Test of Faith - Chapter Two

Test of Faith - Chapter Two

Jezrael Desert

Pleione

Word of Blake Protectorate

22 March, 3075

 "Bring her," a female voice boomed over external speakers. The voice was cold and metallic from the speakers, but the sense of authority carried in the words somehow was not lost in the transmission. With those words, the Deva first, then the other omnis, turned and moved off, leaving Faith and the six-man battlearmor level II alone seemingly in the middle of the desert. She said nothing to them, and they said nothing in return. All they did was disarm her of her Python pistol, and then proceeded to wait.

     It seemed like an eternity waiting there alone amid the gently blowing sand. The battlearmor troopers kept an alert watch for any sign of trouble, but other than that, made no moves. The sound of the windswept sand was almost serene, punctuated only occasionally by the soft whirring of some component or other on the armored infantrymen who stood guard over her. She had started to let her mind relax slightly to the soft sounds, when suddenly, the telltale sound of a hovercraft could be heard approaching. A few seconds later, the craft came into view, kicking up clouds of sand as it stopped.

     Four infantrymen disembarked from the side hatch that swung open, and they quickly made their way over to where she was still kneeling in the sand. Two of the soldiers grabbed her by the arms and helped her up before leading her over to and then into the hovercraft. With all the unarmored infantry back aboard, the hovercraft sped away to wherever it was going.

     Faith didn't look up at any of the four guards in the vehicle. For an instant, her mind thought of escape, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Though this would undoubtedly be her best chance at escape in who knew how long, the odds of her overpowering the four troopers were depressingly small. No, there would be no quick escape. She was going to have to tough this one out, and hope that a chance for escape or rescue would come in it's own good time.

     She spent the rest of the trip in silence, and after several minutes, she could feel the vehicle coming to a stop once again. The guards ushered her out, and she found herself in some kind of vehicle loading and offloading bay. There were vehicles of all sorts, most returning, some damaged, and a small army of techs crawling over the place. Her captors led her through a maze of hallways and corridors, twice using a lift car, to the point that she had absolutely no sense of how large the facility was. Judging from the walls, which cosmetically displayed an air of Star League about them, she had to be in Fortress Thunder Rock, a Star League era facility that had survived and was the military hub of the desert world during it's days under Capellan rule, and now clearly also under Blakist rule as well.

     There were robed Word of Blake personnel everywhere, seeming to scurry this way and that. Finally, they reached a set of doors, which hissed open to reveal a small room with another set of doors on the opposing wall. Off to the left was a small desk, behind which a robed adept sat, while two guards in gray jumpsuits stood in front of her. The two infantrymen who had escorted her this far let go of her arms, passing her off to the new guards. These new guards, she could tell, weren't combat soldiers, but security personnel. One of the guards grabbed her forearm and led her the few steps to the desk, took her hand and pressed her thumb against a small sensor pad.

     Almost instantly, the holodisplay in front of the robed Blakist sitting behind the desk flashed to life with a flurry of files. She could see her picture, her CCAF ID photo from the look of it, and the header MCCARRON, FAITH ALEXANDRA, but couldn't read any more. It was only natural that the Blakists had a file on her, after all, they had been running the HPG networks in the Confederation for over almost two decades before the white-out. The amount of data they must have had on her just from that was probably enough, not even factoring in any work that their ROM agents had done.

     Whatever the desk clerk was doing, after a moment, he seemed satisfied and nodded to the guards. "Peace of Blake be with you, and may we reclaim all to the blessed Word." She felt like screaming some obscenities at him, but she knew it would do no good. No, here, she had to be a survivor. The guards led her through the second set of doors, which opened to a small enclosure, an almost airlock-like set up. One of the guards helped her out of her cooling vest, while the other unbuckled and removed her empty gunbelt. They gestured to a small ledge on one side of the small space, just about the right height to serve as a bench. "Take off your boots". She sat down on the ledge and proceeded to unlace her knee-length boots, realizing that this was the first time in quite a while that any of the Blakists had addressed her at all. She stood the boots up on the floor, then neatly tucked her socks, which she had removed as well, into them, then raised her gaze towards the guards, who gestured for her to stand up. She was now clad only in her black form-fitting leggings and matching athletic-type bra which were both made of a durable moisture wicking and heat transferring fabric, and her 4TCR tank top.

