in Central America." Drake could see that he was getting to the man already.

Doctor Wirth had enough of these interruptions by this barbarian. "SHUT UP! And just listen while we explain this."

Drake smirked, "Okay, now I believe this is a military hospital."

Niklaus was standing there with his jaw swinging open. Seeing an opening Alexis tries to take control. "You and your friends were hit by something very peculiar in recorded history and ended up a long way from home in both space and time. Now New Valencia is not some city state that you're used to dealing with. It's a planet that was colonized by humanity several centuries ago."

Drake gives a snort to add to his now larger smirk on his face as he looked at the tall blonde woman. "That's….. ridiculous. Who do you think I am? Buck Rogers or Cable, Doctor Brown?"

Doctor Wirth now has his mental feet back under him. "That's the most plausible part of this whole thing."

Drake looked back in forth between the two doctors and he felt his heart start to drop. "Okay... continue."

Doctor Wirth had a smug smile on his face as he felt that he was back in control. "The books that we found with you seem to indicate that you're from another timeline, one that diverged from ours in the late 20th Century."

Drake didn't say anything for many long seconds, but he spoke in a low voice. "I need a drink."

Doctor Wirth gave the man a sour look. "Not in your condition."

Drake looked up a little too quick and he was about to say something referencing what he could do with that. He only stopped when his mind brought up how the military doctor might react to that comment. "I need to hit some… thing." He gave the man a look that should have said that you will due.

Doctor Smith had to hide a little smile by rolling her lips. "I'm sure that the physical therapy people can help with that."

Drake was punching with the only hand and arm that was not covered in a heavy caste. He was not focused on the strike but what he had just been told. "New Valencia? New Valencia. mis jump?" He could tell that he was mumbling loud enough that the PT nurse could hear him, but he didn't care at this point.

Drake's eyes went tunnel vision and stars exploded in his eyes as his right leg, complete with cast is rotated to see how far it could move. When the stars were reduced to just small pops his mind caught up. "31st century?"

As the ball was tossed from his cast covered arm. "New Valencia?"

He gets ready to toss it again but paused as he remembers an advert about a sale on Pharoh beer.

Drake felt tears in his eyes as his cast cover arm was pushed so far back, that he thought they wanted to break it… again. "Why does Timbiqui Dark sound like something I should know."

He had two hours of working with the physical terrorists - I'm sorry - He had two hours of physical therapy after the bag of joy was opened on him by the two white coats.

It was during that fun time of pain called 'range of movement' testing that he started to remember why some of the terms they had used seemed to be familiar to him. They had matched up with something in the back of his mind that was still too fuzzy for his liking.

If this had been back in the Cold War, Drake would have thought that the KGB was up to their old tricks. Only it was impossible, then again. He understood that he was supposed to be on a planet that was not Earth, so what did he know about what was impossible? Drake just fought to just keep his mouth shut and did his work out on the parts of his body that were not still repairing. Drake more or less just pushed it off to the side of his thinking that he was still on heavy drugs and things would be better soon… he hoped?

The emotional pain of the shape that was falling into place as he pieced things together distracted him from the pain of pushing the exercises further than he should have. Hard enough that the tyrants caught on before he did. It was downright embarrassing to have them cut the exercise short, snapping that if he couldn't be bothered to stop before he hurt himself, then he should go back to his room until he had his head together enough to care.

When they were finally done, and Drake was helped back into a wheelchair he looked over to look up at the nurse's name badge. "Nurse Wilkes. You know I'm not convinced that this is not some kind of game."

The nurse with eyes like a shark looked over to the man covered in castes and then looked down at her watch. "I'm due a smoke break, and you could use some fresh air. How about we fix two birds with one stone?"

Drake shot her a look and gave the twin shoulder shrugs of the MI Salute, and soon he was being wheeled down a different corridor. His PTSD was rocking and being stuck in a wheelchair with a mass of people standing over him was sooo causing him some issues that he wishes he didn't have to deal with. That stress caused Drake a good-sized delay in thinking after they had stopped moving on the roof top.

As it turned out the roof of his hospital had a smoking and break area just for staff to use on the roof. From this height he was able to get a huge panoramic view of the local area with the air blowing on his face.

That was when Drake saw his first battlemech with his own eyes. He had no problem knowing that the backward pointing bird-like legs belonged to an Officer's Battle Pod. Yeah, up yours Harmony Gold and your unseen! All Drake could do was watch as a lance of the local militia walked off in the distance led by a Marauder class Battlemech.

Oh my God! That's a battlemech! Oh shit! Oh shit, thought Drake. Man, someone is losing their shit around here. I wish they would do something before he screams his throat bloody.

That was the last thing that Drake remembered.

He had no idea that it had been him screaming or that he had been thrashing around so much that he could have been held on assault charges as his castes were slammed into the hospital's staff. Nurse Annie Wilkes would be put into retraining…after her concussion was resolved.

