Blackstone Guards Facility

After the startling order from the Captain to ‘handle’ dealing with Lucy, John ended up wandering around near the infirmary, mulling over how exactly to proceed here. He wasn’t opposed to executing a pirate, female or not. Hell, he killed a dozen of them in Infinite Frontiers when he was searching for Chris. But having that slight glimpse of her thoughts that she might have been doing this under duress was throwing him off. If she was doing it to protect her daughter, he wasn’t sure he could, in good conscience kill her for that.

That would mean sparing her life, but then she would be his responsibility. Even in this world, broken limbs did not heal quickly, so unless he healed her with magic, she was going to be stuck in his studio apartment for the foreseeable future. 

Actually, let’s take a look at this a little differently. So far, I have heard from the pirates that there is a base up there in the mountains with a bunch of civilians about to be transported off planet to become slaves in another nation. I also overheard from that pair of off worlders that there might be a Star League cache up there as well. So if Lucy’s daughter was supposedly detained by her former boss, she might be there as well. Everything is pointing me in that direction, but I feel like this might just be a red herring for some reason. 

John rubbed his temples. For some reason, knowing this was a short story set in this Battletech world was throwing him off. It walked like a duck, quacked like a duck, but for some reason, he was expecting a wolf to jump out at him. 

He sighed. He was putting too much thought into this. He just needed to go talk- 

“John! Stop right there, you bastard!” Someone shouted behind him, interrupting his spiraling thoughts. He turned around to meet the gaze of their resident grumpy mechanic.

“Morning, Maggie. What can-“

“Don’t you ‘Morning’ me! Why are the insides of Suzy Q covered in mud and rotting fish?”

“Fell in a lake dodging a PPC shot. Figured mud was better than another limb missing, or a reactor breach.” John lied. Well, he extrapolated anyway. He might have been hit by another shot, but since he was underwater, it didn’t happen. 

“Un hun… Likely story. Well, now that you are here, take Suzy Q outside and hose her down. I want to get the boys on it before we start on the Marauder you brought back. The keys are in the Indy mech, so just hook up to the fire hydrant and get it cleaned up.”

“Sorry, I got-. Wait, you can get the Marauder going?” He asked. 

“Yeah. There was a lot of damage to Myomer fibres (Artificial Muscles Mechs use to move) in the legs, but I am cannibalizing that old Awesome out there for both its internals and armour to make it work… it won’t look pretty, but when I am done, it should work just fine. I got the techs stripping armour off it now, then we will heat it up and bend it with that old press so we can at least bolt it on the structure. Probably take a week to get it ready.” 

John nodded. “Actually, how much money did you need to pay your techs for the overtime to fix Suzy Q? And, could I offer to pay them overtime to get that Marauder ready sooner?” He asked. If he was going to attack that pirate base, he wanted that mech. Going in a heavy mech like a Marauder instead of the Jenner would make more sense to him.

“Huh, I wasn’t serious about that. I just wanted an extra set of hands to help out here.” She said, then looked thoughtful. “We can do some double shifts, but it will cost you an extra 10000 C-Bills a day. Probably get them both fixed in four, maybe five days.”

“Do it. I’ll pay the extra out of my pocket.” He said, handing her the 60000 he had gotten from the Captain. He would pay his lance mates from the cash he had in his room. “Make sure Jerome’s spider is working too. We have a mission coming up in a few days.” 

“You sure know your way into a woman’s heart, Johnny. I’ll go see to my team.” She teased, then started walking away. She shouted over her shoulder just as John started moving to the infirmary, “Don’t go thinking this means you are off the hook for hosing down Suzy Q! Make sure she is all cleaned out by this evening, else I will drag you back here to do it.”

“Hah! Yes, Ma’am.” He chuckled, tossing a mock salute to her retreating form. 

He had a plan to move forward against that base now that would improve his survivability tenfold. Still, that warning that he could not win this world was bugging him, but he would do the best he could with what he had available. 

He took a deep breath and started to walk to the infirmary. He had gotten sidetracked with Maggie, but one way or another, now he had to deal with Lucy. 

The infirmary at the Guards facility wasn’t exactly a hospital or even a clinic. It was more of a first-aid station, with a couple of gurneys shoved up against the back wall of the small room. They didn’t even have a dedicated medical staff; just a nurse from the hospital who came by twice a month to make sure the room was stocked.

When John walked in, he was not surprised to find that they didn’t even bother putting a guard on Lucy, despite the door being unlocked. The raven haired woman was cuffed to the side of a gurney, her other arm in a sling and leg in an immobilizer. They didn’t even bother setting her bones and putting her in a cast, assuming that she was going to be executed today. Someone had smeared some green antibacterial ointment on her wounds at least, though the right side of her body looked pretty torn up still. They also put a shock collar on her, signifying her status as a slave in Blackstone and the Oberon Confederation. 

She looked at John with a haggard expression on her face, probably unable to get any sleep from the pain she had been in since yesterday. “Finally.” She croaked, her throat sounding parched. “You here to kill me? Or are you going rape me first? Listen, *cough* give me a glass of water, and I’ll even pretend I like it *cough* just do it quick and put me out of my misery.”

“Jesus woman, hello to you too. No, I am not going to rape you, and as for killing you, how is that going to help your daughter?” He said, shocked at her statement. He activated his Scouter skill, wanting to get some insight into what she was thinking when he dropped that he knew about her daughter.