     They led her through the opposing set of doors, which hissed shut with a disturbing degree of finality behind them. The steel floor was cold beneath her now bare feet, almost comfortably so. They led her down a long corridor with more doors on the walls than she could count. It was at this point that she noticed the aesthetics had changed. Gone were the familiar Star League vibes, replaced with a sense of cold darkness.

     None of the doors were marked, and she had no idea what differentiated the door they stopped at from any other. The guard on her left hit a button on the panel next to the door, and the door opened with a slight hiss. The room they led her into seemed spacious, probably because there was only a single chair in the entirety of the room. So this is your Word of Blake torture chamber, she thought to herself. The guards led  her to the chair and sat her down in it. They quickly fastened restraints at her wrists and ankles which seemed to use some kind of magnetic locking system. Then, without saying a word, they left, and the door hissed shut behind them.

     She tried to take stock of her surroundings. The lighting was somewhat dim, but she could make out the four bare walls around her. The way that the light shone down from above her made it hard to see the ceiling, and the ferrocrete floor was barren except for a single drain that she was just able to see beneath her chair. All she could do was sit there and wait. It was annoying. She could feel her tension rising with the passing moments, like waiting in an empty room at a doctor's office for the doctor to come in.

     After what seemed like an eternity, she jumped, startled slightly as the door opened. The chair was situated facing away from the door, so she could not get a good look at the person entering at first. She heard the sound of the persons boots on the floor, before a robed figure walked around her and stopped a few meters in front of her. The woman pulled back the hood of her robe, and the lighting in the room seemed to increase a small amount. The woman standing in front of her seemed, at first glance, quite normal. Her Word of Blake styled robes were white, trimmed in a deep red that matched her hair, which was pulled back in a severe ponytail. She was striking, even beautiful, yet something about her was off. Her eyes glowed with an almost unnatural blue hue.

     "Faith McCarron", the woman paused almost unnaturally between saying Faith's name aloud. "Tell me, Faith, do you believe in coincidence? Are events guided by the blind hand of chance, or the steady hand of fate?" As she spoke, she blinked slowly, an almost unnatural, cat-like gesture. When her eyes opened, they shone a fiery shade of red.

Test of Faith - Chapter One

Test of Faith - Chapter One

Jezrael Desert

Pleione

Word of Blake Protectorate

22 March, 3075

     "We're about two minutes from getting cut off from the drop zone, guys. I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up left behind in this pile of rocks. Disengage as fast as you can." Faith barked the orders over the company frequency, but there wasn't a company left. The raid hadn't been a total disaster, but things had started to go south quickly. She and her company had spent the last six hours in a fighting retreat across the desert in an attempt to get back to their dropship. Unfortunately, from out of nowhere, the Word of Blake Militia forces had been bolstered by a level II of OmniMechs that she suspected were a Manei Domini formation.

     They had whittled her unit down along the way, and now she could only field five mechs in addition to her Grasshopper. "They're on us too tight, there's no way we can turn and flank out of here." She heard the anxious voice of one of her mechwarriors over the comm as she checked the tactical display. The Blakists were indeed to close, and too fast. The fighting withdrawal was slowing the Capellans down, but if they turned and made for the dropship at full speed, the Blakists would tear them apart.

     She couldn't shake the sinking feeling in her stomach as she realized what she had to do. Her surviving machines were all fast mediums. They could outpace her even at a full clip. The extraction zone was hot, and they didn't have much time, but if they pushed their machines to the max, they could reach it before the dropship had to lift off with the rest of the raiding force. All except her Grasshopper, which couldn't keep pace, and would only slow them down.

     She brought her machine to a halt near a small rock outcropping. "Ok guys, listen up. I want you all to turn tail and run balls to the wall to the extraction point. Understand? I'll speed-bump the robes long enough to give you guys a clear shot."

