Chapter 2

               Middle Atmosphere

               Huntington

               Free Worlds League

               28 January 3077              

               A scream found its way out of Marie’s mouth a second after she cleared the dropship.  She was overcome with vertigo as the viewscreen whirled in front of her.  Bessie was tumbling as she fell.  The ground was simultaneously so far away and yet far too close as she realized how fast the ‘Mech must be falling.  She also briefly saw the Federalist, pulling away under thrust from only one of her three engines now, the other two belching smoke.

               Her mind froze.  So much of this was wrong.  This couldn’t be happening.  She should be back at the ‘Mech bay avoiding her mom, putting in her time, and waiting for someone important to notice her.  There was no way she was sitting in a stolen battlemech that had just been ejected out of a dying dropship.  And yet, even as the display whirled and the computers screamed alerts at her and her mind tried to deny what she was seeing, that calm voice in the back of her head spoke up again: jump jet tabs near the foot pedals.

               Without hesitation she mashed the tabs with her toes, and was rewarded with a roaring sound as the massive thrusters on Bessie’s back came to life, spitting fire.  In an ordinary drop, it might have helped slow her descent.  But being unceremoniously spat out of a damaged ship had left Bessie spinning, so the brief burst of the jump jets really just whipped the ‘Mech around that much faster.  Marie’s stomach lurched, and if there’d been anything left it in, she would have thrown up into her neurohelmet.

               That voice in the back of her head was still going.  OK, so the jump jets aren’t going to help.  You need a backup plan.  Think.  What do you have?

               Her eyes frantically swept over the labyrinthine control board.  The weapons?  No, Bessie had an almost all-laser arsenal.  The recoil from those things wouldn’t push a wheelbarrow, let alone control the fall of a massive battle machine.  Could she move the limbs to stop the spin, get herself under control and try the jets again?  She barely knew where the arm controls were, let alone what motions would save her.  The eject, then?  But where was it?  Out of all the dozens of controls, why wouldn’t battlemechs all have the goddamn eject in the same place?

               Her eyes fell on that lever to the side.  “Get-out-of-trouble lever,” she whispered, and reached for it.

               “This is McCloud,” she said into her radio, not even knowing who was listening.  “Punching out!”

               She pulled the lever, only to find it didn’t budge.  Either with age or rust, it was stuck in place.  Her eyes wet, she screamed in frustration and pulled with all her strength.  This time the lever heavily slid down to a positive ‘click.’

               She quickly took her hand off the lever and gripped onto the command chair, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.  At this speed, would ejection even save her?  Would she just go spinning into the ground, this time without an armored cocoon around her?

               She didn’t have to worry about that, as she became distinctly aware she was not being launched out of the cockpit.  The mech shuddered around her, and she had a brief heart-stopping moment of thinking that something had gone wrong and the ejection system was about to explode under her.  Her eyes popped open when she felt something about her fall was changing.

               She looked at the displays, seeing the ‘Mech’s dizzying spin was slowing down.  Her sense of balance was thrown off, and she realized her perspective was changing.  Now instead of a clear view out the cockpit she found herself looking down a triangular nose cone in front of her, and massive panels were swinging up on either side of the cockpit.  In the sheer insanity of the moment, she could only think of one thing as the panels came up on either side, moving up to interlock with the nose cone.

               “Wings…” she said breathlessly.  “Wh…what the hell?”

               “Airmech conversion completed,” the computer’s voice announced as the wings and nosecone locked into place with a thunk that vibrated through the cockpit.

               She didn’t have time to think, as she was still falling.  The wings had added control surfaces which had stopped her spinning.  Unfortunately, she was still pointed straight at the ground, and the altitude alert had started blaring.

               “Pull up…pull up…pull up…” the computer warned.

               “I’m trying!!  Which one’s the stick?!” she screamed at it.  Not having time for guesses, she pulled back hard on both control sticks.  With a lurch Bessie’s nose started to lift up, but then it slowed and started to dip back towards the ground.