It would be days before Drake found out. Days which involved another round of surgery to make good the damage he'd done himself. And then enough recovery time for his body to recuperate from that and the shock he'd had.

No one had wanted him waking again until he wasn't likely to reopen his wounds again, much less take out more of the staff.

Drake would probably have agreed with that diagnosis, if he hadn't been drooling under sedation when the decision was made.

###

Drake rolled his head around at the sound of a soft knocking on the open door and he had to wince. The door had been left open after he came back around from the Land of Nod. Without asking for permission, besides the knock. In walked Doctor Alexis Smith like she owned the place.

Smith walked in with a huge fake smile and set some files down at the foot of the medical bed. "Time for your first class on Inner Sphere 3025.

Drake didn't feel like talking, much less taking some kind of class. "Where is pencil neck? Oh, I'm sorry, I mean Doc Wirth." For the last part he tried to copy an Ivory League accent and failed miserably.

She gave Drake a sly little smile. "Oh, he's around here somewhere. But now let's get started, today we will be going over the founding of the Terran Hegemony by the great James McKenna." Drake was only half listening to the woman and the images that she started displaying on the screen.

Doctor Smith looked over to the man, and she could see that he was paying attention not knowing that Drake had learned a long time ago about how to make it look like he was paying attention in a briefing. "The Admiral had realized how corrupt the Terran Alliance had become and oppressing the people of the home planet. Seeing that no one was going to remedy this, he took action. After arriving in orbit, he personally led the arrests and turned over many to the courts."

Drake came back. "He turned them over to the courts? What happened to them and the ones that didn't want to give up?"

Doctor Smith gave Drake an odd look. "The courts convicted them. And why would any of them not want to give up?"

Drake put his working face on. "So, they all just gave up and there were not any riots are anything?"

The blonde doctor didn't look at her notes. "No, the people welcomed the Admiral with open arms. In fact, after he took over the leadership of Terra, the planets closest to the home world came to him for his leadership."

Drake still had that look. "What? I thought there was a Cameron that was in charge."

The Doctor smiled. "So, you have been listening. Well, the Admiral saw that Michael Cameron was the best leader available when he was ready to retire and passed the leadership role over to him. It was from there that the Terra Hegemony became the great Star League. His House would lead the rest of the Houses into the golden age. When any of the house lords had a dispute for the next 400 years? They would come to the head of the Star League under House Cameron to work out the dispute. And besides setting up the Star League, the Star League Defense force was founded. Only the best, bravest, and brightest were allowed to join and it was outfitted with the best technology that House Cameron led the human race to develop."

Drake was nodding his head as she spoke…all the while fighting back his BS detector or tossing his BS flag in her face.

He wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't take a swing at him if he called her on the amount of Kool-Aid she'd been drinking. His ribs were better, but if she kicked him in the shins, it could set the healing of his broken femurs back by weeks.

###

Drake looked down as the nurse put another tube thicker than his thumb to draw more blood out of his arm. As it started to fill, he made eye contact with the nurse. "My god! I think you'll have a vampire living in the basement of this building with the amount of blood and everything else that you are pulling out of me!"

Minuet smirked. "You will just have to drink more liquids and eat all of your vegetables, or we will have to use your femoral artery." She raises her eyebrow and makes a show of looking at his waist.

Drake started doing math in his head again. "Well at least with my lungs working better I can yell that I'm being assaulted."

The doors opened and in walked a pair of new people pushing some kind of machine with a helmet on top. While Drake was looking at the newcomers, Minuet snickered. "Well, you did say that your lungs were better."

What seemed like was all day they were going at it, all while Drake had a heavy metal helmet on his head. They even made him keep it on while lunch and a snack were served. They were going through ink blots and asking what he saw when Drake's personality stepped out of the box without its leash. The few rounds of word association tests had been bad enough. "Okay this one I swear looks like you… with breasts."

The only one that smiled was Minuet, the rest just gave Drake a blank look and kept going before they took the helmet off and rolled him to the next lower floor. They must not have agreed with his judgement on that one. At seeing the open maw of a device that looked like an MRI machine from hell, Drake looked over to a male nurse pushing him. "Are you really going to put me in that thing?"

The nurse just looked down at Drake and he felt his heart sink. That would be a yes.

After doing an impression of what Drake would think of as an old school torpedo being loaded into a submarine firing tube and then sitting for what seemed like hours. Drake was pulled out just before he would have started banging on the sides. He felt the table under him being pulled out. "Well, am I going to live?" he asked sarcastically as soon as they had him back in the wheelchair.

Nothing but silence and sad eyes were the reply.

"Well then I guess that I will see what happens in a few years if my grey matter turns into blue matter, starts running out my ears, or I have a sudden urge to eat everyone's brains." He could still feel the pity in the room behind him as the door closed and Drake was pushed down a hospital corridor.

Blackwell Compound, New Valencia

Federated Suns

8 March 3025

Drake's eyes shot open well before the sun was up on this planet, even the glass was still opaque from this angle as some kind of privacy setting. "Okay they are taking off some of the hardware today, and if it goes well. You are sooooo out of here by lunch."