     A chorus of protests came over the comm, but she dismissed them all. "I know what I'm doing. And you know what you have to do. Now move before I turn around and start shooting at you guys!" She knew they didn't like it. She knew they would prefer a final stand. But that wasn't the best option here. There was no need for them to die, not just to save her ass. But they followed orders, and made for the dropship as fast as their mechs could take them.

     I guess this is it, the end of the line. I have to admit, I never thought my end would come facing madmen alone on some desert. She knew the Blakists would be on her any second. She would go down fighting. But she would never know how this Jihad would end. Would the Confederation survive? Would her friends and comrades survive? For that matter, would humanity survive this massive conflagration that threatened to tear everything mankind had built to pieces? Would her daughter survive?

     A PPC bolt ripped her from her daydream. It slammed into her mech's right shoulder with a crash. As if the PPC shot had been a signal, Word of Blake mechs appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She focused fire on a Preta that stood in front of her, savaging it with an alpha strike that tore gaping holes in its armor, but did not fell the mech. The heat from the alpha strike washed over her, forcing her to blink away the disorientation. More hits rocked her mech, too many to count or differentiate from where they came. Her damage readout paper doll lit up like a Christmas tree of red.

     She pulled the trigger for another alpha, heedless of the heat at this point, but only two of her pulse lasers responded. A 70-ton Deva stepped between her and her target and absorbed the blast, moving faster and with more agility than a mech that size should have. It stopped for a second, as if taking her in, then gestured with it's left-arm blade towards her mech.

     At that instant, she noticed the tiny forms of battlearmored troops around the Deva's feet. Their mimetic armor had obscured them from her view until now. Several of them raised their weapons and fired at her.

     Suddenly, the systems in her mech blinked brightly for an instant, and then suddenly went out. All her displays were blank, the hum of the fusion reactor could be heard shutting down. She smashed the override button, but to no avail. Somehow, her mech was dead.

     She could only watch as the six battlearmor troopers scurried towards her striken mech, and began scaling it. She pulled her neurohelmet off and threw it as hard as she could to the cockpit floor. There was nothing she could do. Either the battlearmor troopers were going to crack her cockpit and kill her, or she was going to end up a prisoner to these madmen who were destroying the Inner Sphere. Her hand rested for a second on the handle of her Sternsnacht Python. It would do nothing to the armored battlesuits coming for her, but for a brief moment, she entertained the thought of using it to end everything right then and there, killing herself before being captured. No, that's giving up. That's punching out. If this is the end, then they have to force it.

     After a few seconds of the terrible sound of wrenching, screeching metal, the cockpit hatch was suddenly torn away, the desert air entering the cockpit. One trooper pointed his weapon at her, and she thought for an instant that he was going to fire. Instead, he gestured for her to get up out of her command couch. She unbuckled herself and started to stand, but as she did so, the trooper grabbed her arm with the articulated hand of his suit and pulled her free.

     For a moment, she thought the trooper was going to fling her to the ground like a ragdoll, but instead, he used the strength of the suit to hold her while he jumped clear of the mech, feathering his jump jets for a smooth landing. When the reached the ground, he forced her to her knees. As the desert wind swept her tangled hair around her face and provided some sense of cool as it passed over the beads of sweat on her skin, she was aware of a sound now that she was free of the confines of her mech. She glanced behind her in the direction of the noise, and she could see an Overlord class dropship burning it's way out from the planet. The rest of the Rangers had escaped.

Pozoristu Mountain Range
Tukayyid
Free Rasalhague Republic
26 April, 3050



     "Something tells me this is a bad idea," Faith was more musing to herself, but still keyed it over the company-wide channel. The 1st Company of the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers was carefully maneuvering their way through a series of steep valleys and ravines in the Pozoristu mountain range. Her tactical map read blank, and there were no enemy contacts on her HUD, yet something felt wrong.

     "Stay tight through Echo three," came Orkdung's reply. The scouts ahead hadn't yet run afoul of any enemy forces, but ECM had been thick through the early goings of the battle. So far, the battle had gone well. After meeting fairly stiff initial resistance, her lance had kept a steady pace through the first day's fighting. Then they had linked up with the Tikonov Rangers in force, and had smashed through the lead elements of Clan Wolf. Things had gone well, almost too well.

