Sarna
Sarna Commonality
Capellan Confederation
The farmers, militia, or whoever they were had grown tired of Azalea's protests, and in addition to binding the sisters hands, they fashioned makeshift gags out of bandannas to ensure a peaceful trip as they pushed the two girls into the back of a ramshackle truck. Hope looked over at her sister, taking note of the bruise beginning to form on her jaw.
It had all happened so fast. One minute they were elated, having found civilization. Their ordeal should have been over. Except that it wasn't. Those who should have been their saviors had treated them with confusing disdain. Rather than be accepted as Capellan soldiers, they were instead taken for Davion spies. None of that added up. Sarna was not under Davion threat. If anything, it was House Davion that feared the Capellan military these days. Sarna was well behind the front lines.
And then there was the way that the men had reacted to learning their names. These girls were used to their names opening doors for them, not closing them. Things simply didn't add up. They rode on in their enforced silence for what seemed like hours. She lost count of the number of times she cramped up in the uncomfortable seating in the back of the truck as they rumbled over poorly maintained roads, hitting bumps and rocks, more than once tossing one of the sisters to the floor. Two armed men rode in the back with them, but they never spoke, only occasionally moving to light a cigarette or to toss a spent one from the back of the vehicle.
Finally, they came to a stop. She could faintly hear voices coming from the cabin of the truck, but she could not make out any of what was said. After a few moments, the rear hatch swung open, and the leader of the group from before motioned to the two guards, who in turn roughly ushered the two women from the back of the truck and to their feet. Their hands were still bound in front of them, and they were led to a gate that was obviously a checkpoint of some kind for a large compound that lay sprawled ahead of them.
Custody was clearly transferred when they reached the gate, and two uniformed infantry troopers took them by the arm and led them through the gate. Hope noted the patch on the troopers uniforms, a helmeted knight with two clenched fists. Still gagged, she grunted to Azalea and motioned to the patch. Her sister gave her a confused look.
That's the insignia of McCarron's Armored Cavalry. But none of the MAC units are stationed anywhere near Sarna, so what is going on here?
They were marched unceremoniously past several buildings in what was a huge, if temporarily erected compound. It was a pop-up compound like had served many a house and mercenary unit throughout the history of the conflicts of the Inner Sphere. Hell, it was something like what Hope had expected to find herself in when they reached their assignment with the MAC on the front lines. They were led to a building which seemed to double as storage and a makeshift brig. The first two cells were occupied by what looked like passed out infantrymen or tankers, one of which had recently spread the contents of his stomach, suitably soaked in some cheap alcohol, all over the floor.
Hope and Azalea each were shoved into their own cell, and their gag and wrist bindings removed. They were roughly and thoroughly searched by the two troopers, their pockets emptied and their overshirts removed, leaving them in only their now sweat soaked tank tops.
"You should have seen our identification by now. You know we're CCAF soldiers, same as you. What's going on?" Azalea demanded.
The young corporal, who spoke with a distinct Chesterton accent, seemed unimpressed. "That's all above my pay grade ma'am. Locals brought you in with fake papers on suspicion of being spies for the Federated Suns. Somebody will be down to sort you out when they get a chance. Till then, sit tight."
Their cell doors slammed shut. As soon as the guards had taken a few steps away, the sisters turned to each other. Azalea spoke up first. "What the hell is going on, and what were you trying to tell me earlier?"
Hope looked around nervously before speaking. "This is all wrong. I mean like everything is wrong. These guys are McCarron's Armored Cavalry. But we're on Sarna, they shouldn't be anywhere near Sarna. And those locals? Yeah, I know we're a couple of spoiled brats, but we shouldn't stick out that bad. I mean, we lived here for four years for fucks sake."
Hope stood still, but Azalea paced the tight confines of her cell like a caged animal. "What could have gone wrong in the time we were out of it that has them on edge like this?"
Hope rattled on the bars of the cell. "Zee, you're not listening to me. This is like major league wrong. Ok, we misjumped, but we couldn't have been out of things for more than a few days till the time of the crash. There's no way that the planet would be under threat of Davion attack and have the MAC back here to meet it in that amount of time."
Azalea stopped and faced her sister. "So what are you saying is going on? You're the smart one here, remember?"
Hope looked up at the ceiling of the cell. "I'm saying that I don't know, Zee. I don't know and it scares the shit out of me."
Azalea walked over and grabbed her sister's hands through the bars of the cell. "Listen. I don't know what fucked up shit we've gotten ourselves into, but we'll get through it. We always do. Whatever we landed in, we landed in it together. And I know one thing, the bad guys can't handle that."