               “No.  No no no no no, I need…” she whispered, her mind whirling.  “I need more thrust!” she shouted, slamming her feet back on the jump jet tabs. 

               With a roar, the jets kicked back in.  Marie was pushed back in her seat, her eyes widening as she instinctively pulled back on the control sticks as hard as she could.

               Bessie’s nose lifted.  The altitude alert increased to a critical pitch, and the ground was so close that it filled her viewscreen.  Then the ground slid away, swinging underneath her and disappearing, until the sky was all she saw.

               An ecstatic yell escaped her throat as she pulled away.  Her instincts kicked in and made her level off Bessie’s flight before she stalled.  Under her the jump jets hit their limit and sputtered out, reminding her that she was far from safe.  She bit her lip, looking around the cockpit again.  If the joysticks were controlling her flight path, then…

               She gingerly nudged the throttle lever forward, and was rewarded with a dull rumbling through the cockpit walls.  She pushed it up further, feeling a gentle push as the engine came up to full speed. 

               “OK, the jump jets are the afterburners.  Good to know,” she breathlessly muttered to herself.  Her head was spinning as she realized she’d just hit the afterburners while on an uncontrolled dive.  That went beyond stupid; she was lucky she hadn’t made a ‘Mech-shaped crater in the ground.

               ‘Mech…or whatever the hell Bessie was.  Marie looked around herself through the various displays.  Bessie’s upper half had converted somehow, becoming a triangular-shaped fighter craft.  A quick glance at the rest of the control console showed that was only half the story.  A status screen showing a wire frame image of the ‘Mech had changed, going from a humanoid shape to a ‘Mech-fighter hybrid.  She could see the ‘Mech’s arms and legs were still attached, hanging underneath the wings.  They were curled up for aerodynamics, but she could see the hands, feet, and weapon ports all there.  Frankly to her it looked like an aerofighter had decapitated a statue and then landed on its shoulders. 

               The sight made her start uncontrollably laughing, so hard that tears came to her eyes.  She was overcome with both the elation of surviving and with the sheer ridiculousness of it all.  The ‘Mech had transformed to save her?  Not that she was complaining, but what the hell?

               She fumbled with the control sticks for a moment, finding the right one was controlling her flight.  She was still getting used to the feel of it when the radio started chirping in her ear – things had not calmed down in the minutes since the Federalist had taken off.  If anything, the lights of fires and explosions in the distance seemed closer and more intense.  She swallowed, realizing that whatever had shot the Federalist down was still in the area, and she was giving it another airborne target right now.

               “Billy?  Billy, are you there?” she asked over the commline.  “This is McCloud.  The Federalist just got shot down, I’m in the wind here!”

               There was a pause.  “…arie?”  Billy finally responded, his voice clouded by static.  “Marie, they hit the spaceport!”

               “They hit the…” Marie began to respond.  “What’s happening?  Did anyone else get out?”

               “N…no, they grounded the other ships!  Billy sent back.  “Get out of here, Marie!  They’re firing agai – “ he was abruptly cut off by a sharp static hiss. 

               “Billy?” she asked, and looked apprehensively up at the display, where she could see the spaceport in the distance.  It was dotted with the orange-and-red blossoms of explosions, the buildings and dropships disappearing under a cloud of thick black smoke pouring up into the sky.

               “Billy?” she asked again, more weakly.  Then the voice in her head told her to get moving again.  She closed her eyes, forced her mind clear, and tightened her grip on the stick. 

               “Back to plan A,” she muttered, opening her eyes again.  She looked back to the commline controls and changed the channel to one she knew by heart.  “Sirocco, dropship Sirocco, this is McCloud.  Repeat, this is Marie McCloud.  What is your position?”

               There was a pause before a voice answered, sounding distant.  “McCloud, we can’t help you.  We’ve already taken off, we’re about to enter orbit.”

               “I know that!  Listen, do you have any room left on board?”

               “Negative, we have a full load.  Take it up with planetary command if you need extraction, we cannot help you.”

               “Sirocco, the spaceport just got bombed, I don’t know how long I’ve got before…look, I need some kind of help here.  Do you…do you have an aerofighter slot open?”