With a smile on his face Drake started flexing his muscles, starting with his toes and working his way up to his neck as best that he could. Drake's legs and left arm still hurt when he pulled this kind of crap every morning, but his training told him that a little pain was a way to know that you're still alive, even if he knew that there were more than just a few doctors back on his old home that would not have agreed with him on that point.

"Hey Drake! Are you up yet? I have food and tools," came a familiar female voice sounding from outside of the door that made Drake jump a little in his hospital bed.

"Yea, I must have gone back to sleep after working on my little stretching exercise, Come on in!" When the door opened, he could not help but smile at the woman. "Good to see you Minuet."

She gave a smile that had Drake doing math problems in his head again, so that he didn't pitch a tent in the sheets. Minuet held up a tray of food in one hand and a tool that Drake had no clue about in the other.

"How about you cut some of this crap off of me, and then I can feed my own face." He asked.

Minuet drops her chin, and a twinkle comes to her eyes. She makes a show of putting the food down on the nearby end table. Drake had no idea what the tool was called, but she cut him out of the hard casts like nobody's business. Before he could even try to move more than a few inches she had slapped on what she called an air cast that Minuet pulled out of what seemed like nowhere onto Drake's legs and arm.

Drake looked down and saw a clear bag that kept all of his left leg from moving, but at least it was not a heavy mass of plaster and bandages. Now at least he could scratch or shift around a little when he slept. The one air cast that went on his right leg was not as long, only going from hip to knee on that leg. The one on his left arm was in two parts and at least made it so that he could move his arm at the elbow.

Drake looked back up at the woman just as lunch was brought in. "Oh, joy of joy I get to void my colon and bladder without needing the 'help' of a second person." Minuet shot Drake a look that he just smiled back at her and charged along. "You know it's the small things in life that you end up missing the most."

Minuet watched Drake try to get a shirt on and ended up doing more dancing than he did getting dressed. "You know that you are supposed to have help with dressing for some time or you will hurt yourself," she told the man.

Drake tried to put the air caste into the loose sleeve of one of the donated shirts that showed up one day. "I have been dressing myself for a few decades, I won't stop now." Drake pushed a little too much and then suddenly stopped and his eyes went wide in pain.

Minuet got up from her chair and quickly helped Drake to get the shirt on. While he was dealing with the fasteners, she started talking. "Blackwell is putting you up in a house within the compound with some live-in support while the investigation is still being carried out. They are also the ones that have been paying your medical bills, in case you were wondering."

When Minuet said the name Blackwell Drake almost froze. He didn't remember anyone saying that he was living on Blackwell's dime. He had heard the name on the news but for some reason he had not connected the dots. Drake had been a fan boy of the Marauder and the Marauder II type mechs on his home planet. He knew that the larger sister was made by Blackwell and Blackwell was owned by the Wolf's Dragoons. And the Wolf's Dragoons were a scouting unit for the rest of the Clans.

Drake was looking down so that his eyes would not tell he was about to freak out. "So, I will have a babysitter."

The Wolf Net Agent was looking down at some of the notes that had been taken already. One of the other staff had found what an Abrams tank had been, that had taken a lot of work until they found the name connected with something called an M1A2 tank. Drake had said that due to combat damage he had been moved to staff work but little else.

At the comment of having a babysitter she looked up and gave him one of her looks at being distracted from what she had been doing. "It will not be a babysitter. They would be a medical professional and they will be there for medical reasons… not babysitting." She made sure that her tone was a little sharp at the end as a nurse would be.

Drake didn't doubt for a second that this person would have some medical training, but they would really be there to spy on him and report back to Blackwell, but how high would it go? Now he was glad that he didn't go into what he had done 'when they changed me over to staff work' meant after my time in heavy tanks. And no Bradley's and all versions of the Stryker's are not real tanks!

###

Drake looked up at 'his' new home from a wheelchair and tried to take it all in. It's not what I would have expected for a home built on another planet and a few centuries in the future, he thought. It was different, but nice.

The sound of Minuet closing the door of the six wheeled van that had carried them from the hospital to this neighborhood drew his attention back from the house.

"Well, apparently my house is your house." He could not help but wince at his own statement as he thought: Yeah, real smooth there. And now I am sooo glad that I listened to my own paranoia while in the body and fender shop, and I'm so glad that I listened to ex-wife number 3. She had been a major in counterintelligence when he had been a Division S2. Her ears must be burning about now. Drake felt like he'd been kicked in the guts, at that last part. He still had feelings for her, it was just that it was not the right time for them, and now it never would be.

Minuet opened the door and rolled Drake the rest of the way into his 'temporary' home like she had done it a thousand times before. Drake had thought that she was a HUMINT asset, but only after his brain started working through the fuzziness. Her showing up now had proven it to his satisfaction. It was the way that she walked and the way her eyes moved that had clued him in. It was a lot like some of the scouts he had worked with before in combat zones.

