Chapter 1

               New Fordville Archipelago City

               Huntington

               Free Worlds League

               28 January 3077              

 

               Marie Bristol McCloud woke up feeling hazy and nauseous.  She groaned loudly and draped her arm over her eyes, trying to block out the blinding sunlight pouring in through her window.  The musty smell in the room was something she was used to.  She turned her head, looking blearily at the man lying next to her.  His loud snoring had woken her up.  She would have nudged him and told him to roll over, but she couldn’t remember his name.  The black wolf tattoo over his chest was what had gotten her attention the night before, and at the moment it was the only thing she could remember about him.

               She sat up, ran her hands through her hair, and yawned widely.  Next to the bed were a pair of white plastic legs, covered in a hodgepodge of engraved emblems and connected to a wall socket by a charging cable.  She counted herself lucky she’d been able to plug them in before falling into bed with whoever-he-was last night.  She awkwardly pulled them over to herself and set about setting them up.  Her own legs ended abruptly halfway down her thighs, the stumps terminating in sockets made to plug into the artificial legs.  Marie pulled the prosthetics over to click into the sockets, shivering at the sensation of ice down her spine as they linked to her nervous system.

               She stood up with a whir of servomotors, and looked around herself.  Seeing she was in her own room, she made the most of it and quietly changed into fresh clothes.  She slipped out the door to the bathroom where she did her best to freshen up. 

She glanced at herself in the mirror, and winced.  She couldn’t look more hung over if she’d tried.  She was a few shades paler than usual, making her look something like a walking corpse with eyes squinted shut against the overly-bright lights.  She ran her hands through her hair again – it was dark brown, but she’d added a streak of bubblegum pink to it, and this morning the color was a little too much for her to look at.  Then she headed down to the kitchen, and started a cup of coffee. 

               While she was staring into the middle distance waiting for the coffee machine to finish pouring her a cup, she heard familiar light footsteps approaching.  She groaned inwardly at the sound.  Despite every effort she made to be quiet in the morning, her housemate always seemed to wake up mere minutes after she did.

She looked up in time to see her mother Rachel walk in, yawning and blinking sleep out of her eyes.  Marie resembled Rachel more than she liked to admit; she had her mother’s height, athletic build, and brown hair, though Rachel’s had streaks of gray showing through.

               “Good morning,” Rachel said.  Marie mumbled wordlessly and picked up her coffee.  She sipped at it, wincing at the bitter flavor.  She stepped aside, letting her mother get a coffee of her own.

               “When did you get in last night?” Rachel asked.

               Marie groaned again.  “Late,” she answered.  “I don’t know, I didn’t check.”

               Rachel made a noncommittal noise at that.  She waited until her own coffee was ready before leaning against the counter and looking Marie over.  “Are you going to be ready to leave?” she asked.

               “Sure.  Not like I’ve been here long enough to do anything important.”

               “Are you sure about that?  I could have sworn I heard another voice when you came in.”

               “I’m allowed to make friends, mom.  Not everyone I know lives on the Sirocco.”

               Rachel sighed at the name.  Sirocco was the ship they’d been working on for the past few years.  Marie was just a regular deckhand and technician, while Rachel, having been on dropships for most of her life, had managed to get a position as the ship’s navigator.  Neither role was terribly glamorous; the Sirocco was, to put it bluntly, a junky old ship, a Leopard dropship well past its glory days and being held together with duct tape and crossed fingers.  The stop at Huntington had actually been out of the ordinary for them.  Marie had managed to convince her mother to get them both a leave of absence while the Sirocco headed off to another system for a month-long refit and maintenance stop.  She’d been hoping to get some time on-planet to recover and get a better job than working on a dropship, but the universe apparently had other plans.  A few days ago the Sirocco had returned early from her refit, ready for her crew to return to duty.  As soon as the ship had a full load of cargo she would be taking off, and just yesterday her captain had struck a deal with a mercenary unit to carry their lance of battlemechs.  .

               “The Sirocco’s been good to us,” Rachel said.  “It’s steady work, better than we’ve had in a while.”

               “I know, mom,” Marie said tiredly, not looking at her mother.  This was a conversation the two of them had had before; the Sirocco kept them constantly moving, going from one planet to another as they hauled mechs, people, and cargo.  By this point Marie knew it was pointless to get angry or sarcastic about it.  It would just end in hurt feelings and uncomfortable silences, and the two of them would still have to ship out when the Sirocco’s engines fired, going off to spend the next month crammed together into a tight berth, stacked on top of each other in the little bunks they were afforded.

               “I know you wanted to get a steadier job,” Rachel went on.  “And they seemed like a good unit.  But if you haven’t heard from them by now…”

               “I know, mom,” Marie said, an edge entering her voice.  Huntington didn’t have much going for it, but it had had a modest mercenary garrison, most recently headed by a unit called Rico’s Rangers.  Marie had been able to work her way into their graces, getting a side job working on their battlemechs and leveraging that into getting time on their simulators and training mechs.  She’d been hoping to secure a steadier job than temporary technician, but the Rangers’ contract had run out recently.  Rather than renew the contract, the planetary government had decided to switch over to a new unit for their garrison.  Now the Rangers were getting ready to pack up and ship out, meaning temporary hires like Marie were getting cut loose. 

               “We’re saving up for the future,” Rachel said placatingly.  “Once we’re ready I’ll get us to a planet with a good academy.”

               “Sure, mom,” Marie grumbled.  “Maybe someday.  But for now at least we get another payday, right?”

               The care lines in Rachel’s face deepened as her mouth went tight.  She had opened her mouth to speak when a creak of footsteps interrupted her.  Marie and Rachel both looked up to see the man from Marie’s bed staggering groggily into the kitchen. 

               “Hey,” he said sleepily.

               Rachel gave Marie a sideways glance that dripped with judgment before putting on a smile for the man.  “Good morning, I guess you’re Marie’s friend?  Would you like some coffee?”

               “Uh…yeah, sure,” he slurred.  He looked Rachel up and down curiously, and waved at her.  “I’m Jacob.”

               Jacob, that was it.  “Actually, Jake and I were just going,” Marie said, getting up quickly.  “He has to take me to work.”

               Rachel sighed.  “Marie, we really have to pull things together.  We’ve got to be ready to lift off in three days.”

               “Yeah, thanks for reminding me.  How about I don’t burn every bridge on my way out?” 

               “…I could use your help prepping the Sirocco today,” Rachel said.  “And I was going to record a message to Daniel.  It’d be nice if you could add something to it.”

               “Sure, how about ‘here’s another goddamn message you still didn’t get even after we sent it off to half the ships in the galaxy,’” Marie grumbled.  She put on a pair of sunglasses and shouldered her small day bag.  “I promised I’d be at the mech bay to finish up a few things.  Come on, Jake.”

               Jacob shrugged and followed her out of the house.  Behind them, Rachel quietly sighed and shook her head.

Outside was an unfamiliar monocycle parked on one side of the driveway, looking – accurately – as though its driver had been drunk.

               “Hey, uh…where do you work?” Jacob asked.  He climbed onto the monocycle and thumbed the activation button.  The cycle’s electric motor hummed to life and its internal gyroscope spun up, keeping the bike balanced on its lone wheel.  “Don’t know if I’m good to drive, babe.  I’m still feeling a little buzzed…”

               “Just get me to the mech bay, all right?” Marie asked, wearily trying to get her curly hair under control, ultimately tying it off into a messy ponytail.  She climbed onto the bike behind him and put her arms around his waist.  Jacob smiled drunkenly as she pushed her body up against his back.  He shrugged, put on his helmet, and put the bike in gear.  They set off, wobbly at first, then smoothing out as they got moving. 