               “Say again?”

               “I’m on your crew, I know you’ve got an aerofighter bay!” she snapped at the other side.  “Tell me it’s empty!”

               “…Hold on…”

               “Yeah, hold on…” she muttered.  She knew the Sirocco had had one of its aerospace fighter bays refit as cargo storage.  The other one was technically functional, but usually got packed full of spare cargo anyway.  She prayed they hadn’t had time to fill it up in their haste to leave.

               She eyed the get-out-of-trouble lever she’d pulled earlier.  She noticed now that she’d only moved it halfway down its travel slide, from the very top to the first notch.  A second notch was waiting at the bottom, with a faded emblem next to it, giving no hint of what it was.  But in its current position halfway down, Bessie kind of looked like she was stuck between a ‘Mech and an aerofighter…

               She grit her teeth.  “Stay with me, Bessie,” she whispered to the machine.  She grabbed the lever and pulled it again, down to the bottom notch.

               The cockpit shook around her.  Marie stopped breathing when she heard the engines cut off and the altitude began to drop, but she kept her hand steady on the lever and her eyes on the displays, not daring to even blink.  She watched as before her eyes the mech-fighter-thing split apart, opening up along seams she hadn’t noticed before to reveal impossibly intricate linkages holding the limbs and torso together.  She smiled as she saw her hunch had been right – the legs and arms of the mech were curling up, folding up into themselves.  The arms were tucked away underneath the wings with the guns pointed forward while the legs flipped back, locking into the fuselage between and underneath the paired dorsal thrusters.  Triangular panels extended from the legs, forming a V-shaped tail fin behind her cockpit.  A sense of nausea hit her as her neurohelmet struggled to adjust to the mech’s new form. 

               “Aerospace fighter conversion completed,” the computer announced as the seams closed up again and the craft’s hull became smooth and aerodynamic.  Through the dizziness she felt the engines come alive again, pouring out jets of fire behind her.  Marie pulled up, regaining control of her flight as the commline came back to life in her ear.

               “McCloud, we confirm there is one aerofighter bay free,” the Sirocco voice said.

               “Great, keep it open!  I’m headed towards you in a commandeered aero,” she answered.  “Give me your coordinates, I’ll be right there!”

 

                                             *             *             *

 

               Negotiating with the Sirocco communications officer took a bit of back-and-forth, as she tried to convince him that yes, a deckhand actually was flying an aerofighter.  The man had still had a tone of “I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it,” but he’d given her the coordinates to follow.  She knew it really hadn’t been much of a risk to him – normally announcing your location over the radio was an invitation to get attacked, but the Sirocco was on a hard burn from its fusion engines at the moment, making enough heat and noise that it could practically be seen from the ground with the naked eye.  Stealth was not an option for the Leopard dropship, at least for the moment.

               She had hit the throttle up to top speed – it still worked the same, even with the ‘Mech as dramatically changed as it was now.  Marie could tell Bessie wasn’t the fastest aerospace fighter, but she was still fast enough to close the distance on the Sirocco.  After a few minutes of hard acceleration, the dropship appeared on her radar.

               Unfortunately, at the same time a new pair of blips appeared on her radar.  Her eyes flickered up to the viewscreen, seeing a pair of dots behind her, growing larger by the second.  After a moment her targeting computer managed to put a name to them – Sabre fighters. 

               Marie clenched her jaw.  According to their IFF signatures the Sabres were from the Hudson’s Hammers, and she could see they were closing in on her.  She waited a moment for them to try contacting her.  When no message came, she tried raising them on the commline herself, but they didn’t respond to any hails on the general open channels.  If anything, her efforts to get their attention just made them suspicious; she saw their exhaust plumes flashing brighter as they moved to close in on her.  Within a minute the lock-on alert blared.