"Well, what do you think Drake?'' the young woman said as she pushed him into the main room of the house.

"The house? Or you being my nursemaid?" Drake tilted his head back and to one side to look up at the woman from his seat. "It's nice and at least I don't have to go far to undergo my daily torture sessions with you being here."

"Well, you are in a mood this afternoon. Let me show you around the rest of the place." Minuet said as she walked behind me to take charge of his chair to finish the little tour. She held out a hand that was dismissed by Drake. With a huff Drake rose and at least he was now standing on his own two feet….. and a cane.

###

Man, does this century have some screwed-up entertainment shows, Drake thought as his eyes started to close. Minuet had her own room in this three-bedroom house that Drake had been 'assigned' by Blackwell Heavy Industries while they 'investigated' the mis-jump.

In theory Drake had his own room but so far he'd insisted on falling asleep on the new age torture device masquerading as a couch, while watching an honest to God holographic screen. Minuet had allowed it, at the low low price of getting the same 'enjoy the consequences of your dumbassery' alls his wives had directed at him sooner or later.

He'd had been watching a hyper detailed recap show about a pair of gaudy painted battlemechs knocking each other around. It was supposed to be an important match for some upcoming playoffs but it wasn't like he cared. Before they could conclude the commentary, his brain shutdown and he dozed through the end of the programme.

Later that night, Drake's eyes shot open when the screen brightly flashed again to fully wake him up, and he saw a robed wonder standing up and telling him about how great ComStar was and that the Word of Blake would lead all to a better life. At some point, while sleeping he'd missied the start of a ComStar puff-piece, and he'd woken to the nightmare of watching one of the worst televangelists ever to have lived speaking to Drake like he was his friend. Something broke inside the time-displaced soldier after just a few minutes of him talking. In just those few minutes of the ComStar promotion man talking, Drake started getting angrier and angrier.

"Oh, we are so not going there, you toaster worshiping fart hole." Drake felt something that he had not felt in a long time. He had a mission, and it was a mission that he now very much wanted to finish.

He had been still working on what he should do with his life now that he was in a game with a catch phrase: 'meat is cheap but metal is not'. He'd played battletech more than a little in his past life, but he was not fully 'into' the lore of the game like some others he had known. Drake had seen some of his platoon-mates sit for hours on their racks arguing about this and that, but to him it was just a game.

That is, right until Drake saw Mister Robed Wonder hovering in his living room a few hours before sunrise. Drake had been leaning towards just drinking himself to an early death or something equally dumb. He hit the power button harder than necessary, and he looked at the ceiling waiting until he fell back asleep. Seeing the ComStar advert had gotten his blood going, but soon Drake found that sleep would not reclaim him. His mind told him that there were things that needed to be done.

Well before the first light of the day, Drake had started to waddle his broke ass out to his shed, which Blackwell had kindly placed behind the house when they were done doing whatever passed for scientific studys of it.

He stopped outside and really looked at what was the only thing that was his and from a home and life that he could never go back to. It even had his grill sitting right where it should be if he had been still back home outside of Fort Hood Texas. Drake looked around the rest of the small yard and then back towards the house he had been staying in if not living in. With a grin he noted that his babysitter was not up yet. If she stuck to pattern, she would not be up for about two more hours.

#####

"Hell, the sun has been up for half an hour already," grumbled Drake. It took him that long to get out the back door without making too much noise.

As Drake looked around the shed, he had flash backs of the images of his friends enjoying a little food and drink. Then he remembered what they had looked like in those images that he had been shown while still in the hospital. A snort slips his lips that was not joyful but more resigned to his fate.

He was lost inside his memories of his friends. They had looked kind of like what Thanos had done to the Hulk Buster Armor in the movie Infinity War. No... they looked more like that movie Philadelphia Experiment that I saw on leave with my family. Come to think of it, how did Banner get the armor out of the rock face so that he could be in that end scene?

Drake gave another snort at his wandering train of thoughts, but he didn't notice the tears running down his cheek. Even if he went home today almost all of his closest friends had died within spitting distance of this shed. No matter how you cut it, he was about as alone as a person could be and still be among the living.

Drake had just gotten the wooden shed door open when he heard feet softly coming up behind him. After a few seconds of thought, Drake made like he didn't notice them walking on rocks and entered his shed. The room looked the same, but at the same time not. He could tell that some things had been moved around when he looked hard enough. Big surprise, they had to move it a few light minutes away from this star and get it in this yard on a planet.

Drake made sure he did not look directly at a large plastic tub on the bottom shelf off to one side of the 20x20 foot outbuilding. It was just one among many, some of them were from his ex-wife that she had not picked up yet. He flipped open a few boxes almost at random that had been put into this shed over the years. Drake was waiting to see if his babysitter would say or do anything while she watched him. He was hoping Minuet would and not hoping at the same time that she would tip her hand enough for him to call her on it.

