"The Menagerie at Twycross", Part 7
- Date: June 13, 3050; 08:59 Local Time
- Location: Salmacis Base, Command Center
'Oh damn, everyone is here...' A distant memory of a time when someone else had the responsibility of being in charge came to mind, the first true briefing Priam Company had. Twenty years gone, and immediately it came to the surface. Olivia turned her head, noticing the Lord Commander looking at her with his good eye, a mixture of impatience and calm underneath it. A man who had been through many years of this, and she was going to be pretending she had a better grasp of this than he did.
'No,' she told herself quietly. 'Don't pretend you do, you know Salmacis and Priam Company better than he does. You know what everyone here is capable of.'
She took a sip of coffee, and cleared her throat before speaking up. "All right, let's get this started. Apologies on the quality of the coffee, it's what we have to work with." She tapped the controls on the table, bringing up a hologram above the field. It was a translucent organizational chart showing the five Lances she had to work with. "First, introductions are in order. Priam Company, this is the Lord Commander Mason Garrilac and his number two. Leah Adnan, who goes by 'Coryphee'." Each of them nodded in turn, the older man giving a vague wave of his right hand in the process. "Sir, madam, my Lance Commanders." She pointed in turn. "Ellen Raster, Adam Long, Otto Greene, and Simone de Lagrande." Each of them gave similar nods, though Simone looked a little longer at Coryphee before returning her attention to the table.
"And us. Please don't forget us, Commander." The tank crew commander lifted a hand. "Charles Graves, leader of the Crazy Eight." Next to him, the other crew commander hid a chuckle.
"Excuse me?" The Lord Commander took a sip from his mug, and turned his head to get a good look at the speaker. "The what now?"
Olivia cleared her throat. "The Crazy Eight are our veteran tank crew, sorry gentlemen, I didn't mean to forget you." She pointed to the chart, where she caused one of the units to highlight. "They own and operate our Manticore."
The Lord Commander nodded once, and chuckled. "Ah. Good machine. Carry on."
"Boss." Simone's voice took on a light tone, and she leaned over the table to point. She had been in the outfit as long as Olivia, and that had earned her a moderate amount of leeway with insubordination. "When did we take on consultants?"
"This morning. They're the owners of that Fortress outside, which is refueling and rearming." A large spherical shape blinked in red on the landing area. "In exchange, they will be lending us aerospace coverage to evacuate safely." She tapped the table controls again, and highlighted the other two DropShips. "The 'Aquila' and 'Whisper' will still be receiving noncombatants and critical equipment in their cargo holds. Any of our technicians who can do work are going to be doing their best to make those places habitable for the short term, while we head out to the Jump point."
"That's three weeks of travel." Coryphee put in, looking to Olivia. "Do you have enough provisions for that?"
The Lord Commander tapped the fingers of his artificial hand on the edge of the table. "Better question. Do you even have a friendly JumpShip out there?"
Olivia shook her head, and straightened her back, tapping one finger down on the table edge. "Make no mistake, people. We're working one step at a time. If we find a ship out there? I plan on making them an offer they can't afford to turn down to get us out of the system. We'll be burning lots of funding to get somewhere we can regroup and assess our losses."
"Right.” Simone glanced over at Ellen, who gave a shrug and winced as the motion pulled at her bruises. “Speaking of which, Xiphos got pretty badly pounded. What's the deal?"
"If I may?" Ellen looked at Olivia before speaking up herself. "Luckily, the repairs are all but complete. The Victor's systems are looking like it will be fully functional, and our Black Knight is going to have to avoid taking head-shots if at all possible." She gestured at the organizational chart and one of the boxes zoomed in to show the two 'Mechs mentioned listed there. "We had an extra Warhammer in the auxiliary, and we're reorganizing a Jenner to offer support. It's going to put us at a disadvantage, but we should still be able to fight effectively."
Olivia nodded, and pointed to the display. "Our last auxiliary 'Mech is going to be assigned as guard to the tanks. Their task is to be part of our secondary line of defense. If anyone gets through, make them bleed." Charles grinned and nodded, saluting with his cup before the commander continued. "Sagittarius Lance is going to be overall command, and we'll join Xiphos and the vehicles on the second line."
The Lord Commander was listening intently, watching the unit codes appearing in the display, before he pointed a finger. "You're using an Orion? Never had good luck with those. Are you sure it's a good idea to use one?"