               She broke out in a cold sweat.  The Sabres were individually smaller than Bessie, but they were also faster, and each was armed with an array of medium lasers that could make short work of her armor.  It didn’t help that there were two of them, not to mention the pilots actually knew what the hell they were doing.  Her simulator time was the only reason she’d even been able to keep Bessie in the air this long.  Actual combat was a whole different game, especially when the enemy was already behind her with their weapons locked on.  Marie hit the commline channel for the dropship.

               “Sirocco, this is McCloud.  I’ve got a pair of interceptors on my tail.  Requesting assistance!”

               “Negative, McCloud, we are on an exit trajectory.  Shake the tails before you try docking.”

               Her response was a long string of expletives.  Most of the Sirocco’s guns had been removed and the rest were obsolete, but it was still more than capable of defending itself.  It could shoot down Sabres as easily as swatting a couple flies.  She practically had the ship in sight, and it was telling her she was on her own.

               She slammed her feet on the jump jet tabs, hanging on for dear life as the afterburners fired and Bessie went even faster, rocketing up higher into the sky.  The altimeter rolled around and Bessie shook under the thrust, but the Sabres were still closing in steadily.  Marie yelped as she saw the wink of laser light from one of them, and an afterimage of a red beam shot past her, barely missing her engines.

               “Sirocco, please!  I’m outnumbered and outgunned over here!” she shouted into the radio.

               “Negative,” came the firm response.  “We cannot divert from our path…”  It sounded like there was more, but the line went dead.  Not that it mattered, since she had to quickly swing out of the way as the Sabres tried lining up another shot.  She was at the extreme edge of their lasers’ range at the moment, but it was like they could sense her desperation, and were taking potshots just to keep her off-balance.  They were getting closer by the second too; before long those lasers would start hitting.

               She checked the radar – she was closing on the Sirocco, but if she broke off to engage the Sabres, she might lose track of the dropship.  She still didn’t know where the fuel gauge for Bessie was, but she knew she didn’t have the fuel to fly all the way to a jump point on her own.  She needed a dropship to get out of here, and if she lost her ride, she’d be cut off from any other support.

               An idea hit her as she glanced at the altimeter.  The Sirocco was already at the altitude for a low orbit, and she was right behind it.  Ahead of her, the sky was changing color, going from blue to white, then the whiteness fading over to the broad, inky blackness of space.  She saw the altimeter change colors, indicating she had made it to the near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere.  She was depending solely on thrust to control her flight now. 

               The afterburners finally petered out and stopped to recharge, and still the Sabres were getting closer.  The laser blasts were peppering her, and she saw a few strike the wings, melting off armor, searching for the fighter’s internals.  The wire-frame of Bessie turned yellow in a few places.

               “I just fixed this!” she shouted at the Sabres.  She grabbed the throttle and pulled it back to zero.  The cockpit went eerily quiet as the buzz of the engines abruptly died.  She immediately pulled back on the control stick.

               In atmosphere, it wouldn’t have worked.  But once you hit vacuum the rules changed.  With her engines cut and no air to slow her down, Bessie kept hurtling along at the same speed she’d had under thrust.  As Marie pulled back on the stick the maneuvering thrusters pulled her around, smoothly and quickly rotating the fighter to face a hundred and eighty degrees around the other direction.

               Marie smiled a tight-lipped smile.  Now she was effectively flying backwards through space, and her guns were pointed straight at her pursuers.  Her eyes narrowing, she thumbed the buttons on the control stick.  A targeting reticule appeared dead-center of the viewscreen.

               Bessie’s lasers stabbed out at her pursuers, lancing around them as they weaved back and forth.  Marie clenched her jaw and kept shooting – as a minor mercy, Bessie’s laser weapons were pretty easy to use, even for a rookie. 

               Now they were trading fire, her trio of lasers crossing the combined six lasers of her pursuers.  The cockpit started getting hot under the continuous weapons fire.  Marie blinked the sweat out of her eyes and quietly prayed the ‘Mech would hold together.  She noted with some grim satisfaction that the new Lushann laser was working perfectly up to spec.