Drake could tell that some of the things had been moved around inside those random boxes and totes, but if they had found what he hoped was still hidden? He was thinking that if they found those things. Then he would have been asked a lot more pointed questions, or they would have already put a bullet into his brain pan to keep the secrets of the Wolf Dragoons being part of the Clans. Drake heard the feet softly moving away from his back as he checked more of his stuff out.

After the third box that Drake had checked, he knew that some of his books were missing. Right off the bat, Drake could tell that the mini-Janes's and other books on aircraft, missiles, and tanks were not there. He didn't have the numbers and exact titles off the top of his head of the missing books, so he didn't think that he could bring them up out of the blue. Finding those books missing, Drake went straight for his old field box that went on field problems and deployments with him.

A quick check showed that the combo lock was still attached and locked on the container in question. Drake did not think for a second that someone would not have easily cracked it, and he slowly opened the travel scarred wooden and metal trunk. After going through some old uniforms and other items that he always tried to deploy with, Drake found what he was looking for and he held it maybe just a little too close to his chest for a few seconds.

One of the things that you have to deal with while being deployed is what to do with any of your down time. Too much down time is as bad as not having enough decompression time. That was why finding his Toughbook type computer was such a relief to him. It didn't have anything battletech related on it, but it had been loaded with all of the CDs that used to be in hardbacks coming out of Bean Book Company when he was a young man. Later he had added different audio and PDF books to the device. This field safe laptop was filled with books from writers like Ringo, Weber, Flint and a few others, and if he had been in one of those universes it would have been a gold mine.

It still is a goldmine, of a different sort, that is if I play my cards right. It might have me raking it in. Drake was biting his lip to keep from speaking aloud or showing to many emotions to hint at his hidden thoughts.

Oh, and it also was just a taste of home that he could draw on for years, if need be. Drake turned to leave. When he completed his stilted turning, Drake could see Minuet looking at him and the rectangular device in his hand.

Drake almost jumped out of his skin at seeing the woman standing there. Somehow, she had successfully snuck up on him, a multi tour combat veteran. So much for thinking that she had left to go back into the house leaving Drake to go through his past. Drake made a mental note to be more aware of who might be around him even when he thinks that he has an idea of the local break down.

The most-likely-spy spoke and did a chin point towards his hand. "I thought you were going after your girly rags." Minuet had a flat look on her face that made Drake wonder for only a heartbeat on what to say back.

Drake looked at her and felt like pushing back just a little, it just was all of those years he had spent in combat arms that was about to write a check that his butt might not be able to cash. "I could have, but with my broken wings, that would be just….. frustrating."

He gave her a little knowing smile at seeing her turn a little red. "I also had some movies on the thing, but not any porn. You sooo didn't want to take an electronic device into a porta-jon with you while in the field. If you don't know why?... Then you are way too young, and I have been hanging out with the wrong types." He had a mental flash of saying about this same thing when someone came over to his home and found the baby oil in the freezer.

Just before Drake stepped fully out of the shed, his eyes went to a corner that he had not checked, and he almost wanted to cry. Sitting in the shadow were two bottles of his favorite BBQ sauce almost hidden from sight. From where Drake was standing, he could tell one was half full and mostly gone bad for not being refrigerated after opening. But the second bottle looked to be full and should be good as long as someone had not opened it after 'the event' as he mentally called it. He looked back to the very pretty woman/spy/nurse/mother hen. "Ah…. could you do me a favor and bring those two bottles into the house?"

Minuet picked up the two plastic bottles without saying a word, and then followed the slowly walking man from a different spot in space and time. She watched the man when they went into the house, and Drake took a seat in a tall chair that had been supplied so that this wreck didn't have to use a lower chair more common in modern homes. She had to admit that the high table was more useful than the normally lower style in fashion. At least he thanked her when she put the bottles down next to him. She took a few steps away but not that far so that she was 'in conversation distance' to do her job.

Minuet wanted to see what this device was, it was one of the items that had been flagged for her to try to find out what it might be by the tech teams of Wolf Net. All that was known about that device was that it was an electronic device of some type but with unknown power or use. It had been opened by a skilled technical team not long after it had been found, and every square inch of the insides had been detailed imaged, but the tech was unknown to anyone that viewed it.

Drake opened the lid of the laptop and started checking out the device. After using a dry towel that Minuet passed him, he removed a lot less dust than there should have been in his experience. Only then did he hit the power button on the keyboard. With a harder and longer second push of that button, Drake let out a sigh that was not just for show to the suspected hidden cameras. The battery was dead, way big surprise there, they had only been moved to a new universe than where it had been made and last used.

Drake looked at the power cord and at the outlet mounted on the nearby wall, and he frowned. He had been overseas enough to know that even if the plugs looked to be a match, it still was a very bad idea not to check, double check, and then ask a professional before you used it. That was a quick way to lose both the device and data. Drake let the male plug end drop out of his hand, then he picked up the box further down on the power wire. Thanks to needing to do this more than a few times over the years, he knew where to find the needed symbols and numbers. He even knew what they meant…. most of the time.