“What? *cough* How do you know about her? Did those idiots start blabbing to you about me?” She said, then sighed. “It doesn’t matter, now that Blake *cough* is dead and I am about to be as well, they will send her offworld with the rest of the people they abducted.”

John nodded, her thoughts no different than her words. He moved to the minifridge in the corner, pulled out a bottle of water, then grabbed the cuff key off the counter. It was right beside the controller for her collar. Whoever brought her in here really didn’t think she was going anywhere. Once he was the boss, he would definitely need to make a few changes to how the Guards operated. If he became the boss.

“Now, I am going to uncuff you and sit you upright so you can drink. Then we are going to have a bit of a chat. After that, well, that depends on you.” He said, moving to her left side. 

“*cough, cough* Fine.” She replied, tensing slightly. 

Just a little closer.

Hearing that thought, John was ready when he uncuffed her and caught her wrist when she tried to swipe at him with something metal. He squeezed her wrist hard, causing the makeshift shiv to fall out of her hand, clattering on the floor. He shook her a bit, causing her to groan in pain, then released her.

“Now what did that accomplish?” He asked as he retrieved the piece of metal she had somehow either hidden in those tiny shorts she was wearing, or ripped off the side of the gurney. Yeah, he was really going to have to discuss handling prisoners with the rest of the unit at some point in the near future. “You know, I was hoping this was going to go a little differently.”

“Fuck off. *cough* You Rimworlders are no different than the pirates.” She spat out. “I know what is going to happen next. You are either going to kill me, or I’ll be chained in some brothel until my teeth fall out. *cough, cough* And since I am here and not getting fucked by some miner with a tiny dick and anger issues, I am guessing I won’t leave this room alive. So just finish it already.”

“FedCom, actually,” John said, tossing the shiv in the garbage can.

“What?”

“I am from the Federated Commonwealth. I retired and moved out here for the job and the benefits.” He said, crossing his arms. “Now, I plan on rescuing your daughter, along with the rest of those people. Do you want to help with that? Or would you rather die here in this room and leave her to fend for herself?”

She looked at him like he had two heads, her thoughts jumbled. 

He will rescue Ria? No, I just tried to stab him; he must be trying to trick me. But what if he isn’t lying? Fuck, I’ll marry his ass if it means he helps me save my daughter. Wait, how can I help him? I am broken, and the pirates said the dropship will arrive in four days from the pirate point, and I don’t even know where they are keeping her at!

He chuckled at that. “Listen, do you have something else you are going to try and stab me with, or can I set you upright now so you can have a drink?”

“Ah… fuck.” She said, slumping back on the gurney, groaning in pain from the movement. “No, I have nothing else. That was for my own protection from the pirates; they would try to get a little handsy when their boss wasn’t around. He was blackmailing me for my gunnery skills, not my body. I…I’m sorry… it has just been hard since our transport was captured and we were brought to the ass end of nowhere.”

“Well, as a former Marauder pilot myself, I’d say your gunnery skills are quite impressive. Now, let’s discuss what you know about their operations here. Then I have an offer for you.” John said, her thoughts telling him she was sorry. She was still guarded, but was exhausted and was clinging to this like a drowning woman to a thin line, hoping that it didn’t snap before she got to safety.

Planet Blackstone

Former Pirate Base

A man cursed as he stumbled into the clearing, having spent almost twenty-four hours navigating through that labyrinth of sharp, jagged rocks. The head of his locust had come down in the middle of nowhere, which, luckily enough, seemed to have saved him from being captured and presumably enslaved like the rest of his crew. He started making his way down to what was left of the prefab structures, shaking his head at the loss.

He noticed that most of the former base was in shambles now, the Guards having torn up anything that wasn’t bolted down. They even dragged off that old Marauder they had set up as a turret. No great loss there, the damn thing was nearly inoperable anyway. Though he was sad to lose Lucy, he still hoped to flip her into one of them without using her daughter as blackmail. What she and her daughter were doing so far away from the Combine didn’t make sense to him; the sheer cost of travel from there to here would have been several years’ salary for most normal people in the Innersphere. Still, they made bank off the millions of C-Bills she had been carrying alone. 

He always suspected she was a noblewoman on the run, but she wouldn’t say much about her past. Threatening her daughter for something as irrelevant as her history was ridiculous. Even if there was a ransom in the Combine for her, it would take several years to find out, contact the relevant parties, and get someone to come and collect her. He would rather have had a highly trained mechwarrior at his side, instead of their usual rabble. 

He freely admitted he was part of that rabble as well. He was still kicking himself for turning his back on those two mechs to fight that Jenner. He learned a few things, so hopefully, when he was in his actual mech, that wouldn’t happen again.

He dug through the remnants of the habitation unit and sighed in relief when he found his backpack undisturbed. He pulled out the large radio that was hidden under some dirty clothes and signaled the main base. They needed to be ready in case any of these idiots squealed about its location. 

“Hey, pick up the radio, you morons, it’s Blake!  Send a VTOL to the old base, I need extraction,” He said into the headset. 

“Boss! Sure, we will send a crew out there soon. Though it will probably be at least six to ten hours before they can get there, we have some guards sniffing around the base, so we have been staying hidden.” The reply came back.

“Got it. Yeah, send them when you can. Any luck breaking through that door yet?”

“Not yet. The boys coming in from Götterdämmerung should be bringing something with a little more firepower than what we have here.”  

“That will have to do then. Blake out.” He replied, shutting off the radio. He grabbed some blankets and a dirty mattress from out of the broken building and lay down. He was exhausted and had time to kill, so he might as well do it while asleep.  

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