               One laser, then another from her pursuers struck Bessie, carving more armor out of her flanks.  Don’t panic, it’s hitting fresh armor, the calm voice in her head whispered.  She concentrated on breathing and firing again and again, as fast as the guns would cycle.  The Sabres kept closing in, realizing their best bet was to get within optimum range of their medium lasers.  Of course, that also brought them closer to Bessie’s lasers, which turned out to be a bad gamble on their part.  Finally Marie managed to line up the large laser with one of them, hitting it right as it tried to roll out of the way.  The powerful beam of coruscating light sawed through the Sabre’s wing and its rear fuselage.  Its fusion jet sputtered and died, and the aerofighter started falling away.  At the same time, the other Sabre hit her with all three of its lasers.  Marie winced, warning lights flashing across her control board and the wire frame turning yellow practically everywhere. 

               “All right, how about you…” she muttered, leaning on the stick and forcing Bessie to turn sideways, bringing the targeting reticule towards the remaining fighter.  She swore she could see its lasers glowing as they prepared to fire again.

               Before she could her own shot lined up, the azure beam of a PPC lanced past her, streaking over the distance in an eyeblink and slamming into the Sabre.  Before Marie could even see where the shot had come from, another PPC followed up, hitting the Sabre dead-center.  The aerofighter imploded under the concerted attack, melting before her eyes as she blinked away afterimages of the man-made lightning.

               In her viewscreen she could see a dark shape behind her.  She could see how Leopards got their nicknames as “flying bricks.”  It really did look like a big black brick behind her, albeit one riding on a fusion torch.

               “This is Sirocco,” an annoyed voice said in her ear.  “I really hope that’s you, McCloud.  Now get your ass to fighter bay Charlie.”

               “Y…yes,” she answered.  “Copy.  Thank you.  Copy.”

               With shaking hands she turned Bessie back around to face the dropship.  As the distance closed, she saw the Sirocco still looked like a rusted-out piece of scrap.  The sight of the familiar junky ship made her sag in relief. 

               Marie feathered the throttle as she approached.  Now it was more like a simulator, which was good because she felt like she was disconnected, her body going through the motions while she just numbly watched.  The Sirocco cut its engine for a minute, stopping its acceleration long enough for her to come up alongside it, carefully matching her speed and vector with the dropship’s.  Then with delicate movements of the thrusters, she moved Bessie around to fighter bay Charlie, its doors opening up near the nose of the ship. 

               She lined up and backed in.  Bessie was a big machine, but only middling size as aerofighters went, meaning the standard aero bay was easily big enough to admit her.  Marie watched as the mouth of the bay grew larger in her screen, eventually swallowing her up until she was inside.  The large armored bay door closed up behind her.

               “Confirm docking,” a voice said in her ear.

               She numbly reached for what she hoped was the landing gear lever and pulled it.  A screeching noise of metal-on-metal brought her back to full awareness.  Checking the board, she saw that the front landing gear had jammed.

               “Sirocco, hold on, I’m having some trouble with my – ”

               “She’s in, resume acceleration,” a voice said in the background.

               “N-no, wait!” she protested, but it was too late.  The Sirocco’s engines flared back to life, and the ship resumed its acceleration.  The effect was as though gravity suddenly returned to the bay.  Bessie – all 50 tons of her – fell to the bay floor.  Marie had managed to touch down on the back wheels already, but without a front landing gear the nose of the craft smashed into the floor of the dropship, hard enough to rattle Marie’s teeth in her skull.

               “Goddammit,” she muttered.  Her eyes flickered back to the status screen, seeing a lot more warning lights winking on.

               Around her, the aerofighter bay was repressurizing.  A second door behind her opened, and a handful of men came in.  Most of them were wearing crew jumpsuits, but they were led by one man in full combat armor.  Before she could even think about what was happening, the lead man’s voice was squawking in her ear.

               “Aerofighter pilot, power down your reactor.  Now.”  It was a strong, authoritative voice.  It was a voice that didn’t need to add an “or else.” 

               Marie looked at the screens, seeing the man pointing a laser rifle at her cockpit.  On its own it wasn’t a threat to battlemech armor, but the message was clear all the same.  Without a word she powered down the reactor.  The computers and displays switched off one by one, leaving her in the dim lighting of the indicator lights that ran on backup power.