Drake pulled over a pen and paper that he made sure was always on the tabletop. Quickly he wrote a series of numbers and symbols down along with a few other notes, like what each of the symbols meant to him. All the while he could see his minder watching him with very sharp eyes. "I need a power and plug adapter; do you know of a good electronics store around here? One that might know scientific notations or symbols that could be a few centuries old?" Drake knew that this system of markings had been around from about World War 2, but he had no clue on if they were still in use.

Minuet took the sheet of paper and used her acting skills to bluff Drake. "Why don't you get a uni power adapter?" Seeing the look that she knew was confusion on Drake's face, she told him that it was a common device for any traveler to have on hand to run their devices. Most of the time it was the easier way to go than replacing all of your powered devices every time you had to shift to a new planet. This was all an act because she was not supposed to know he was not from this universe.

Minuet took the information from the little box on the power cord and went to get some lunch while she was out picking up the device. Before she left, the 'nurse' said that she would be back in a few hours. While she was gone hidden cameras watched as Drake tested the sauce and was not surprised that one was bad, but Drake could not bring himself to toss it out. One bottle went into the cooler that did the same job as a fridge back home and the other was marked not to use and placed out of the way. Next Drake went back out to the shed and brought back some movies and music that he felt was better than the crap he had seen so far.

Yeah, that was a cover story for anyone that still might be watching him.

##

Drake popped the lid on the box that held a stash of porn that no wife in her right mind would let into "her" home. You see that tote was not just holding the old NCO's porn magazine collection to take to the field. It also held all of the Battletech books near the bottom of the watertight plastic tub that he used down range to run games. Now he was not the type that "lives" battletech, he just like big combat stomping things. Between what a man he had called his Crazy Uncle had given Drake and collecting more than a few items on his own. Drake now had all of the technical read outs in physical form along with scenarios and rule books up to the start of the Republic Era.

Drake also had some information that was printed notes from other books and a few novels to help come up with game ideas. Drake would always find a group that wanted to play "big battles" that would take weeks to run out and didn't need a TV or power to play. That was key when you were in a very small FOB or COB out in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes they would start out a game with one mech or tank each, but soon they would jump to lance vs lance battles and more than a few times they went 36 vs 36. Drake remembered the time that they played a way larger battle that lasted over a month of solid time. Those were great battles, and he thinks those last books and notes would have been a great help for his plan. That is if he lived through the next few weeks to take advantage of this data. Drake picked up one book and had a flashback of when he ran a game that he had made the younger sergeants come up with a FRAGO for a mission and then brief "their" lance before starting.

With a sad smile on his face, Drake put the book back and covered the rest of his prizes with what had proven to be effective concealment. He made a mental note to check his laptop cache memory to see what might be hiding there from visits to sites that people had chatted about battletech in detail. The problem was going to be that he would have to separate the game from what people thought they knew or wanted it to be a certain way in their minds. All of that would have to be deconflicted with the current world that Drake found himself sitting in. He didn't pull any of this material out of their hiding spots. He had just wanted to make sure they were still there so that he could plan. One of the key things in survival was that you had to inventory all of the resources you had on hand. Also, Drake could not risk someone "watching" him and thinking that he might have been in the shed too long.

Drake quickly put everything back into that tub and made sure to put it exactly as it had been when he had entered the shed. Then he grabbed a few of the movies and music disk that he had planned on using as his cover story to come back out here. With his tracks hopefully covered, Drake went back to the house. Do you know how bad it sucks trying to carry stuff, without a bag, while on crutches with many broken bones? Well Drake found out…the hard way. Drake needed to build a cover story good enough to keep the live in spy from finding out what he was doing before he was ready.

###

After returning to the living room of the home, Drake found out that he was really going to need that power adapter for his laptop. He shoves another shelf aside and grunts in frustration. "If I don't figure this out, I won't be able to play my damn movies or music on the POS of an entertainment systems that came with this damn house."

Drake grumbles out more as he tries to work out what he is seeing in the entertainment device. "I'm just lucky that I never got into gaming systems, or I might have really been screwed. I might have gone into withdrawals without them."

While Drake worked on this project. He remembered that time that he took a kid's cell phone away for an entire field problem, all because he had been caught texting in the tank. Drake had also seen that kind of thing happen to some of the younger kids on deployment when the TV screen broke or due to "dirty" power or something cooking the delicate electronics in their personal electronic devices.

Drake had become so lost in trying to get the entertainment system to work with his disk and using words that the operators of the spying system would have to later look up. This all happened with his DVD or Blue rays spread around him, that he did not hear Minuet come back home. She had picked up four different uni power converters on her shopping trip into town. There was no way for Drake to know that those devices were made by a special shop buried deep in the offices of Blackwell.