     At the moment, they were moving through a fairly narrow canyon, and she had her King Crab's throttle pushed into the high range as she and Ace led the formation of the heavier elements of the company. There was barely enough room for the two King Crabs to walk abreast.

     "This is the perfect place for-" her words trailed off as some of her readouts briefly flickered. The diminished signal strength of her sensors barely had time to register when lasers seemed to erupt from every angle. Her damage readout had already started to change color, but she could not afford to keep her eyes on it, instead letting her vision dart around for the closest, and greatest threat.

     She thumbed the trigger for her autocannons a brief instant before her comrade on the left did, and the combined hail of shells from the two assault machines tore into a Timber Wolf directly ahead. The combined 50mm and 20mm slugs savaged the Clan Wolf machine, but it still seemed to take an eternity to die. Each second of it's life, her heat crept higher, and the laser vomit from it's compatriots melted away at her armor. Finally, the Clan machine fell, but she had no time to cool off. There seemed to be Timberwolves and Stormcrows everywhere in her field of vision.

     Her pulse quickened and the soaring cockpit heat smashed into her as she swung her guns to the nearest Timber Wolf. She felt her aim rock slightly as an almost unbelievable number of missiles, hurled from the Stormcrow just to the right of her target, peppered her mech and tried to knock it backwards. She fought momentum and struggled to keep her aim true as the Timber Wolf added it's lasers to the fight. In spite of the fact that the rounds from her autocannons tore through the armor and internal structures of her prey, the Wolf stayed alive, twisting it's fresh side to face her onslaught.

     Just then, the second volley of SRM's from the Stormcrow struck her, and she saw the indicator on one of her small-bore ACs wink out. She kept firing through the damage, and through the warnings calmly announced by her mech's computer begging her to allow time for the cooling system to bleed some of the massive amounts of heat that were threatening to overwhelm her machine. The laser volley from her target cut out midstream, and she watched the clanner mech twist and slump to the ground, finally subdued. The mental timer in her head made her brace for what she expected would be a third salvo of missiles from the streak Crow, but it never came, as a seemingly ungodly stream of blue laser fire from behind her almost evaporated the sickly looking omnimech.

     She started to twist her torso to the right to search for her next target, and to find and thank whichever of the laser boats to her rear had helped her by demolishing the streak machine, when the Gauss round struck. Time seemed to freeze for an instant, her vision blurring and everything seemingly fell silent for an instant. She felt an impact, and started to black out by the time the metallic thud of the enemy round reached her ears. She blacked out for an instant, then her senses sprung suddenly to life in time to see a blur of color in front of her and to feel the most intense pain jolt through her left side. Time seemed to proceed excruciatingly slowly, and all she could focus on was the sound of groaning metal and the sensation that some demon was sucking every last molecule of air from her lungs.

     For her last instant of consciousness, all she could think to herself was "It can't end here..."



Dropship Yong Huo
Tukayyid System
Free Rasalhague Republic
6 May, 3050



     Faith could hear a shrill beeping, and her only thought was that she wanted to kill it. For what seemed like hours she tried to kill it with her mind, but it kept going. Then slowly, she became aware of her heartbeat. It was slow and steady, almost too slow. Then the beeping. Then she realized that the two were in sync.

     She told herself that she had to open her eyes. She struggled for a moment trying to open them, before realizing that they were already open and she was blinking furiously against a harsh, artificial light. She tried to cry out, but all she could muster was a soft moaning sound.

     "Relax, it's ok, just relax, Lieutenant," a female voice tried to reassure her. She struggled to move, but was unaware if she succeded or not. She was still disoriented. She could hear the voice again, but couldn't make out any of the words.

     Then suddenly, she was aware of staring into the spectacle-rimmed eyes of  Doctor Ling. Doctor Melissa Ling was one of the Ranger's permanent medical staff, and had been with the unit since before Faith had joined up.

     "Just try to relax. Your system has had quite a shock. Take your time to get your bearings."