               “Step out of the cockpit and surrender, or we will cut you out of there,” the authoritative voice ordered.

               “All right, all right, I’m coming,” she answered.  She pulled off the neurohelmet and put it up on the shelf above the command chair, and managed to shrug out of the cooling vest.  She ran a hand through her hair and typed a few commands on the control board, locking down the fighter and powering it down completely.

               “Good girl,” she whispered, patting the arm of the command chair as the screens switched off.  “Thank you.”

               Then, taking a breath and steeling herself, she opened up the hatch in the back of the cockpit and climbed out.  A minute later she was in handcuffs and being led to the bridge.

 

                                             *             *             *

 

               “How the hell did you put me in this place?”

               Marie had been led up to one of the small cabins near the bridge – under normal circumstances, it would have been crew quarters, but apparently it was open at the moment.  Marie wasn’t sure she wanted to know why – what little she’d seen of the dropship so far hinted at a rapid, frantic departure.  After leaving Bessie she had been led through the corridors of the ship up to the bridge, and she’d seen quite a few nervous-looking civilians, many of them clutching suitcases and duffel bags as though their lives depended on them.  There had been many questioning looks from the civilians, but the soldier escorting her down the halls had ushered her along before any questions could be asked.

               She had been brought to the bridge, where the red-faced captain had been waiting for her.  She’d only caught a glimpse of the bridge crew, but they had looked ragged, with a couple seats sitting noticeably empty.  The XO had had one hand bound up, which had made his salute a little awkward when the captain had told the man he had the bridge before he had half-led, half-dragged Marie to the cabin she was in now.  Where one more surprise had been waiting for her.

               “I have been captain of this boat for ten years, I have never in my life had anyone in my bridge crew be so openly insubordinate!” the captain was snapping.  His ire was not aimed at Marie, however, but at the other person who’d been in the cabin already: her mother, Rachel.

               Whereas the captain was livid and Marie was doing her best not to look like she was scared out of her mind, Rachel was stone-faced.  The most emotion she’d shown so far was a brief glance at Marie when she and the captain had walked into the room.  At the moment her hands were cuffed together, just like Marie’s.  Along with them was the soldier who’d brought her here.  He was still armored and armed, standing like a uniformed statue just inside the door.

               “I told you when I hired you, McCloud.  I don’t care that you were a captain of your own ship.  When you’re on my boat, you follow my orders.  This is a ship in an active combat situation!  I’m within my rights to have you executed as quickly as my XO can throw you out the airlock!”  Rachel’s face showed one more flicker of emotion, a single eyebrow twitching before resuming her emotionless mask.  “Or I would, if he still had two hands after that stunt!”  Marie glanced at her mother, but Rachel did not even look at her.  “What were you thinking, breaking his hand?!  And while we’re exiting planetary gravity under fire?!”

               Without waiting for a response, he turned his attention to Marie.  “And you!  What the hell was that?  Flying an unregistered aero up to intercept my boat?  What the hell were you thinking?  You were bringing enemy air cover with you!  You put everyone on this boat in danger doing that!”

               “The ship I was on – ” Marie began to protest. 

               “Not done,” the captain snapped, holding up a finger.  “You realize you’ve violated military protocol and everything you were trained to do, just so you could be on the ship with your mommy?  I’ve never seen anything so unprofessional!  Well I could say that, if I hadn’t had a bloody mutiny on my hands just a minute ago!”

               Marie clenched her fists as she felt her stomach sink.  Her mother had told her that on any boat under way ‘mutiny’ was a four-letter word, especially for the captain.  He wouldn’t say that unless it was unquestionably the case. 

               The captain took several deep breaths, seeming to deflate a little.  “All right, so what do you two have to say for yourselves?” he finally asked.