The need for speed for the last second work was because no one thought to look at that part of the device while inspecting it. The third one did the job; Minuet was so smooth that Drake didn't pick up that was the one that she knew would work from the start and the first two had been just window dressing. The pair of them had some fast food while watching the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood on a 15-inch screen sitting on the dinner table between them. She had been visibly impressed by the interface of the laptop, but less impressed when Drake had told her that it had survived being run over by a 10ton class LMTV (light medium tactical vehicle).

While the end credits rolled on the "small" screen, Drake looked over to the woman. "So, I went through one of my totes. I had this idea to compare the weapons of this time with mine, but I couldn't find the book I was looking for. I might need some help going through the rest of them to see if they were just misplaced." It was a risk to let her know that he was "aware" enough to notice them missing after only a few minutes of looking.

After that little bombshell, Drake did three frakking hours of PT that he would keep thinking was payback for something. Drake didn't know if she was trying to tire him out so that he would want to sleep in the bed instead of in the living room or not. Most of the time Drake really thinks that she was mad about the paperwork that she might have had to do with him noticing the missing stuff from his shed.

Drake still was up before Minuet the next day despite the workout from hell. After their morning ritual of food, bath, and the first round of torture for the day. Drake made his way back to the shed without an escort. Thanks to one of the uni power boxes and a very long power cord. Drake had his old field CD player working, and with his cell phone and tablet left back on Earth of 2020 sitting on his kitchen table. That was going to be his main source of music until he got used to the local bands. Drake might have some music on his laptop with music videos, but normally he would just update his music play list before rolling out to the field on his phone.

Now thanks again to listening to Crazy Woman 2 sharp shoot movies and shows to many times to count. Drake had a basic idea on how he was going to be able to refresh his knowledge base. He just needed the space to do it and something to provide the cover for his other covert actions. Drake wanted to know "What 3025" he was in and then he was going to work out what his next step would be from there.

###

Drake quickly set a pattern of spending all of his free daylight hours out in the Shed with his music playing in the background. Thanks to a little window cut out in one wall of the shed, he could keep an eye on if someone entered the "shed's" yard from the direction of the house. Drake was only able to get little bits of information out of his "books" even with hours to work invested into the project. Drake could not write those notes down on a note pad that might have unwanted eyes looking at it when he was not watching. So, he worked on a document on his laptop that was a well-hidden file from anyone, even if they had worked out the first and second password that Drake had added onto the device.

This was a skill Drake had picked up on his first deployment when a snoop had been getting into everyone's private emails "for fun". Yea, that guy got a full-service blanket party when he was found out and it had been supplied by the whole platoon. You have no idea how hard it is to keep something private while living Cheek to Jaw with a dozen others without having to deal with a snoop in the mix. Some of those boys were to smart and to inclined to some very odd criminal ways if they had too much free time on their hands to plan…or got angry at someone.

Drake bites his lip, and those thoughts became focused on that one jerk. That oxygen thief had found out how hard it was to type with two fingers and get anywhere thanks to them being broken. That was the punishment for stealing someone's password. God help you if you hacked their gamming accounts and killed off their player as a joke.

"Well at least I'm not in his boat, but this still sucks. I hope this is not Gods way of giving me a little pay back." Drake thinks as he slowly worked on this first step of a project that could still see him killed.

It was hard work with the air casts that covered a good part of Drake's body, but at least he had more than two fingers to do the work. It was just too bad that he had other things that had to be done all the while trying to make sure that Minuet didn't find out what he was up to. Drake knew that by the end of the week, he would have one cast removed and that would help a lot in his data collection and setting up his next move. It also would make it a little easier to keep what he was doing hidden.

###

Minuet was sitting across from her boss with a sour expression on her face. "All he does, when we are not scheduled to do an activity is sit in that damn shed!"

Franko Demos was reading her last report as she was speaking but looked up before he went to a new page. "I am not surprised. That is the only area that we are not rubbing his nose into the fact that he is living in the modern world. Drake has lost everything else that connected him to his memories. How is he recovering, otherwise?"

Minuet was a pro in both the medical and spy fields to the standards of Wolf Net and the Clans they had been connected to. "He is doing okay, physically. We had him checked out again before releasing him from the hospital. His brain is scrambled so bad, that the doctors are amazed that he can walk and talk at the same time much less anything like tying his own shoes or speaking in complete sentences."

The Agent snorts. "That he cannot pilot a mech is about the limit of their thinking and he has a heartbeat. His last scan was better, but his brain is still a mess that they could write a dozen papers about….. if they were not ordered by Wolf Net to keep their papers to themselves. The treatments, vaccines, and the current range of gene therapy seem to be working for him. We should tell him about what those gene therapies will do to him in the long run. They were not standard for his time, and even the doctors say that they have at least slowed down his bones recovering. I also think we need to start looking at getting him a job. He drove a tank, before he was dropped into our lap. They found that certificate claiming that he was the top in his class for whatever a Master Gunner was."