"It's a fine machine." Adam spoke up, frowning at the Lord Commander. "So long as it doesn't take a shot to the face." The two glared across the table at each other, but broke it up after Olivia cleared her throat.
Coryphee glanced to Olivia, speaking in a quieter tone. "You'll have to excuse him-"
"Like Hell!" The older man muttered into his coffee cup, and Coryphee put a hand on his shoulder lightly to keep him from following that up.
In fact, she continued as though he hadn't interjected at all. "-but there's a history involving the Orion line of 'Mechs in our experience. A rather personal one which we can discuss later." She looked down at the table display. "What about your other forces?"
The commander gave her a grateful look, before motioning to Adam. "Peltast Lance is our Fire Lance, geared for long range combat. It runs heavy, with three Assault-class 'Mechs, but it can single out targets and reduce them rather quickly." She touched her controls, and motioned with the other hand. "They'll take the flank, which won't matter as much since they have the advantage of range."
The Lord Commander rubbed his fingers through his beard briefly, watching the screen. "Two more to go. What's that read there?" His prosthetic left hand pointed to one of the last two unassigned lance boxes. "Pegasus?"
Simone held up her hand, straightening up. "That's me." She glanced at Coryphee again before speaking. “Pegasus specializes in quick strikes and hunting priority targets."
Both the guests looked at each other, then at Olivia. "You do headhuntin', then?" His tone was light, but lacking any playful tones. "Isn't that, well, not exactly honorable?"
"It's not headhunting." Simone cut in before Olivia could answer. "We go after fire support, or other objectives. If there's a mess of heavy metal between the hard-hitters and the target?" She clapped her hands together. "We go around it. Someone thinks they can sneak around the flank? We intercept them and explain what a bad idea that was." Slowly she broke into a broad grin. "Kelly is real good at teaching those lessons. Don’t worry, sir, we’ve been at this a long time. We know the drill, we get the job done."
Coryphee leaned closer to Olivia. "Kelly? That's the short woman who was with you this morning?"
The commander nodded. "Be careful talking about her, even if you think she's not present. She's like a cat, lurking where you least expect it. She could be in here now, wouldn't be the first time we caught her sleeping under the table."
That got the other woman to glance down, in puzzlement. "There's no under the table. It's a closed pedestal."
"I know."
"There's... literally nowhere to hide. There's no underneath it."
Olivia favored her with a small smile, and sighed. "Yeah. We stopped being surprised after the third time." She cleared her throat and noticed that the Lord Commander had been poking at the organizational chart, asking questions with Simone. "Something you two care to share?"
"No, ma'am, just wondering where you got a Wolfhound. Those are limited to Lyran-"
Adam cleared his throat, speaking up softly. "Federated Commonwealth."
The Lord Commander ignored him, waving the interjection off with the prosthesis. "-Lyran house units, from what I recall. Mercenaries should've had a hard time getting them."
"That was a deal my former boss closed." Olivia nodded slowly. "Our outfit did some intelligence work for them, way back when. We kept it out of the news, they let us have a new toy. That's all I know about it, all I care to know about it, and it belongs to Kelly. She worked her way into paying for it, much like Simone owns her ‘Mech." Simone wriggled her fingers cheerily. "But moving on."
"Aegis Lance." Otto spoke up, pointing to his Lance's box on the diagram. "Normally we'd act as support for Xiphos, but with how things are looking we might be better off on the front line, taking the other flank from Peltast. We have some long range capabilities, and can hold the flank until someone can bring relief. If we have to."
The Lord Commander glanced through the chart again, and the vague outline of a battle plan on the display. "This is looking like a solid defense so far, so how is it going to go wrong?" He sipped from his cup as everyone stared at him. "It's gonna go wrong somehow, folks. Figure out how."
"The invaders have faster machines and better accuracy than your average opponents." Ellen spoke up, fidgeting. "Speaking from experience, the biggest problem we could run into is them being faster at getting around the flanks. If they do that, they can do serious damage to our DropShips and our evacuation would be stopped before we could get off the ground."
"The ships can take a pounding." Otto pointed out, setting his cup on a surface behind him. "The 'Aquila' was retrofitted last year with more modern standard armor, and that let us save some weight. Which improved fuel efficiency-"
"Yeah, yeah." The Lord Commander waved his hand, giving an apologetic look anyway for interrupting. "But DropShips aren't supposed to sponge damage for very long. A lucky- an unlucky hit, and we could look at a ship going up in smoke."