               Marie tried to open her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t form any words.  She tried swallowing, but her throat had closed up, it was so dry.  She coughed pitifully, struggling to get words out.  Her hands were shaking – part from fear, part from anger – and her mind was a whirling mess, unable to get a coherent thought together.  She was feeling oddly exposed, with both the captain and the unnamed soldier both staring at her.  Under the mechtech’s coveralls she was still wearing, goose bumps prickled out on her skin in the cold air of the dropship.

               “Captain,” Rachel said next to her.  Her mother’s voice was as calm as her expression.  “My daughter is a civilian, and was not part of any military unit.  She had no commanding officer to contact for orders when the attack started, and this ship is the one she works on.  She was originally supposed to be on board when we lifted off, remember.”

               “And she wasn’t,” the captain replied sharply, an edge of anger still in his voice.  “Yes, she works on my ship, so she knows my rules.  If you’re not on board when the boat takes off, you’re on your own.  And you know, both of you know that aerofighter pilots need to go up the chain of command.  You don’t get to just choose where you land your bird.”

               “In a combat situation those regulations don’t apply to civilians,” Rachel corrected.  “You know the situation was volatile and required her to make several decisions based on incomplete information.  The Sirocco was the only safe haven she had access to.”

               “That raises an interesting question,” the captain said, his voice steadier but no more calm.  “How the hell did one of my deckhands get in the cockpit of an aerospace fighter?  The computers can’t even figure out what model that thing is.”

               Marie coughed again.  With a sigh the captain turned to the soldier at the door.  The man pulled a bulb of water from his gear belt and wordlessly handed it to Marie.  She took the offered bulb with a nod and drank from it, finally getting some moisture back in her throat.  She took a moment to catch her breath and choose her words.  Given the captain’s state of mind right now, it probably wouldn’t help to tell him “I found a battlemech that transformed into a jet while in free-fall.”  Even she didn’t fully believe it.

               “I was working on it in the repair bay,” she answered slowly.  “The pilot was someone from Hudson’s Hammers.  He had shown up earlier needing his craft fixed in time for them taking over garrison duty.  But when the attack came, he…he killed the head tech and an aztech, and he tried to kill me.  He and I got into a fight, and I killed him.”  There captain’s expression did not change, but she thought she saw her mother’s eyes widen slightly.  She went on.  “In the course of repairs I’d been able to see his activation code.  Mom…Ms. McCloud had told me the Sirocco was getting ready to take off.  I just thought if I could get his ride up and running, I could get to the spaceport and get on board this ship.  But you’d already taken off, so I got put on the Federalist instead.  When that ship got shot down mid-flight, they launched me back out.  I realized the situation on-planet was much hotter than I’d expected if they’re shooting down dropships, so I decided to evacuate, and this ship was in my range.”

               The captain stared at her for a long moment, before turning his attention back to Rachel.  “And then?”

               “When word of the attacks came in, you ordered us to liftoff immediately,” Rachel answered.   “Emergency calls were put out to all crew, either get on the ship or be left behind.”  A twitch on the captain’s face indicated this was not something he liked being told.  “I was already aboard when the order came down, and your security officers kept me from leaving.  I was forced to take my position at the navigator’s station for liftoff.  From there I heard pilot McCloud’s communications.  I knew we could provide covering fire – ”

               “You screamed at my helmsman to turn the boat,” the captain corrected.  “Contradicted my orders when you knew I was in the middle of receiving fresh intel over the horn.  You made him change our course during an evacuation!”

               “And when you dress that man down, remember he has a daughter on this ship too,” Rachel replied, the first note of anger entering her voice.  “I could see that a minor change to our flight path would put pilot McCloud’s pursuers into range of our long-range weapons.  The command crew was distracted,” she said, issuing another twitch from the captain.  “So I convinced him to do it.”

               “And when my XO saw what you were doing and ordered you stop?”

               Rachel shrugged.  “The gunnery officer was seconds away from getting a shooting solution on the targets.  It’s been a while since I was in a combat situation.  In the heat of the moment I guess I didn’t hear him.”

               “You guess you didn’t hear him,” the captain repeated, obviously not convinced.  “How about when you broke his hand?”