She stops talking and she looks over the shoulder of her boss for a few seconds. She has a funny look on her face. 'He did seem to be more active all of a sudden and his mixing beer with his medication stopped like a light switch was thrown. The surveillance team reported that they could not find a reason, it was just that one day he seemed to be more active one early morning. They were the ones that noticed he had left the house for that….. shed for the first time."

Franko knew that she wanted to say more. Like "when am I going to get a real job of my own and away from this caveman?" Sitting still was the hardest part of being and active agent. "I will look into that; I take it that this was not in your filed reports. Still, you're right. Drake was smart and aware enough about noticing those missing books of his. Were they returned to him? And did you make it clear that this was not acceptable behavior to those white coats over at Blackwell to try to pull something like that on US?" What he was not saying was that the White Coats should not have tried that, without letting the Wolf Net team know they were doing it in the first place. Their fault was that they tried to surprise Wolf Net, and that was something they didn't like.

Minuet smiled a smile that was just on this side of dangerous. "Oh, I did. I don't think they will try something like that again. I just put the box of items they "failed to return" along with his friends' effects on the dinner table when I got back." She lets her eyebrows go forward. "He just took them back to his shed like it was some old friend that had just borrowed them for the weekend or something."

Franko looks up again to make eye contact with his agent. "Did they say why they kept the books?"

Minuet gave a shoulder shrug. She was about to answer this question, but she didn't believe it. "They said that they just liked the images."

She fought to keep her eyebrows from coming together. "But I think those people would like to gain access to more of those books, and not just for histrionic reasons. I think they went fishing for some ideas for new tanks and or whatever other weapons systems they could dream up those books might spark."

The Clan Goliath Scorpion in Franko took notice of this information. "Really? Maybe after we get you on your way to New Avalon. Sergeant Mendenhall might be able to make some side money on what is in those books. Have you learned anything more about his military background?"

"He is pretty evasive about the last few years of his service after a battle that cost him his tank and half his crew, but he did command a Main Battle tank in combat a few times. At almost 70 tons, we could call it a heavy tank, but it seems that they had different terms like Main Battle Tank instead of light, medium, heavy, and assault. He also was second in command of what we would call a Lance, and he took command of this "platoon" in battle and in training events. I even saw the citations for these actions, so it's not him talking to waste air or get into my pants. After getting hurt and losing his tank, he was assigned to staff work. When I pushed after that point in time, he only says that he did a lot of personnel management stuff and paperwork for the officers to get credit for. I guess some things never change no matter the year or universe.

Franko let the last statement slide from his field agent. She was doing good work, and if you were good? Then a leader would cut them a little slack just to keep them happy and on the task. "Now tell me more about this Toughbook thing." Franko was not a tech scientist by any means, but he knew a lot of different technologies and this one sounded like it could be useful to the Dragoons.

Minuet had to pull out her notes and she went down some of the functions and different types of software that she had seen Drake use on his laptop and that it used something call a computer chip. She had been impressed with his computer skills on his devices, and then she was impressed at how fast she had been able to pick up the unique required skills just by watching him a few times. The software was way better and easier to use than what even the clan possessed, much less what the Inner Sphere had access to.

####

Drake looked around the living room of this house and smiled. "The plan is almost ready and thank God my babysitter is at a full division meeting over at the hospital." That had given him the situation to finish the last parts of his plan. Drake raises his hand to cover the smile coming to his face.

Drake had been able to get to this point a lot quicker than he had thought that he possibly could. That was thanks to Minuet seeing that he didn't need the cast/brace on his arms anymore. The last key had been getting Minuet to "train" him how to use "modern" computers the home had been outfitted with. He tried to phrase it as he needed to work on skills that could help him find employment.

Drake had thought what these word processors and workstations could do was some kind of sick joke. He just Thank God every few hours that he was not a child of the Google generation. He had been brought up with first using things like Netscape 1, Window 3.1, and thank you again crazy uncle. That uncle had been a fan of learning how to do it the hard way first, then learn the quick way. That old man would give him treats or movie tickets every time Drake had completed a task on those old and clunky systems. Those problem-solving skills turned out to be very useful with the computer systems on this planet.

Still Drake had to make sure that he did not pick up those "new" skills too fast on what they called a digital home workstation. Under his breath Drake will say that "what the future looks like from the 80s" was a little crazy making when you had been taking those classes. He just hoped that his plan to break out of this tech slide in a day or two would work out. Drake knew that it was time to roll a hard six, or he might still end up in an unmarked grave and a star system gave you a lot of places to hide a body.

####

Notes.

The Last Dragoon supply run: We don't know what and how much was brought by Khan Ward in 3019/3020 to be given to the Dragoons. Well, besides a core that held military data for current clan tech that he gave to the Dragoons. You have to wonder what else was dropped off as the Dragoons were cut loose with the mission to prepare the Inner Sphere for war with the rest of the Clans.

Drake's brain. It took some time for the effects of changing dimensions to start to fade away.

22