     Faith closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus, before opening them again. "Where are we?"

     "You're back on the Yong Huo. We're still in-system at Tukayyid. You've been out for over a week. You took some pretty bad injuries, and there was some slight brain swelling, so we've kept you under to be on the safe side. You also broke a couple of ribs. Your cockpit was breached, by a gauss round I think they said."

      If she had been out for over a week, that meant the battle must have been over by now. The last thing she could remember was they were only a few days in. That could only mean she missed most of the fight. Part of her wanted to slam her fist into something, and her arm moved slightly, enough to make her aware of the IV still inserted in it.

     "The battle?" she asked. She had to know the outcome. Had they won or lost? What happened in the canyon? Was anyone else still alive?

     "The battle is over. Our side lost in the end." As Faith started to try to sit up, the doctor anticipated her reaction and laid a hand on her shoulder to forestall any attempt. "I'm not the person to give you details about the inner workings of it. The unit is banged up pretty bad, but the command staff and the officers are all ok. In fact, they've been stopping by pretty regularly to check on you. In time, I'm sure you'll get all the details of what happened, but for now, you need to rest. It's going to be a long trip home, you'll have plenty of time."

     A long trip home indeed...

   

Stratford
Avon
Irece Prefecture, Pesht Military District
Draconis Combine
15 April, 3050

     The bar was dark, as it seemed most were anymore, but this one was lit mostly by candles. Or some approximation of candles.  Faith had to admit, the decor in here was fairly impressive. The surfaces reflected the light from the candles in a way that, while dim, still set an ambiance of wealth and status. This was no dive. The tables were fairly ornate, the carvings visible through their glass tops. The spacious bar itself had a solid dark wood top which gave an air of stability to the entire establishment.

     The female waitstaff deftly moved among the customers like a choreographed dance, ensuring that no patron wanted for food or drink any longer than was necessary. The three bartenders behind the bar moved efficiently, but with an air of style about them as they served drinks to the patrons who chose the bar over the myriad of tables throughout the room.

     Faith made her way to an empty seat at the bar, smiling subtly at the sidelong glances and hushed whispers that accompanied her entrance. From her quick survey of the room, the information in the briefing had been correct. The bar was filled almost entirely with DCMS officers, with a few civilians sprinkled in, probably important figures in the local community. And they were almost exclusively men.

     If she had thought the Confederation was a patriarchal society, it certainly had nothing on the Draconis Combine. In the brief time that they had already spent in Combine space, she had already nearly tussled with more than a few misogynistic DCMS officers, and it was beginning to get on her nerves. She had always avoided the Kobe district during her days on Solaris, and now she remembered why.

     The cultural briefing had described this bar as one of the best, but had also noted that it catered to the Combine elite. Mercenaries were certainly encouraged to stay away, and to frequent the lower class establishments in the poorer district of the capital city. Such information, of course, had been like blood to a shark with Faith, and as soon as the unit had gotten their gear stored and secured at their temporary barracks, she had set out to find this place.

     And that was how she found herself sitting at the bar, sporting her field jacket which bore the patches both of the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers and the House of Lords stable. This was the bar for the elite, and she considered herself such.

     After several minutes with no service, she finally piped up. "Barkeep! What's a girl gotta do to get a drink in this place?"

     The bartenders each shot her a nervous glance, and then their eyes darted towards a man standing further back at the bar, almost at the doors to the rear area. He was Japanese, likely in his late forties, impeccably groomed and clothed in a suit that absolutely screamed money. If he wasn't the owner, he was at least some kind of big shot. She locked eyes with him. He stood motionless for a time, before slowly making his way over to where Faith sat.

     "In this establishment, decorum is important. I ask that you not raise your voice." Without looking, she knew that the attention of the room, be it overt or subtle, had shifted to their conversation.

     "And I would ask for a drink, but your staff seems...inattentive."

     "Yes, well I am sure there are many establishments where a person such as yourself might get a drink far more quickly, miss...?" The disrespect in his tone was glaring.