Coryphee nodded, and glanced over at Olivia. "It's happened before in the neighborhood we operated out of before." She said softly. "Made the news about thirty years back when a ship exploded while refueling. There were mercenaries involved, rumor said it was a contract gone wrong."
"A hundred C-bills says it was a lot more complicated." The commander sighed. "Regardless, that is a concern. We also don't know how much opposition we're going to face. It could be one... division... like before, or it could be a similarly-scaled force. It could be orbital bombardment, for all we know - they had a WarShip in orbit."
The prosthetic hand waved this away again, before the older man frowned. "They're not going to go for orbital bombardment unless you piss them off. Trust me on this, they'd rather fight face-to-face. Relatively speaking, of course." He reached into a pocket and removed a cigar, stopping himself from lighting it. "I'm going to need to smoke this somewhere soon, but let me add another wrinkle from what we ran into earlier."
"Go ahead, I'll take care of this." Coryphee nudged his elbow with her arm, and then addressed Olivia calmly. "They had armored infantry. We don't know the whole story, but they made quick work of some defending 'Mechs. If they throw those at you, then they can very quickly destroy a target and move to the next."
Olivia held up a hand. "Lord Commander?" He looked back, already halfway to the door. "Try not to spend too long outside, the dust storms can kick up without warning." He rolled his eye and continued walking out, as she looked back to Coryphee. "Armored infantry? Do you know more about them, something more along the line of armaments or..." She trailed off, making a motion with her hand for Coryphee to fill in any blanks.
What she got instead was a glance down at the floor. "Nothing concrete. They are like jump-troops in that they can cover ground pretty fast, and don't seem afraid of 'Mechs. That's all we have from our encounter with them." She looked back up with a frown. “What are you planning on doing next?”
The commander folded her arms, and looked at the table. “Well, as the Lord Commander said, it’s going to go wrong somehow. And we have some experience in that.” Simone was grinning and nodding at those words. “So my Lance Commanders and I are going to get to work finding places it can go wrong. What I need out of you two…” She hesitated. “I’m going to be in the field, and most of the base command center is going to be packed away. How well can the Lord Commander handle being our mission control?”
Coryphee started laughing, and broke into a genuine smile. “That’s easy. Let him think it was his idea, and it will go fine.”
- Date: June 16, 3050; 12:11 Local Time
- Location: Salmacis Base, ‘Mech Bay
And she still felt nervous, running scenarios in her head. What if the whole invasion force decided to crush Priam Company entirely? What if the Lord Commander was wrong about orbital bombardment? What if the aerospace cover wasn’t enough? What if there wasn’t a friendly, or even pliable, JumpShip captain to get them out of here?
She came to stand before one of the outfit’s Warhammers. They still had three of them, a fact which made the visitors chuckle sometimes about ‘good fortune’ - they had no clue how much that stretched the spare parts budget, though. Getting one set of spare parts was somewhat easy, but getting four had been a challenge. Olivia privately wondered if they’d run most of the nearby salvage yards out of parts in the last decade of work.
“Commander!” Olivia turned her head, and her expression hardened as she saw Sofia running to catch up to her. The younger ‘MechWarrior folded her arms behind her and tried not to loom too much over her mother. “I’m officially out of medical leave.”
Olivia poked her in the stomach with the datapad. “And you learned your lesson about combat?”
“Well, I-”
“You’re not going to have as much of a fun time if you keep charging ahead of your support. And certainly when you think you can absorb fire from an Assault-class ‘Mech.”
Sofia looked sheepish for all of a couple heartbeats before she realized she was in public and straightened her spine. “I did what I thought was necessary to protect the other members of my Lance. I’d do it again, ma’am.”
Olivia poked her again, and turned away. “I know. And that pisses me off.” She sighed. “You’re still on Xiphos Lance, because they’re going to need your experience. Not your judgment, so much.” As her daughter started to glower, she pointed at the nearby ‘Mech. “Get together with the techs and have the cockpit adjusted to suit you.”
Her daughter’s expression turned confused, then she looked along the pointing finger, and back. “You’re serious, Commander? You’re giving me a Warhammer?”