               There was a fair amount of traffic on the little suburban street, with families running around small houses, neighbors talking over fences and driving cars down the road.  Marie watched the scene shoot past with a melancholy look on her face.  Another planet, another home she had to leave behind.  Another time she was packing everything up and getting ready to set off into space.  She barely knew what a “normal” life was supposed to look like anymore.

               Jacob weaved between the cars and trucks, to the tune of far too many horns being honked in response.  Marie winced at the noise, feeling like the horns were resonating inside of her skull.  Every move of the bike made her stomach twist up, threatening to expel the coffee that was barely keeping her functional.  She just hung onto Jacob’s waist and tried to keep herself together.

               Once they were clear of the town and the traffic, Jacob opened up the throttle.  The engine hummed and they raced down the highway, Marie’s hair whipping in the wind.  After a scant few minutes the mech bay was in sight.  It was not on the primary garrison base – that was kilometers away.  This was a satellite operation, housing battlemechs used for training, and – necessarily – repairing them after each outing.

               Jacob pulled up to the front of the mech bay, to where a guard held up a hand to stop them.  “All right, this is my stop,” Marie said as she got off the bike.  “Thanks for the ride.”

               Jacob pulled off his helmet and grinned lopsidedly at her, reminding her of the easy confidence that had drawn her in after the wolf tattoo had gotten her attention.  She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips to send him off, then turned to go.  She’d forgotten his name again by the time the monocycle pulled away.

               The ID badge out of her bag got her past the guard, after which she headed for the main building.  She felt lighter as she walked, even slowed by her clumsy cyber-legs.  Being at the mech bay usually helped lift her spirits.  Having been around battlemechs her whole life, the giant machines made sense to her, more than most people did.  Working on ‘Mechs was straightforward and simple, a constant in her life.

               The mech bay itself was a large structure, boxy and industrial in appearance, and over three stories tall.  It housed a total of six hangars for battlemechs, usually more than enough for the two Chameleons that were stored out here, but for the last week there had practically been a line to get in.  With the garrison contract canceled, all of a sudden dozens of mechs had to be ready to ship out in a matter of days.  Repair and maintenance work that had been put off for months had suddenly all come due at once as mechwarriors tried to get their machines in good shape for their next contract. 

               This morning however, the ‘Mech bay was practically dead; as she looked back and forth over the tarmac, the usual crush of technicians and support personnel was nowhere to be seen.  The silence weighed on Marie; the new mercenary unit, the Hudson’s Hammers, had landed just yesterday, and the Rangers had had to clear out of the ‘Mech facilities to make room for the newcomers.  The Hammers had moved their ‘Mechs into the main repair bays a dozen kilometers away.  They were even starting to move their machines to this satellite location.  The message had been clear: the Rangers’ technical staff had to pack up and get out.

               As she walked into the ‘Mech bay she saw that a few of the mechs were still there, towering over her like statues the size of buildings.  A pair of Chameleons sat up front, side-by-side in adjoining bays.  They had been jokingly dubbed “Tweedledee and Tweedledum” by mechwarrior rookies for their temperamental and buggy electronics that had tested many a trainee.  Marie had been given the chance to take the mechs out a few times on test runs, and she’d had to deal with lasers that refused to fire and actuators that randomly locked up as the mechs got confused about what they were supposed to be doing.  The Chameleons were technically battlemechs, but they were, and always had been, training machines, and had been in service longer than she’d been alive.

               Aside from the Chameleons there were four other ‘Mech bays.  Two of them were empty, their ‘Mechs having been already shipped off to the spaceport.  One of the others housed a battered Warhammer, looking like a miniature fortress on legs with a powerful pair of gun arms hanging off of its sides.  It cut an imposing figure, somewhat spoiled by its partially-disassembled knees. 

               The last bay held the latest arrival, one of the mechs from the Hudson’s Hammers.  It had arrived on-planet just yesterday and had come into the bay for some minor adjustments and repair work.  Marie had volunteered to help with the job, and she could still barely make sense of the mech.  At a glance it vaguely resembled one of the Chameleons with the paired jump jet thrusters on its back and comms antennae extending from its cockpit.  She’d been told it was some variant of a Phoenix Hawk, and she could see the resemblance.  Its body was angular and boxy, but still looked athletic, with slender limbs and a compact torso.  The mech certainly looked like it had seen its fair share of action, with deep pitting in its armor plates and fading paint in more than a few places. 

               Her work on the Phoenix Hawk had centered around repairs to the large laser on its shoulder.  It should have been a simple job, but whole thing been a headache.  First, it was a non-standard weapon mount; in a typical Phoenix Hawk the large laser would have been mounted in the mech’s arm.  On this one the weapon was on the shoulder instead, which was interesting if not unsurprising.  ‘Mechs tended to get modifications and tweaks as they were passed from one owner to the next over the decades.  And the mech was definitely old; the laser had been a model no one made anymore, so Marie had had to replace the whole weapon and force the new parts to fit somewhere they hadn’t been designed for, all without the benefit of a repair manual to work from.  It was a common problem for mechtechs, and one that Marie had thrown herself into. 

               “McCloud, what’re you doing here?” a gruff voice asked.

               Marie looked over to see the head mechtech, Sam Yeers, walking out from the Warhammer’s bay.  The older man was squinting at her with an expression that might have been pride.  From the look of things he was the only mechtech still around the bay.  With four ‘Mechs still housed here, Marie imagined Sam was happy to see any familiar face at the moment.

               “Hi Sam,” she called out to him, her own voice ringing in her ears.  “Couldn’t leave you guys to finish up without me.”

               “Eh, most of these machines’re getting packed up as-is,” he said with a dismissive wave at the battlemechs.  “Going to have to finish the repairs in transit.”

               “It’s no problem.  I promised I’d finish up the laser on Bessie,” she said with a wave at the Phoenix Hawk.  The mech’s pilot, one Sergeant Jain, had referred to the mech by that name, something Marie had found endearing.  Many mechwarriors gave a nickname to their rides, and that seemed fitting to her.  As mechs aged and parts were replaced and updated, each mech developed its own quirks.  Marie liked to think of the big machines as having their own personalities.  The Tweedles certainly had the personalities of idiots fumbling around in the dark.

               “Don’t trouble yourself, it’s fine,” Sam said placatingly.  “I can put Bob on it, he’s looking for a few extra hours.”

               Marie’s head was still foggy, but she still noticed how Sam was talking more softly than he usually did, without any trace of the crotchetiness or impatience that he always seemed to carry around.  She glanced up to the gantry, where a head of light brown hair was barely visible up on a catwalk.  Bob was one of many locals who’d been joining Marie in picking up hours at the mech bay.  His experience was mostly working on AgroMechs on the farms, but that still made him more qualified than most of the locals.  It was enough that the Rangers actually let him work on their ‘Mechs instead of just doing grunt work running errands and lifting boxes like most of the part-timers.

               Marie steeled herself for a question she knew she had to ask even though she could guess at the answer already.  “Sam…has there been any word?  If you guys are shipping out, is there any place for me?”

               Her voice trailed away to nothing as she saw him shaking his head.  “Sorry, McCloud,” he said.  “I haven’t heard anything about you.  I heard word we took on one or two rookies, but…”

               Marie sighed to herself.  Another planet, another mercenary unit, but the same old story.  “Any idea why?” she asked.