     "McCarron. Lady McCarron. And I'm here at this establishment. I didn't see a sign on the door telling me to keep out. Maybe you should think about hiring a bouncer."

     By now, several of the DCMS officers in the room had stood up and made their way over to the bar, crowding around her. "Here in the Combine, there is no need for such things, people know their place and need not be reminded of it. Perhaps it is different where your kind of people come from, but here, we have respect.

     "Yeah, well you might want to work on that. There are some Clans kicking your front door in, and you need help from outside the little boys club to keep them out." She knew the clan reference would raise the hackles of all of the Combine soldiers around her, but she threw it in anyway.

     One of them, a Captain, or whatever the Kurita equivalent was, took the bait. "We are keeping the Clan out with our steadfast devotion to the coordinator. We do not need your sell-swords. There was a time when the Coordinators words were 'Death to Mercenaries'. And while I do not recall any of us placing an order for a woman to come here to sell her...services, we would be happy to entertain you. I see you come from the Capellan Confederation, no doubt your rates are cheap enough."

     That was all she needed. The Drac was not expecting her punch, and the blow caught him squarely in the face, sending him reeling. The crowd that had gathered around her stepped back quickly, as stools clattered to the floor. The Kuritan replied with a punch-drunken swing at her which she easily deflected, sending him sprawling on the floor.

     She started to turn to face the crowd, but she was interrupted by a sharp blow to the right side of her head. She didn't know where it came from, but it sent her vision spiraling into chaos. The next few minutes were a jumbled blur of double vision, blows given and received, and a sea of disorientation. She vaguely remembered being manhandled, and feeling the cool outside air on her face, before a sharp crack sent her into unconsciousness.

     The next thing she remembered was gasping, the shock and confusion of awakening in an unfamiliar environment. She sat bolt upright, as someone had thrown a bucket of extremely cold water on her face to snap her awake. It took her a few seconds of spitting and sputtering to gain her bearings, and she was aware that she was sitting on some kind of cheap cot. The room was still spinning somewhat, but she made out the form of a man in uniform holding a bucket, clearly the villain that had brought her back to consciousness. As she blinked away the cobwebs in her vision, she realized she was in a cell, and that three men stood just inside the door. She relaxed, recognizing Orkdung, Ace, and Vandril.

     "Morning boys. How was your night?"

Castle McCarron
Altorra
Sian Commonality
Capellan Confederation
10 December, 3145



     "My Lady, we must hurry. If we don't leave soon, we'll miss the rendezvous."

     There was just enough of a breeze to move the cold air of the Altorran winter across her face as Freyja McCarron shoved her hands a little deeper into the pockets of her parka. She stood on the balcony and took in the grand view of the gentle valley below. The recent snow still covered most of the ground and the trees, only the tops of a few particularly jutting rocks peeking out, and the gentle winding of the river stood out against the still pure white of the snow.

     "Thank you, Henry. I'll be along presently, I assure you." With that, her aide turned scurried back inside as quickly as would seem appropriate, no doubt to double or triple check some minute detail. She stood motionless for another minute or so, taking in the serenity.

     "It can be hard to leave, sometimes, can't it?" She paused for a brief second before turning her head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the speaker. She didn't really need to, but she always liked to acknowledge someone's presence, however subtly. As she did, a soft gust of wind brought a chill to her, gently swirling strands of her blonde hair around her face.

     "You'll catch a death of cold, Auntie Cat." The woman next to her gave no sign that she noticed the cold air, in spite of her age. She wasn't Freyja's aunt, or an actual blood relative of any kind, but the title had stuck with the family friend sometime along the road of her past years of association with the family. In spite of being over one hundred years old, her skin and eyes still showed the life and energy of someone perhaps half her age.

     "It will take far more than a cold to finally put me in my grave, child. But Henry is right, you should be moving along. The JumpShip will wait for you, the fleet at the rendezvous will not. And lovely as this place is, trust me, there will come a time when you wish you could still leave on adventures."

     Freyja chuckled. "I'm sure you could still kill Davions with the best of us, Auntie." The woman smiled softly in return.