“Aegis Lance has one, and I’ve got mine. The third one has to go with Xiphos or it won’t retain its capabilities.” The commander started walking again, and felt the floor plates vibrate as the taller Sofia fell in behind her with a hurried stride. “And you might be less inclined to do something stupid if you’re in something a little more fragile for its weight.”
“I… don’t know what to say, Commander.”
Olivia spun around and pointed a finger upwards. “Don’t say anything, because this comes with a catch. If you screw up again, I am not putting you back in a cockpit. You can find somewhere else to play at being a mercenary, or you can join the logistics team.” Her daughter looked hurt, but she hardened herself. She needed to make this clear, and her daughter had to understand. “I know you thought you were doing the right thing, but Priam Company is no place for sacrifice plays. We don’t hire lambs, we hire wolves.”
Sofia did look hurt now, and her shoulders slumped. It hurt to look at. “Commander-”
“No, I’m done talking about this, Sofia.” Olivia turned back around and started walking away. “If you want to be a corpse that badly, go find somewhere else to be. Plenty of places will take you in." She rounded the corner into one of the technician areas, and felt herself start to shake uncontrollably, squeezing her eyes shut.
‘I can’t handle it. I thought I could, but he was right about me. I’m too nice to watch someone I love die.’
“Hey, Commander, head’s up.” The voice came from above, and she looked up in time to catch a small tin flask. Above, Lord Commander Garrilac waved a hand. “Share a drink?”
She tucked the flask into her back pocket, and quickly scrambled up one of the ladders. She smoothed her face into an angry mask, and spoke softly. “How much did you hear?”
He glanced down, then back to her. “Look, I’m not tellin’ you how to run things, but I am going to say something.” He lifted his left hand and looked at it for a long moment. “Working with family is a pain, but worth it.”
“I’m… sorry?”
“Apology accepted.” He motioned. “If you’re not gonna drink it, pass it back.” Olivia sighed, opening the flask to take a sip before handing it to him. “I noticed her name on your chart. Sofia Garrido. She’s your daughter, isn’t she?”
“And your point?”
“I already made it. Family’s a pain to work with.” He took a long swig, letting out a sigh afterwards. “But there’s worse things to have happen than that. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Olivia leaned her hips on the railing behind her, frowning as she listened. “You have children, then?”
He nodded, his hand slowly spinning the flask about in an absent motion. “And grandchildren. Some of them wound up in this profession like the old man before you.”
“How do you deal with it?”
He chuckled, and flashed a grin which made him look much younger, shaking the flask briefly. “Bourbon. Cigars. Things to keep me thinking of anything but. Same as anyone else in this line of work.” Another long swig from the flask, and he put it back into a pocket. “But do you wanna know what’s worse? Having them hate you, and not being able to tell them you love them even so.” He glanced over as Coryphee came onto the catwalks, looking around until she saw him across the way and began making her way over. “Duty calls. Think about what I said, Commander.”
Olivia’s brow furrowed as she watched him leave, and saw Coryphee put her hands on her hips, pointing to the flask in his hands. None of their conversation was audible, but the commander got the gist of it from their body language. Her eyes widened briefly as realization hit her, and she straightened up.
‘Family’s a pain to work with.’
Her train of thought was interrupted by her comm squawking in her ear. Jarod was speaking slowly. “Commander, we have a new contact coming through. I am guessing they just arrived, but they claim to be at a Jump point close to the planet.”
“At a pirate point?” Usually, the Jump points close to planetary bodies were notoriously unreliable unless the people running the JumpShip knew what they were doing. Or, in the case of pirates, reckless enough to not care - hence the origin of the term ‘pirate points’. “We have pirates too?”
“Negative, I’m receiving a registry code for the JumpShips ‘Namida’ and ‘Sunset’. One of those is registered to another mercenary outfit.” He hesitated, and she could picture him sifting through the data. “The other is a privately-owned JumpShip registered to-”
“Rysel Industries.” Olivia scowled and bristled. ‘Why is she here?!’ The thought of that woman being back again didn’t make any sense, unless it was specifically to check up on Priam Company. “I’ll be right there. And Jarod, when I get there I want a private channel set up to the ‘Sunset’.”
“What about the ‘Namida’? Should I hail them too?”