               Sam clenched his jaw and shook his head again.  “They don’t tell me much, you know.  But I saw your test scores.  You’re all right when it comes to moving them Chameleons around, but the higher ups want more than just ‘all right.’”

               Marie just nodded quietly, her lips tight.  “Any room for me in the mech techs?” she asked.  This just elicited a pitying smile from Sam and another shake of the head.  That story hadn’t changed, either.  Mercenary units were always happy to take on temporary workers to help around the mech bay, but when the dropships took off, they almost never had room for any permanent hires.

               “All right,” Marie said numbly.  For a brief moment she considered asking if there was room for an aerospace fighter pilot, but thought better of it; she was familiar with the look on Sam’s face.  It was the look of someone who was trying to be polite while the decision had already been made.  Continuing to try would just be pathetic at this point.

               She took a breath and shook her head, trying to clear out the cobwebs, but just ended up making her stomach turn again.  In hindsight it probably wasn’t helping her case to show up to work hung over.  She covered by stretching her arms, trying to look nonchalant.  “Give me a couple hours with her.  I’ve got to finish up.”

               “Isn’t your ship taking off in a few days?” Sam asked.  “The mech’ll be fine, it’s not one of ours anyway.”

               “It’s not one of yours,” Marie corrected.  “Looks like I’m still a free agent.  And I promised I’d get her fixed up before I left,” Marie said firmly.  And I don’t have to go back to tell mom she was right, she thought to herself.  “Come on, you know I can handle it.  Go put the Warhammer’s knees back together or something.”

               Sam snorted at that one.  “Going to have to flatbed that one out to the dropship,” he said.  “But…well if you want to spend your time here, I won’t stop you.”

               Marie gave him a small smile in response.  “Thanks.  And the mech needs me anyway.  Bob would have that laser shooting out the ass.”

               “Rear-mounted weapons are underrated!” Bob’s voice shouted from above.  Sam and Marie both looked up to see the young man looking down at them from the gantry.  “And I’ve almost got it figured out, too!”

               Marie and Sam exchanged a knowing look.  “Don’t touch anything!” Marie said, pointing an accusing finger up at Bob.  “I’ll be right up.”

               She stepped into the ground floor locker room long enough to change into the brown coveralls of a mechtech.  Once she was dressed she took a lift to the upper repair gantry.  She did her best to swallow her disappointment at the latest turn of events.  She’d been playing this game for a while now.  She’d met a lot of mercenary units in her time working on dropships.  She knew she could only work on a ship so long before she lost her mind.  A mercenary unit could be a ticket to a more stable, more lucrative life, if she could just catch the right person’s eye.

               Rico’s Rangers had been particularly promising, since they had been willing to let the part-timers try out their battlemech simulators, seeing what it was like to pilot the huge battlemechs that came in and out of the mech bay.  Promising candidates – like Marie and Bob – had even been given a little time in one of the Chameleons.  She had done her best with the machines, but like always, she was fighting uphill.  Mercenary units were very hesitant to trust one of their battlemechs to a rookie, unless that rookie could really stand out from the pack.  Marie knew she wasn’t as attractive to a merc unit as a graduate from some fancy academy would be.  Her only hope was to play the numbers, do grunt work for enough units and hope one of them was willing to give her a try.  It was the main reason she’d jumped at working on Bessie.  She knew she only had a slim chance of getting someone’s attention before the Sirocco lifted off, but it was a chance nonetheless.

               Bob was waiting for her at the top of the lift.  He looked tired, and the smile on his face looked forced.

               “Morning,” Marie said.  “What are you doing here?  Don’t tell me you got some good news?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow suspiciously.

               Bob shook his head, his smile falling.  “Nah.  Guess they didn’t like my scores either.  Don’t know what they were expecting from me, making me ride around in that piece of junk,” he said bitterly, waving at one of the Chameleons.  “But hey, the new guys might be hiring.  At least I won’t be lumped in with an old lady any more,” he said with a little grin.

               Marie rolled her eyes at the nickname.  Most of the part-timers were like Bob, teenagers working at the ‘Mech bay in between classes at school or shifts on the farm.  At almost twenty years old, Marie was easily the oldest of the group.  Jockeying for a position on the repair crew had not been her first choice, after all; a few years ago she’d been training on aerospace fighters on another planet.  Unfortunately militaries and merc units alike were just as leery of letting a rookie pilot their aerospace fighters as they were their battlemechs.  That left her struggling to get noticed alongside hopefuls like Bob who were all several years younger than her.  She put up with it; if there was anything she’d learned in the last few years, it was that plans had a way of changing. 

               She stepped out onto the catwalk off the lift.  As always, she took a moment to strap on a harness and lifeline.  She hated having to trip over the nylon rope every time she moved around, but Sam yelled at her whenever she didn’t wear it.  Sam was the same guy who joined her for a smoke break around the SRM reloads, so when he got upset about something, it got her attention.

               “How’re things up here?” she asked as she strapped herself into the harness.  “Looks like someone cleaned up the Tweedles.”

               Bob shrugged.  “Yeah, all ready to crash into another wall.  We pulled an all-nighter getting them ready for transport.  Could’ve used your help, you know.”

               Marie returned the shrug.  She didn’t regret letting off some steam last night; within days this planet would be just another name in the long list of places she would never see again.  “I’m sure the Hammers’ll be happy to have you around,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing.

               “I’ll be happy if their trainer mechs don’t actively hate me,” Bob grumbled.

               Marie gestured to the Phoenix Hawk as she walked towards the machine.  “Let’s start with that one.  What’ve you been doing to her this morning?” 

               Bob followed along behind her, shaking his head.  “Been trying to get that damn Lushann in for hours.  I don’t know who crammed in the old laser.  Power lines were so crushed up it’s a miracle they didn’t fry the whole system.”

               Marie shook her head in sympathy.  Crushed-up power lines were a common enough problem, but never any less annoying.  She headed over to the Phoenix Hawk’s bay and checked her datapad.  The catwalk was at the level of the Phoenix Hawk’s head, allowing for easy access to the cockpit.  A personnel crane was ready to lower her from the catwalk down to the mech’s torso.  Marie climbed into the crane’s harness and slowly lowered herself down, her stomach still gurgling threateningly as she looked down at the mech bay floor ten meters below her.

               The new Lushann Redbeam large laser was suspended in place over the mech’s shoulder, only partly attached to the weapon mount.  Marie groaned at the scuff marks and dents where Bob had been trying to force it into place. 

               “The thing just won’t fit,” Bob said from up on the catwalk.  “Maybe we can get a Magna model in here?”

               “Sure, just call up GM and have them overnight one out to us,” Marie grumbled at him.  “Get me a wrench.  The armor’s got to come up.”

               Bob gave her a skeptical look, but after a moment he shrugged and went to get the tools.  He knew as well as Marie that Bessie’s pilot had just wanted the laser straightened out; he had explicitly told them not to touch the mech’s armor.

               Marie crawled around Bessie’s shoulder until she found the release bolts for some of the armor plates.  Attaching a powerful crane to the shoulder, she unbolted the plate and lifted it up, giving her some access to the mech’s internals.  Bessie was especially tricky; the mech had polygonal armor plates coming together along multiple seams on the back, so instead of one plate to move, there were half a dozen.  Marie shook her head at the sight of it.  It was well-known that a mech’s weak spot was its back, but Bessie seemed especially egregious.  All those plates just made that many more weak spots.  At first she’d thought it must be patchwork repairs accumulated over the mech’s long service history, but the bias lines looked too symmetrical and regular to be accidental.  She had no idea why anyone would design a mech like that.  She wondered if it made the ‘Mech more flexible.