               Marie’s eyes widened as she looked at her mother.

               “The man grabbed my shoulder,” Rachel answered.  “The rest is muscle memory and self-defense classes.”

               “Muscle memory,” the captain repeated again.  “You expect me to believe that?”  He sighed, pinching his nose and looking like he was thinking hard.  “I don’t have time to figure out what to do with you right now.  I’ve got to make sure this boat actually gets where we’re going, and this is the very last thing I need.  So for now, you two are confined to quarters.  Meaning right here, under the watch of Sergeant Thomas,” he said with a nod at the uniformed man.

               “Are you – ” Marie started to ask, but her mother looked right at her and shook her head once, silencing her.

               “Mechwarrior, you’ve got my permission to keep them in this room by any means necessary,” the captain said to the uniformed man.  Marie’s eyes widened again, not at the veiled threat, but at the moniker.  Mechwarrior.  Not a regular soldier, but a pilot of one of the armored behemoths in the Sirocco’s hold.

               Thomas nodded sharply as the captain left the room.  Then he gave Marie and Rachel a brief look and another nod.  His posture relaxed slightly, and he shouldered the laser rifle he’d been holding.  Reaching to his belt, he took out the key to their shackles.  He wordlessly unlocked Marie and Rachel’s bindings, apparently convinced – correctly – that the captain’s warning was enough to keep them in check.

               “Craziest thing I’ve seen in years,” he said quietly, before stepping outside the room and closing the door behind himself.  Marie heard the lock click a moment later.

               “Are you all right?” Rachel asked, turning to look at Marie as soon as Thomas was out.  Her icy mask disappeared immediately, replaced with worry.

               Marie waved off her mother’s attempt at a hug and stood up from the bed.  “I’m fine,” she bit out.  “Just fine, okay?”

               “What happened?” Rachel asked.  “Marie, I was so afraid for you!  When I heard your voice on the commline, I…”

               “I know, just…just give me a minute!” Marie snapped.  She fumbled at the pockets of her coveralls, pulling out her pack of cigarettes.  She stuck one in her mouth while rubbing at her eyes that were suddenly burning.  She could feel her mother’s attention on her while she did so.  “What, you’re going to tell me to quit?  Not the time, mom,” she said.  She pulled out her lighter and struggled to light the cigarette with trembling hands.

               “Why didn’t you answer me?” Rachel implored.  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t wait for you, Marie.  They wouldn’t let me off the ship.  They promised me they’d recalled everyone, but by the time I found out you weren’t on the ship they were already firing the engines.  I was so scared for you, and everything was going wrong at once!”

               “Oh, everything was going wrong for you, got it,” Marie grumbled.  She sat back down on the bed.  “Goddammit, I thought I’d actually caught a break for once…”

               And so did Bob, she thought.

               That idle thought finally pushed her too far.  Like a dam breaking, everything she’d been pushing to the back of her mind flooded out in a rush, as her mind flashed back over the events of the last hour.  She choked on the cigarette as her throat closed up.

               “Marie?” Rachel asked, but Marie could barely hear her over the sound of her pulse in her ears.  The cigarette fell from her numb fingers as she clamped her hands over her head.  She was suddenly icy cold, her whole body shivering.  She doubled over, unable to breathe.  She felt her face was soaked and realized she was crying.

               “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked. 

               Marie’s answer was just a choked whimper.

               “Oh, honey…” Rachel breathed, seeing her daughter crumple.  She ran to Marie and threw her arms around her, holding her close.  Marie did not have the strength left to fight.  She returned the embrace, holding on for dear life as her body turned to jelly.  She sobbed into her mother’s shoulder.

               Ultimately it was too much to process at once.  She went limp as darkness claimed her.

 

*End of Chapter 2*

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.

Mech art of the Phoenix Hawk LAM provided by @fed0t1 on Twitter.  He also streams on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/fed0t

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

Audio with images is available on my playlist on Youtube.

Liked it?  Ko-fi.com/lucendacier to show your appreciation, and make it easier to pay more artists to help illustrate this story.