A few hours later, a swarm of troopers appeared and unlocked their cells. Without explanation, they led the two sisters out of the brig, through several corridors, and into what seemed like some kind of conference room. The guards secured cuffs around their wrists, connected by a length of chain, which they then connected to an anchor point on the solid metal table. They were given metal chairs to sit on, and all of the guards except for one left the room. The remaining guard stood beside the door.
A few attempts to learn information from the guard were rebuffed, and they sat on in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then finally, the door opened, and three men entered. The first was a large man with red hair, chewing on a cigar in cliche fashion, seemingly heedless of the risk of it lighting his full beard aflame. He wore a simple field uniform, but it bore the rank markings of a colonel. The second man was the man whose face you would see if you looked up the word 'soldier' in the dictionary. His hair was cut close cropped, and his jaw set firmly in such a way that you dare not challenge him. He wore a more formal uniform, also sporting the crest of McCarron's Armored Cavalry, and the insignia of a colonel. The third man was Asian, and wore the uniform of the CCAF, albeit an old one. His calm demeanor and chilling eyes screamed Maskirovka.
The three men sat down opposite the sisters, with the red-haired man in the middle. He was the one to speak, as he tossed their identification cards on the table between them. "So I get told this story, seems there's a couple of pretty young ladies trying to walk through the lines claiming they're Capellan officers. Problem is, their Chinese is only good enough to maybe order from a buffet menu, and their ID's look like they got them off of said buffet menu. Don't look like any CapCon ID's I've ever seen. And then the frosting on the cake, their names." He paused and picked up the ID cards again. "Azalea McCarron and Hope McCarron? What, you pick these names out at Easter time or something?"
Azalea banged her hands on the table, getting satisfaction in the ringing of the metal of her cuffs off the table. "They were picked by our mother, Lady Freyja McCarron. I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you better start showing some respect around here." Hope tried in vain to rein her sister in, but Azalea plowed ahead. "I'm tired of this shit, and I want some answers."
The colonel with the close cropped hair kicked back in his chair and laughed. "I don't know, Archie, she sure as shit sounds like a McCarron to me. Maybe you ought to listen to her."
The red haired man held up a hand. "Can it, Marcus. This is serious." He turned to Azalea. "Well young lady, I don't know who, as you so distinctly put it, the fuck you are, but I am Colonel Archibald McCarron, Mandrinn of Menke, and commander of McCarron's Armored Cavalry. I don't know of anyone in the family named after a flower or a prayer. You have some explaining to do."
The sisters sat back in stunned silence. No one spoke for an awkward moment, eyes darting around the room. It was finally the other colonel who broke the silence with a chuckle. "Well shit, Archie, you scared the poor girls into silence."
Hope spoke up meekly. "This can't be. You've been dead for....over a hundred years."
He shook his head. "They haven't put the nail in my coffin yet, girl. Although you look like you've seen a ghost. You're gonna have to do better than that."
The Asian man spoke up next. "If you'll allow me, Colonel, the Maskirovka can obtain the answers you seek. This is clearly some trick of Hanse Davion's, but he will fail in it, I assure you."
Archie McCarron held up a hand. "Hold your horses, Major Lin. We'll get this sorted out, I promise that. Now, ladies. The truth, please. I don't have time to be messing around."
Azalea waved her hands excitedly. "This is the truth. This is who we are. We graduated from the Sarna Martial Academy not more than two weeks ago. We were headed out of system, we jumped, then we crashed. And now we're here."
Major Lin spoke up. "We're obviously getting nowhere with this banter. Turn these spies over to me, and we'll get to the bottom of things. They will tell you the complete truth, Colonel, I assure you."
Hope spoke up. "Wait. We can prove who we are. Take a blood sample and you'll be able to look at the DNA. You'll see that we are authentic McCarron blood, from the line of Thomas McCarron."
He shook his head. "My brother's line hasn't produced any offspring until a little miracle happened about 2 years ago. A little girl named Faith. And you two young ladies are decidedly older than two. Unless you've got anything better than that, I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you over to the spooks here.
Hope's mind was spinning in circles. Things were happening that couldn't be true. Times and dates simply were not adding up. People were alive that should not be. The only explanation was that they had not gotten lost in a misjump in terms of location, but in terms of time. "What is the date?"
She blurted it out. Azalea looked at her as if to say are you crazy?
Archie McCarron put his cigar out. "Beg your pardon?"
Hope closed her eyes. "Today's date, what is it?"
Archibald McCarron answered. "It's May the twenty-ninth, thirty twenty-nine. Why?"
29 May, 3029. It hit them both like a Gauss rifle slug. Things had definitely gone wrong.
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