               Once she had pulled up the armor around the shoulder, she had a little more room to work.  Under the armor was a maze of wires, coolant lines, and myomer bundles, all affixed to the internal structure that formed the mech’s skeleton.  The sight was overwhelming with its sheer complexity.  Marie glanced it over, raising her eyebrows at the extra connections and unfamiliar hydraulic linkages she could see throughout the mech’s internals.  Then she turned her attention to the laser housing, and she sighed.

               “How long were you working on this thing?” she shouted to Bob.

               “Four hours!”  he shouted back.  “Damn thing just won’t fit!”

               “That’s because you left the old laser housing in here, dumbass!”

               Bob spluttered at that, and began to say how there was no way he’d left something in, but Marie knew a laser housing when she saw one.  This one looked partially melted from years of use.

               “Well aren’t you a lucky girl,” she whispered, patting Bessie’s armored hide.  “That old hardware was just a ticking time bomb, wasn’t it?”

               She called out to Bob and Sam for a hand, and then crawled in under the armor plate.  Bob joined her a few minutes later, and the two of them started cutting off the laser housing and getting ready to mount the new laser in its place.  After a lot of struggling Marie finally had the old one out, and started setting up to put in the new Lushann.  Marie’s wristcomp chirped an alert as she was lining up the new laser.  Seeing it was a message from her mother, she ignored it and kept working.  When it chirped again, she rolled her eyes and silenced the wristcomp completely. 

               Sam observed from up on the catwalk, yelling down criticisms of what they were doing and complaining about how he couldn’t listen to his radio from up there.  He made sure to remind Marie that a true mechtech left their wristcomp in the locker room, like he and Bob did.  The last thing they needed was a phone call while they had their heads in a fusion reactor.  Still, the older man was there to run the cranes and hand down tools to them.  The time passed quickly as the repairs progressed.

               “What the hell is this?”

               The question broke the easy rhythm they had established for the repair work.  Marie stuck her head up out of Bessie to see a tall, athletic man coming in.  Marie recognized him as Sergeant Jain, Bessie’s pilot. 

               “I told you, don’t take up the armor!” he shouted from down on the ground.  “I just needed the laser fixed!”

               “I’m putting it back together!” Marie protested in response.  “And have you seen this thing’s power system?  You were two days from melting the whole right side off!”

               Jain shook his head and snapped at her not to touch one more thing, then headed up the lift to the catwalk.  Marie rolled her eyes at him and ducked back down into the armored shell.

               “What the hell have you been doing to my ride?” Jain demanded accusingly as he stomped up the catwalk to them. 

               “That’s my line,” Marie said back to him.  “What the hell have you been doing to this old girl?  You’ve got wear and tear on everything.  Your coolant lines are leaking and your power lines go everywhere.”

               Jain glared down at her from the catwalk, his eyes sweeping over the interlocking armor plates only partially bolted back down.  “You’ll never get it back together again,” he grumbled.  “I’ve got a buyer for her out on Tamarind, it’s a done deal.  I just needed to get her through a shakedown run, I don’t need you messing around in there!”

               “You came in for a repair, and you’ve got it,” Marie said, gesturing to the laser’s reflection lens, now connected to the Lushann with Bob tightening the bolts to hold it in place.  “And it’ll work better than ever.  Your buyer’ll love how Bessie won’t burst into flames.”  Jain continued looking at her skeptically, so Marie raised her eyebrows at him.  “So do you want me to finish putting the armor back on, or do you want to take her out in pieces?”

               Jain glared at her, but nodded and told her to put it back together again.  Marie turned away and concentrated on reassembling the mech’s armor.  Above her, Sam tried explaining that she had it under control, but Jain just waved him off.  Thankfully, Marie had been nearly done before Jain had walked in.  After a half hour more work, she had the plates bolted back down as they’d been originally.  She looked up at Jain to see him still glowering at her, but there was a glint of approval in his eyes.

               “There, good as new,” she said.  “You want to fire her up?  Bet you a hundred C-bills the new laser starts up with no trouble.”

               Jain nodded, and stepped back as she rode the crane back up.  She climbed back onto the catwalk and followed him to Bessie’s head, where he climbed into the cockpit and dropped down into the command chair.  Marie climbed in behind him, squeezing into the tiny space behind the seat to look over his shoulder at the controls. 

               Like all battlemechs, Bessie’s cockpit was dominated by a massive control board with a sea of switches, buttons, indicator lights, and displays.  That control board lit up as Jain tapped in a long activation code.  Marie eyed him as he typed it in; it was testament to Bessie’s age that the mech still had an actual keypad with a numerical start-up code.  Most modern mechs had more complicated systems, ranging from retinal scans to the pilot’s own gestures, read through the control neurohelmet.

               Jain’s code did not start the mech’s fusion reactor, it only brought the systems up on backup power, useful for testing the subsystems.  One display lit up with the mech’s modest weapons loadout, displaying two medium lasers and a pair of machine guns.

               “Great,” Jain grumbled, throwing up his hands.  “It doesn’t register the main gun.  You think my buyer’s going to notice that?  You owe me a lot more than a hundred C-bills, girl.”

               “Give her a minute,” Marie protested.  “Bessie’s an old lady, she needs time to wake up.”

               Jain drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the command chair, while Marie did her best to look calm.  After an agonizing sixty seconds, the control board beeped, and the large laser appeared on the weapons loadout.

               Jain grunted and tapped on the displays, confirming the weapon was registered and powered.  “Not bad,” he grudgingly admitted.

               “It was hard to get that thing, you know.  Not many people use standard-range large lasers these days,” Marie said.  “And you’re lucky you moved the laser to a torso mount, the Lushann needs a lot of space.  But that laser will outlast the rest of the mech.”  She smirked at him.  “That’s a hundred C-bills you owe me.”

               Jain grunted again, but returned the smirk.  He switched the control board back off and the two of them stepped back out onto the catwalk.

               “OK, you got some mechtech chops, wondergirl,” Jain admitted.  “Bad news is I don’t have a hundred C-bills on me right now.”

               Marie stuck a cigarette between her lips and made a show of lighting it.  “Tell you what, get me an intro to your unit, and we’ll call it even.”

               That got another approving look from Jain.  “…I’ll see what I can do,” he said after a moment.  “I’m impressed.  Bessie needs a careful touch.  Think you can add some grease to the control board?” he asked with a tilt of his head towards the open hatch.  He pointed to one lever off on the side of the cockpit.  “The get-out-of-trouble lever’s been really sticky lately.”

               Marie gave him a condescending look.  “You can just call it the eject, no one will judge you.  What do you need that for, anyway?  I thought you had some sucker ready to buy this museum piece.”

               Jain gave her an annoyed look at that.  “There’s plenty of buyers who want museum pieces,” he said.  “And collectors always need spare parts for their prize mechs.  So let’s make sure Bessie makes good spare parts, all right?”

               Marie’s response was cut off as Jain’s communicator beeped an alert.  “Hang on, that’s my CO,” he said, stepping away.

               The smirk still on her face, Marie backed away and turned around to walk back down the catwalk, to where she saw Sam and Bob standing near a radio.  She could hear the comm chatter running in the background.  At the sight of the intense looks on both of their faces, Marie furrowed her brow.  She took a drag on her cigarette and headed over to them.