“I don’t know them, and they can wait. Right now I want to talk to that-...” She clamped her jaw shut, fighting down anger and worry. “Right now, the other one takes priority.” She quickly strode towards the command center, fighting the urge to mutter curses to herself.
- Date: June 16, 3050; 12:21 Local Time
- Location: Invader-class JumpShip ‘Sunset’
And it was a few moments before she spoke in a tight, controlled growl of a voice. “What do you want?”
“Commander, I am here to offer aid, nothing sinister and with no ulterior motives.” Hechek spoke slowly, even though she could see the other woman’s mask of control starting to fray. "This isn't about anything but offering assistance. Captain Hatchsune made it possible to arrive in time, but I don't know how long we're safe up here."
Commander Garrido's expression returned to the serene mask, even as her eyes burned. "I'm listening."
"I have a bodyguard unit, and we have access to three additional Leopard-class DropShips. I am offering passage out of danger for all refugees we can gather at your location." She hesitated, and shook her head. "I do not believe we can do more than this, safely."
The commander sat back in her chair, visibly letting this offer simmer in her mind. "And this has nothing to do with it being us on the line? Us, specifically?"
"I must admit-" Hechek paused, and swallowed, knowing she shouldn't try to dance around the topic. "I saw you were in the potential path of this invasion and decided... I should not sit by and do nothing." She leaned forward slightly toward the video screen, eyes narrowing. "If I was worried about our little secret, it would have been easier to leave you. But I cannot do that."
"Because there's a chance-"
Hechek slammed a hand down on the console, and her voice became an angry snarl. "Because my father raised me to be better than that!" She'd have to apologize to the captain about the dent in the console housing later, but right now her mind was focused on this. "I have the power to help, and thus it would be unconscionable to not help." She leaned back in the chair, letting out a sigh, opening her hand palm-up toward the video pickup. "Surely, you understand, Commander Garrido."
Both women stared at each other across the connection, though there wasn't exactly eye-contact with how their video pickups were arranged. Finally, the commander let out a long sigh, and her shoulders shifted into a slight slump. "I can't lose her again, even if I didn't-" She caught her breath, running a hand through her hair and taking more deep breaths to calm and collect herself. "Who is this Captain Hatchsune?"
"Another mercenary. My father had dealings with her before, and I trust her capacity for kindness. She was headed here on unrelated business, as I understand."
Commander Garrido glanced aside, then lowered her voice softly. "Does she know?"
"I do not think she could have any way of knowing. However, her ship likely has something which is buried in many mountains of raw data. I am not concerned." Hechek waved her hand vaguely. "If she knew, she would either not mention it to anyone or bring it up to me directly. She does not deal in subtle politics, which is why she has been so useful to people in power."
A soft chuckle. "Not like us?" Her smile was unamused, as her hand was visibly rolling a coin across her fingers. Hechek suspected what it was, but that it meant anything to the commander was an unlikely set of odds. "We've done our fair share."
She shook her head slowly. "You had the disadvantage of being pawns in a game stretching back a generation. I had the disadvantage of having to clean up the board after the game was done." She tapped her fingers on the console and cleared her throat. "Regardless. We are here to render assistance, and I believe it is not too soon. There are other, unidentified, ships already settling into orbit as well. Do I have your permission to render assistance?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"We always have a choice."
Commander Garrido laughed, shaking her head and looking to the ceiling. "Damn, you sound just like him. Fine, fine. We'll set the beacon up for your ships, but you're going to have to find open space on your own. We've already got our three landing fields in use. Do you think Captain Hatchsune is up to the challenge?"
"Her reputation suggests letting her have the easy road would be insulting." Hechek smiled, and cleared her throat. "We still are going to need to charge the drive, even with my captain risking charging quickly. We are two days from a safe exit, Commander Garrido. I suggest you proceed with plans to set up a defensive perimeter, and you can safely assume Hatchy's Helpers and my guard will be capable of protecting the DropShips. This should allow you to free up more people to prioritize defenses."
"Understood." There was a motion to disconnect, then the commander hesitated. "Thank you. I mean it."
Hechek nodded slowly, "We may talk later. For now, focus on the task at hand, Commander." She cut the connection and let out a soft sigh as tension leaked out of her posture. There would be time enough later to argue over what to do about the child, but for now there was work to be done. She quietly sifted through the channels and began composing herself to issue orders to her security detail.
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