               “Hey guys, what’s going on?” she asked.  Sam waved at her sharply, shushing her.

               “Something’s up,” Bob whispered.  “A lot of activity out by New Fordville.”

               Marie’s lips tightened at the name; New Fordville Archipelago City was the effective capital of Huntington, and it was barely five klicks from the mech bay.  The rented townhouse she shared with her mother was on the outskirts.  She moved closer to the radio to hear the chatter.  She quickly heard that Bob had been understating things: the radio was talking about battlemechs on the move out near the city.  The planetary defense force had moved to block them, and the mechs had opened fire. 

               After a tense few minutes of listening to battle reports and calls for reinforcements, Marie could not keep quiet any longer.  “What’s going on?” she asked.  “I hadn’t heard about any kind of attack.”  As though to punctuate her statement, she heard the low whump of an explosion off in the distance.

               “Maybe it’s just a practice operation?” Bob whispered unconvincingly.

               Sam was already zipping up his coveralls,.  “Something ain’t right,” he grumbled.  “All right, I need to check with HQ.  You two should check in, too.”

               “What?  What do they expect us to do?” Marie asked. 

               “Civilians are being evacuated to shelters,” Sam said.  “That includes you two.  I don’t know what’s going on here, but you kids need to get out, now.”

               Marie blinked, trying to think.  She self-consciously checked her wristcomp, seeing well over a dozen messages, all from her mother.

               A set of footsteps signaled Jain’s approach.  All three of them looked over at the mechwarrior as he stepped up to them on the catwalk.  Marie was sure she didn’t like the dark look in his eyes.

               “What’s happening?” Marie asked before anyone else could speak.  “Did your CO tell you anything?”

               “I need to go,” Jain said.  “Bessie’s ready to move out, right?”

               “Hang on, what’s going on out there?” Marie asked.

               “Nothing you need to know,” Jain answered quickly.  “Is my mech ready to move out?”

               All of them looked up at the crump of another explosion in the distance.  Marie, Sam, and Bob looked expectantly at Jain, who stepped back from them.

               “Look, just a minute,” Sam insisted, walking up and grabbing Jain’s shoulder.  “We’re all on the same side here.  You know something?  Is this some kind of attack, or what?”

               Jain grit his teeth and looked around the mech bay, emptied out now save for the four of them.  “Whatever,” he muttered.  Then he drew his sidearm, buried it in Sam’s chest, and pulled the trigger. 

               There was a flash and the hum of a laser amplifier.  Sam’s eyes went wide and he collapsed, clutching a smoking hole in his torso. 

               The cigarette fell out of Marie’s mouth.  She’d seen it happen, but her brain refused to process it.  Sam couldn’t be dying on the floor.  It’s impossible, she thought, even as Jain turned to aim the gun over at Bob.  Bob gasped, snapping out of his own shock a split-second before the laser fired again.  There was a hum of the weapon, a snap of superheated air, and Bob collapsed as well.

               Marie’s blood ran cold as Jain turned to point the gun towards her.

               “The mech’s still locked down!” she shouted.

               By some miracle, Jain hesitated.  “What?” he asked.

               Marie’s mind raced.  “So many people come through here, we have to make sure the mechs aren’t stolen, so we lock them down!  You need the code to unlock it or Bessie’s not going anywhere.”

               He stepped towards her.  “That’s ridiculous.  I’ve never heard of anyone doing that!”

               “Well we have a lot going on here, if you’d just put the gun down I’m sure I can – ”

               His arm lashed out faster than she could follow, grabbing her by the shoulder.  Jain pressed the gun to her temple, burning her skin under the hot barrel.  “You wasting my time with this girl?  You think I won’t hesitate to put you down?”

               Her mind was a blur.  She knew she had a few seconds at most to do something before he lost patience.  “Look, it’s – ” she began, then struck upwards, knocking his gun arm away from her. 

               He reacted immediately, tightening his hold on her with his other arm and drawing back to club her with the butt of his gun.  She moved by reflex, her self-defense training kicking in and grabbing his wrist as the gun came in.  He was stronger than her and still clocked her, but only enough to make the world spin instead of knocking her out.  She tightened her grip on his arm and made her next move before she could talk herself out it.

               She twisted, kicking off the ground with both legs and pushing herself over the catwalk railing.  With Jain’s hand still holding her shoulder tight and his other arm caught in her own grip, Marie’s weight dragged Jain over the edge with her.  He shouted in surprise as both of them went tumbling off into space.

               The next thing she felt was a sharp jolt as her safety harness went tight, squeezing the wind out of her.  Her hold on Jain’s arm went slack, and her eyes went wide as he lost his grip on her.  He had just enough time to shout in shock as the hardened ferrocrete floor came up at him.  Falling from the height of a battlemech’s head, there was only one possible outcome. 

               Marie swore she heard a crunch as his skull hit the floor.  He spasmed once and went still, a spreading pool of redness pouring out from his head.

               Marie stared down at the cooling corpse in shock, then was suddenly overcome as her insides twisted.  Her coffee came back up, puking out over the floor and onto Jain.  Once her stomach emptied she screamed, so loud her lungs burned and her throat went hoarse.  The sound echoed out over the empty mech bay and out into the distance, but if anyone heard it, they were nowhere to be seen.

               The safety harness felt like a vice crushing her lungs.  Normally she would rely on someone else to pull her up if she fell off the catwalk, but there was no one else left.  She was stuck hanging in midair over the body of the dead mechwarrior, with the sounds of explosions and fighting off in the distance and coming closer.  She couldn’t catch her breath, she had a disgusting taste in her mouth, and her vision was going blurry from the stress of it all.

               Her father had told her that she was a warrior at heart.  Anyone was allowed to panic when everything went crazy, he’d said.  But a true warrior always had some part in their mind that would know what to do.  She hadn’t really understood what that meant before.  Now, as her body was rebelling and her head was spinning, she could hear a voice in the back of her head calmly telling her – Climb up.  You have to get out of here, and the only way out is back on the catwalk.  Start climbing. 

               She managed to twist herself around, the safety harness letting her turn her body until she could get her hands around the rope attached to her.  She pulled herself up, grunting from the exertion.  The rope barely stretched two meters, but it felt like a thousand.  Her legs hung uselessly under her, feeling like a pair of lead weights strapped to her hips.  Her arms creaked with the effort, but with the strength of desperation and adrenaline she was able to lift herself up hand-over-hand, one centimeter at a time.  She finally managed to get her fingers onto the grated floor of the catwalk and pulled herself up with a loud groan of exertion. 

               She pulled her legs up onto the catwalk with her and collapsed, rolling over onto her back.  Her breath came in rapid, panicked gasps; the safety harness had loosened, but it still felt like a mech was standing on her chest.  She swallowed and tried to focus, but she couldn’t catch her breath.  She caught a glimpse of Sam lying nearby, his eyes glassy and dead.  Her stomach gurgled in response and she coughed out another mouthful of bile.  Tears streamed down her face, and she sobbed, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around her head, trying to block it all out. 

               Breathe, that voice in her head whispered to her.  Just breathe.  Think later.  You need to move.  Get. Up.

               Somehow it was enough.  Her breathing slowed, and she was able to open her eyes.  Wiping off her face, she got up on all fours and finally got her feet under her.  She stood up shakily, for once thankful for the steadiness of her mechanical legs.

               “Okay…okay…” she whispered to herself.  She glimpsed Sam’s body again, and pointedly looked down at her feet.  She had to do something.  Sam had said civilians were being evacuated to shelters.  She could do that.  She just had to figure out where the nearest shelter was.

               She turned away from the bodies and tapped her wristcomp.  The screen winked back to life, and immediately started flashing with emergency alerts.  Battlemech attacks were popping up all over the place, and the planetary government was issuing a full-scale lockdown, with Rico’s Rangers trying to escort all civilians to safe locations.  There was no word on where they were being taken, though.  Then there were the messages from her mother.  Her hand trembling, Marie opened the most recent one.

               “Marie, I’m not angry.  Please, please pick up,” her mother’s recorded voice said.  “I don’t know what’s happening, but the Sirocco’s launching.  They won’t let me wait.  Please get to the spaceport.  I’ll stall them as long as I can, I promise I will be there.  Please be safe.  I love you.”

               Marie swallowed, her blood going cold again.  Something about her mother’s words made her hackles go up; it was the tone of someone who doesn’t expect to see you again, she realized.  Even worse, the spaceport was over forty kilometers away.

               She clenched her jaw and looked around herself.  She reached down to Sam’s motionless body and, doing her best not to look at him, she managed to tug his key ring off of his belt where he kept it.  Sam’s car might be out front somewhere.  One of these keys would start it…and then she’d just have to drive twenty klicks with explosions going off, crossing her fingers that no one would take a potshot at her in all the chaos. 

               Her eyes moved to the battlemechs.  Taking one of them was an option – she was trained in piloting them, they were at least as fast as Sam’s car, and they were heavily armored.  Even more importantly, they garnered a lot of respect.  The spaceport would be chaos right now.  The staff there might not have time for one scared girl, but everyone respected a battlemech that came stomping up to them.  So long as she made it clear she wasn’t there to cause trouble, anyway.

               She staggered to the control room at the center of the bay.  Sam’s keys disengaged the locks on the mechs for her and then opened a storage locker, where a heavy training neurohelmet waited for her.  It was what the mercenaries loaned out to the trainees they put in the Chameleons.  The thing was a bulky relic from the Succession Wars, awkward to wear and smelling of a dozen different users, but it was all she had to work with.  She put it under her arm and made her way back out to the catwalk.  Her eyes immediately fell on one of the Chameleons – they were what she’d trained on, after all.  She briefly considered the Warhammer, but threw the idea out, remembering what Sam had said about the mech needing to be flatbedded out.  Then her gaze drifted over to Bessie.  The Phoenix Hawk was right there…and she was suddenly without a pilot…

               She bit her lip and walked over to the mech.  Its cockpit lay open and waiting.  Her heart in her throat, she climbed inside and sat down on the command chair.  It smelled old, speaking of years of sweat and stress.  Jain’s neurohelmet was sitting on a shelf over the chair; she pulled it down and pitched it out the open hatch, then plugged her training helmet into the mech.  She settled the heavy helmet down over her head to rest on her shoulders.

               “Okay…” she whispered.  Except for the meager light coming in from the open hatch, it was dark in the cockpit; unlike many mechs Bessie’s cockpit was completely enclosed, and lacked an armored viewport.  As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Marie reached for the activation keypad.  She’d glimpsed Jain key the code in a couple times to test the electronics.  Normally a mechwarrior jealously guarded the activation code to his mech, but mechtechs were virtually invisible to them.  It was likely he hadn’t even noticed her snooping on him.  She held her breath and tapped in the code she remembered, and pressed the large green button that would initiate the fusion engine’s start-up.

               Her heart skipped a beat when one of the sub-screens lit up in front of her.  “New pilot detected.  Secondary verification required,” a computerized voice stated. 

               “Uh…” she stammered.  Of course it couldn’t be that easy.  The ‘Mech had a second layer of security requiring a vocal key.  “Um…prompt.”

               “Prompt requested.  As far as I’ve heard.”

               “As far as what?” she asked aloud before she could stop herself.  A buzzing alarm sounded in response.

               “Incorrect,” the voice answered.  “One attempt remaining.  As far as I’ve heard.”

               She swallowed.  The next words she said had to be the right answer, or the mech’s computers would lock out – it could take hours to restore a locked out mech, and that was if you were lucky.

               Unfortunately, she didn’t know this part.  The one time she’d seen Jain power up Bessie’s reactor, she hadn’t been able to hear his secondary passphrase over the noise of the mech bay.  She swallowed again and took a guess.

               “As far as I’ve heard, the fight’s still on.  The line’s not cut and the whale’s not gone.  The Wellerman makes his regular call to encourage the captain crew and all.”

               She was not a singer, and her voice cracked as she tunelessly said the song’s words.  She didn’t know where it was from.  All she knew is she’d heard Jain whistling the tune once, and on a whim she’d looked up the lyrics.  She thought, bitterly, that she’d meant to ask him what a whale was, and what was so important about it.

               Bessie was silent for several seconds, enough that Marie felt her heart drop.  In a moment of panic, she wondered if Jain had rigged Bessie with the so-called “security measures” programmed to fry the brain cells of a would-be hijacker through their neurohelmet.  She frantically grabbed at her helmet, trying to pull its bulk off of her when the computer voice spoke up.

               “Soon may the Wellerman come,” the computer said.  “Welcome aboard, mechwarrior.”

               Screens lit up around her, signaling the beginning of start-up sequence.  The mech’s fusion engine was powering up.  Marie watched, barely able to believe her eyes, as it cycled through its activation phases.  After a moment she remembered her training, and set about going through the activation checklist, checking the engine readouts and sensor calibrations.  She also picked up the cooling vest from next to the command chair, and pulled it on over her chest.  Mechs tended to run hot, and pilots could easily find themselves cooking in an oven of a cockpit if they weren’t careful.  The cooling vest could turn the heat into something barely tolerable.  After tugging the vest on over her shoulders, she strapped herself into the command chair.

               She had just finished strapping herself in when there came a humming through the floor of the cockpit, and the main viewscreen lit up, displaying a view of the mech bay through Bessie’s external cameras.  The small display screen in her neurohelmet lit up as well, providing a Head’s-Up Display just on the edge of her vision.

               “Reactor online.  Sensors online.  Weapons online.  All systems nominal,” the computer voice announced.

               Marie stared at the displays, barely able to accept that it was working.  She tentatively put her hands on the control sticks. 

               “Okay.  I can do this.  I can do this,” she whispered, and touched the throttle.  “I can…”

               She grit her teeth as the mech took a step, its foot hitting the ground hard.  She was suddenly overcome with vertigo as the mech’s gyroscope tried to synchronize with her own sense of balance through the neurohelmet.  She grunted and wrestled with the controls as the mech took another step.  Realizing she was headed straight for a wall, she fumbled with controls – while a Chameleon had one simple control stick dead-center, Bessie had a left and a right stick, each presumably with their own functions.  A natural southpaw, she pushed the left stick, and the mech’s left arm swung out, crashing into the gantry hard enough to shake the whole mech bay.  Grinding her teeth and cursing, she corrected herself and tried the right stick.  This time the mech ponderously began to turn in place until it faced the exit.

               “All right.  I can do this…” she repeated, and pushed the throttle up.  The mech stomped its way out of the mech bay, and out into the world beyond.

               As soon as Bessie cleared the ‘Mech bay her radio lit up, flooding Marie’s ears with comm chatter.  An attack on the southern front.  Calls for reinforcements.  Warnings of incoming flights of aerofighters.  Demands to know what was going on.  Everywhere it was a mess.  After a few minutes she managed to find the controls for the radio. 

               “This is…this is mechwarrior McCloud,” she announced after opening a line to the general channel.  “Reporting a strike on the satellite ‘Mech bay outside New Fordville.  I’ve…the situation’s been contained, but there’s casualties out there.  I’m heading for the spaceport.”

               She heard an acknowledgement somewhere in the chatter.  “Copy that McCloud, report to spaceport asap for deployment.”

               It registered in her mind that they didn’t ask what she meant by ‘strike on the ‘Mech bay,’ or even who she was.   That spoke of serious chaos in the chain of command that they didn’t want those kinds of details.  Still, she numbly turned Bessie in the general direction of the spaceport and pushed the throttle up to maximum.  The ‘Mech accelerated, its lumbering gait smoothing out and morphing over to a jog.  She sensed the ‘Mech’s balance, steadying under her as the gyroscope finally synchronized with her.  She kept her eye on the viewscreen showing the view straight ahead of her.  Other viewscreens to the sides would have shown other angles, but the heavy neurohelmet kept her from turning her head.  The HUD in her neurohelmet compensated by showing a secondary display at the edge of her vision, compressing a 360 view around the ‘Mech into a 160 degree view she could see all at once.

               So far she was just running over fields and low hills.  She knew she didn’t have to look out for every terrain detail; Bessie’s Diagnostic Interpretation computer was reading all the sensor feeds and her own brainwaves and adjusting the ‘Mech’s stride to avoid tripping as she ran at top speed.  Marie knew her job was just to keep the ‘Mech pointed in the right direction, and trust the machine to get her there.

               She kept checking the speedometer as she ran.  It kept adjusting as she went up and down the hills, but it never got above 90 kph.  Her brow furrowed at that; Phoenix Hawks were supposed to be light on their feet, able to keep up with ‘Mechs half their weight.  Even an old one should be able to manage almost 100 kph.  She guessed maybe a leg actuator was acting up.  It wasn’t like Jain had let her have a real look at the ‘Mech, after all.  Her eyes flickered over to the weapons display, seeing the trio of lasers and a pair of machine guns, and not much else.  That sort of light loadout matched an older-model Phoenix Hawk, at least.  It was also a weaker armament than a standard Chameleon.

               “So I stole the slow mech with fewer guns, good for me,” she muttered.

               She could still taste the bile in her mouth.  The image of Jain’s body on the ground threatened to come up, but she pushed it back down, and kept moving towards the spaceport.  Everything was going smoothly, but the radio chatter made it very clear that fighting was going on, and coming closer.  She glanced at the squashed view in her neurohelmet’s display to see the flashes of explosions off to the side, each flash followed by a delayed whump. 

               She felt a growing frustration in her chest at all of it – here was what she’d been training for, piloting an actual battlemech out of the bay without a training officer barking in her ear.  But despite being in one of the deadliest combat machines ever made, all she could think to do was a full retreat.  Her hands were white-knuckling the controls and her heart was in her throat as she struggled to keep the machine under control and hope that whatever was going on out there, no one would try to take a shot at her.

               She barely even knew where the controls were in the mech.  She had thought most battlemechs would have the same control scheme, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case.  It wasn’t just the extra control stick; everything in Bessie’s cockpit, from the displays to the triggers to the controls for all the subsystems, were all in different places from the Chameleon.  Even the command chair itself was a different shape, squeezing tightly on her hips and shoulders to hold her in place.  She had no idea how Jain had put up with it; she was smaller than him, and it still felt like the mech was clamped onto her.

               After half an hour she knew she was getting close to the spaceport.  She could see the firey plume of a dropship’s engines from a kilometer away, carrying the ship up into the sky.  Praying that she hadn’t just missed her ride, she pushed on the throttle again to make sure it was at maximum, all the while grinding her teeth at the agonizingly slow speed at which she was moving.

               As she came up to the spaceport the control board started lighting up with alerts, and an alarm started blaring that someone had locked missiles onto her.  Marie’s breath caught as she heard an insistent voice over the commline:

               “Unknown battlemech approaching southern spaceport entrance, identify yourself immediately!” the voice demanded. 

               She hastily throttled down to a stop.  “Hold your fire!” she sent back.  “I’m a civilian!  My name is Marie McCloud, I’m just trying to drop this thing off.”

“McCloud?” the voice asked.  “…Wait, Marie?  Is that you?”

               Her brow furrowed.  “Billy?  Billy Adamson?” she asked, remembering the voice of another young man she’d met around the mech bay.

               “Yeah, hi,” he replied.  “What are you doing?”

               “I told you, I’m just trying to drop this thing off.  I needed to get to the dropships.  Can you tell your guys to take their guns off me?”

               “They’re tracking your IFF, it says that ‘Mech is a hostile.”

               Marie swallowed.  “Yeah, about that…” she muttered.  “Look, it’s a mistake.  Just give me a minute here…”

               She searched the control board for almost a full minute, fumbling with switches until she found the one that controlled the ‘Mech’s IFF.  The Identify Friend or Foe signal functioned as a digital uniform for the ‘Mech, letting everyone around it know what it was and which side it was on.  She played with the controls for another minute before she managed to change the frequency to one for the planetary defense force.  A few seconds later, the alerts around the cockpit faded.

               “All right Billy, I’m coming in,” she said as she pushed the ‘Mech back into motion.

               The spaceport came into view as Bessie lumbered over a hill.  Marie’s chest tightened at what she saw – the whole place was in a state of barely-controlled chaos, with uniformed staff running around the tarmac and military vehicles racing by.  Marie spotted a bus that had parked on the edge of the spaceport and was disgorging civilians holding bags and crying children.  They formed a mob that was barely being contained as red-faced personnel tried to direct them in one direction or another. 

In the middle of all this, Bessie’s arrival garnered attention.  Some of the civilians screamed and pointed up at the battlemech, trying to get away while military personnel pushed them back into line.  Far behind them, a small group of battlemechs waiting outside of a Union dropship were watching her very carefully.  They might not have been actively locked onto her anymore, but their guns were all pointed in her direction.

“How’d you end up in that thing?” Billy asked her over the commline.

               “It was available and I needed a ride,” she bit out.  “What the hell is happening out here?  Is someone invading?”

               She heard him groan.  She got the feeling he’d been asked that question entirely too many times already. 

               “The Hudson’s Hammers attacked us,” Billy explained.  “Sneak attack on multiple fronts.  We’re trying to hold them off.”

               Marie felt a chill at that.  Hudson’s Hammers might not be the biggest mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere, but the Rangers’ garrison had been in the middle of being disassembled and packed onto dropships.  If the incoming mercenaries had pulled a surprise attack, the Rangers were in a bad place to respond from.

               “All Ranger units have been asked to report in,” Billy answered, sounding frustrated.  “A lot of them aren’t answering.  Everyone who’s available is trying to coordinate a defense.”

               Marie nodded to herself at that.  She could only imagine what it was like in the spaceport control tower right now.  “Look Billy, where can I leave this ‘Mech?  She’s not even mine, I just wanted to get here.  Where’s the Sirocco?  She’s a Leopard class ship, looks like a big slab of rust?”

               “You’re leaving too?” Billy asked, sounding defeated.  He sighed again.  “Sorry, all ships that were cleared to leave the planet have taken off.  Looks like the Sirocco departed fifteen minutes ago.”

               Marie blinked.  “They left me behind?” she asked, disbelieving.  “They can’t do that!  What am I supposed to do now?!”

               “Sorry Marie, I don’t know,” Billy answered.  “The most I can tell you is to take that ‘Mech to the Federalist.  The Rangers are loading her up to deploy a response team to the southern continent, it looks like things are going pretty bad there.”

               Marie groaned.  “I don’t want to take this thing into combat, Billy.”

               “And I don’t have any space for a battlemech out here.  Sorry Marie, it’s the best I can do.  Get that thing on the ship, the Rangers should take care of it for you.”

               Marie cursed under her breath and killed the connection.  Her head was throbbing with stress as she tried to process what she’d just heard.  She couldn’t get over the frustration of missing the Sirocco’s takeoff.  If she’d managed to steal a faster ‘Mech she might have made it in time to be on the ship.  Now she was just left swinging in the breeze.  “Piece of junk,” she muttered, punching the control board.

               Billy relayed orders to the ground crew, and the ‘Mechs seemed to relax slightly, moving their guns off of her.  Before long a flag man appeared gesturing her towards the Federalist, the ball-shaped Union dropship that the other ‘Mechs had been lined up in front of.  Officers stopped the flow of civilians so Bessie could move past.  Marie felt a little self-conscious under the stares of so many people.  She could see many of the soldiers looking at her suspiciously, like she was a wild animal being escorted through the crowd.  She imagined it wasn’t putting anyone at ease that Bessie was painted the colors of the Hudson’s Hammers.

               The Federalist’s engines were already firing up by the time Bessie made it over to the ship.  The flag man gestured her up the main ramp into the ship, right behind three of the other mechs.  She maneuvered behind them, hoping Bessie’s movements didn’t give away how shaky she was.  She could practically feel all the other mechwarriors’ eyes on her.

               She started when she got an incoming tight-beam communications message.  Fumbling with the control board for a moment, she found the controls to receive it.

               “Might want to zip up your fly,” a gruff voice said to her.  In response to Marie’s confused silence, he elaborated.  “Getting a little drafty in there, buddy?”

               Marie blinked, only then noticing the gentle breeze on her arms.  She struggled with her neurohelmet for a few seconds, finally hefting its bulk off of her shoulders so she could turn to look behind herself and finally see that the cockpit hatch was still wide open.  In all the excitement she hadn’t even noticed the breeze blowing in from it. 

               She unstrapped herself and crawled around to the back of the cockpit to pull the hatch closed, feeling the burn of embarrassment in her cheeks as she did so.  She wondered how many of the other mechwarriors had been watching her with her proverbial “fly” open.

               By the time she’d gotten back to the command chair the other ‘Mechs had already advanced into the Federalist, and the flag man was waving insistently for her to follow them in.  She hastily strapped herself back in and lifted the neurohelmet back on.  

               Bessie lumbered up the main loading ramp, trailing behind the other ‘Mechs as they were split up between the dozen cubicles lining the bottom level of the dropship.  Marie stared nervously at the lower camera views as she moved, watching the techs and other dropship personnel running around on the ground.  They were staying clear of the massive battlemechs’ feet, but only just barely.  She was staring so closely at the crowds that she almost didn’t see the flag man gesturing her off to ‘Mech cubicle 7.  She blinked sweat out of her eyes and turned Bessie, managing to back the ‘Mech into position.  Once she was in the cubicle, large clamps swung into place, locking onto Bessie’s torso and holding her steady.

               “Prep for liftoff,” a flat voice alerted her over the commline almost immediately.  “All crew, all crew, prep for liftoff.”

               “Right now?” Marie asked to the empty cockpit.  “Wait, I have to get off!” she protested.  Her eyes flickered up to the entry door, trying to catch a glimpse of the crowds of civilians still outside.  She barely got a look though, as the huge ramp was swinging up to seal the ship off from the outside.  Frantically she hit the comm transmit button.

               “This is a mistake!  I just want to leave!” she protested.

               “Yes, the con tower let us know.  Sorry McCloud, no time.  Strap in, we’ll take care of you when we land.”

               She groaned and looked back to the viewscreen, seeing the men and women moving to strap themselves into crash harnesses as the ship’s engines became noticeably louder.  She reached for the controls, about to switch off the reactor and get out, but then she looked up at the other mechs.  Each mechwarrior was still strapped in, using their cockpit as a crash harness for takeoff.  As she flickered between the various sensor displays, she saw that each of the other mechs onboard was keeping its reactor hot, ready to move at a moment’s notice.  She hesitantly took her hand away from the reactor controls.  She doubted she be staying in this ‘Mech much longer, and once she got out she would go back to being a part-time tech and dropship crew.  She might as well enjoy the feeling of piloting it for a few more minutes.

               The world lurched and she caught herself on the arm of the command chair.  A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as dropship’s engines came to life under her, lifting the three-thousand-ton ship off the ground.  She’d been in countless takeoffs, and they were still stressful to go through.  The ship shuddered around her and she was pushed into her command chair by the acceleration.  She looked at the crew again, seeing the nervous glances between so many of them.  She focused on her breathing as the dropship lifted into the air.  The ship shook abruptly, feeling like it had hit something.  Or if something had hit it…

               “No, it’s fine,” she whispered to herself.  “She’s an old ship, the engine’s just out of alignment…”

               She felt her weight shift, and saw everything not locked down in the hangar bay begin sliding across the floor.  The ship had begun to tilt, she realized.

               “Just getting the best escape vector,” she said weakly.  She had a hard time believing herself as another round of vibrations resonated through the ship.  When another, more intense shake came, enough to throw her against the webbing of her command chair, she knew something was wrong.

               “All crew, brace for emergency maneuvers,” a voice signaled over the radio.  It had a military coolness to it, but she was still sure she could hear tension in the voice.  “Drive 1 has failed.  Repeat, Drive 1 has failed.  Brace for emergency maneuvers.”

               “Emergency maneuvers?” she asked aloud.  “What the hell is – ”

               Her answer came as the ship tilted dramatically.  She could feel the gyro whirling underneath her as Bessie tried to keep her balance.  If not for the clamps holding the ‘Mech steady, it almost certainly would have fallen on its face.

               A sinking pit in Marie’s stomach and a lightness in her limbs signaled that they were losing altitude.  No, they were falling.  As another horrible tremor ripped through the ship, she gripped on the sides of her command chair, holding on for dear life.  Her radio squawked in her ear with a different voice.

               “Emergency offload.  Repeat, emergency offload.  All mechwarriors, signal if your ‘Mech has jump capability,” the voice said.  This one was almost eerily calm.  The calm of someone who knew they were about to die?  Marie had no way to be sure.

               “Uh…this is McCloud in bay 7.  I can jump,” Marie answered.  She realized what was happening a split-second after the words had left her mouth: Emergency offload meant the dropship had to try to shed as much weight as it could to regain control.  And on a military dropship like the Federalist, battlemechs made up a lot of weight. 

                “N-no, wait!” she protested.

               Unfortunately, her protest came too late as the orbital drop doors opened under her mech’s feet.  Loose equipment and boxes went tumbling out into the sky.  “Godspeed,” the calm voice said, and the clamps released her ‘Mech.  Before Marie could do anything to stop it, Bessie had plummeted out the open door and into the sky.

 

*End of Chapter 1*

Thanks for reading!

Battletech and Mechwarrior are the property of Catalyst Game Labs.

Rachel McCloud and the Bristol are creations of James Long, who among other things wrote Main Event and DRT for the Battletech universe.

Character art for Marie McCloud provided by @Manifestopheles on Twitter.

Audio version of this story is available at https://lucendacier.podbean.com/ 

Audio with images is available on Youtube.

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