     "I'm sure I could, but I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't." She paused for a brief moment, sighing, before continuing, "But still proud enough to hate that fact. Don't worry though, girl, this place will be waiting for you when you come back. Trust me, I was around when they built it back in the 50's"

     The "fifties" she was referring to were the 3050's, of course, now almost one hundred years ago when her great-grandmother, Faith, had built the castle. It had passed down through the women of the family, coming to Freyja scant years before, when her own mother had died fighting the Republic. She had also inherited the title of "Lady", although now it was a hereditary title of nobility, not the title that her great-grandmother had won in combat and worn more as a sign of pride and bravery than anything else. That was a much simpler time, a time of adventures.

     "You still miss it, don't you?" she asked of the older woman.

     Cat stared out over the landscape for a time, before turning back to Freyja. "The fighting? Yes, a little. The killing, no. The people, all the time." She paused for a moment, as if remembering. "Relish all the time you have with your comrades. If you're lucky, you won't outlive them. There's something about riding into battle in a mech with people you trust and care about, that you'll never get back once it passes. You'll be the first one in your family that I never fought beside, you know."

     "And which of them was the best?"

     The older woman shook her head with a gentle smile. "That's not something you ever think about. It's like a person ranking which children they love the most, or which of their lovers were the best. It's just best not done. They were all great. Great women, and great mechwarriors. Of all of them, you look most like Faith. But heavens knows, you haven't got a tenth of her impatience or temper. If you did, you wouldn't be standing here pondering on such things, you would be burning hard for the jump point now to get to the fight as fast as you can."

     "So you're saying I should be more impatient and angry? Now that's a hell of a thing to say to a girl," she chuckled.

     Cat put her hand gently on Freyja's shoulder. "Never be anything but what you are. It served all of them well, and it will serve you too. Faith and I, we fought in a very different time."

     That much was very true. Faith, her great-grandmother, had been the first in her family to become a mechwarrior. She had seen the coming of the Clans, fought in the fires of the Jihad, and witnessed the birth of the Republic of the Sphere. All of those things were parts of the world that Freyja took for granted.

     One thing that remained the same, however, was the omnipresent threat of House Davion. Soon enough, Freyja would be meeting up with an assault force that would be hitting the DavRats hard.

     "Well, I have a date with the Tau Ceti Lancers, and like it or not, they won't wait up for me."

   The two shared a long embrace. "Take care of yourself, Freyja."

The River Crow
Kufstein
Clan Wolf Occupation Zone
5 April, 3050



     The cold water from the river jolted Faith back to alertness as she splashed it over her face. She took out her pony tail and ran her wet hands through her hair several times, more so for the sensation than for any illusion that she was somehow going to wash out the last 2 days worth of cockpit sweat. She no doubt smelled horrible by now, they all did, but standing on the banks of the River Crow, any human odors were drowned out by the surroundings.

     Techs were already crawling over her battered Battlemaster, working to make what repairs they could during the lull in fighting. The smell of battle was still everywhere, the myriad blended smells of mech coolant, propellant, explosives, and more kinds of burning material than probably anyone could name. A few months ago, this spot would have been pristine, no doubt filled with the scents and sounds of nature, such as it was on this world, at least, and under the bright glowing moon that hung in the sky tonight, it might even have been a picturesque sight. But not today. Now it was the scene of battle, or more accurately, of countless battles. Control of the planet had gone back and forth nearly half a dozen times since the invaders had come. For now the Wolves controlled it.

     She chuckled to herself at the thought of the Wolves, set against the abnormally striking moon of this world, like some ancient Terran monster story. The combat would not start again for another 2 hours, the negotiations had seen to that. And while her experience with the Clanners was limited, the one thing it seemed to Faith that you could count on them for was to adhere to their word.

     "Damned Wolves will be on the prowl soon enough." She glanced briefly over at the speaker, a Rasalhague mechwarrior that was part of her ad-hoc unit. She didn't know his name, nor did she want to. This fighting had been a meat grinder so far, the chaos starting even before they hit the ground. They had rallied together and given as good as they got, but there was still a long way to go before they could even dream of relaxing, much less of pushing the Wolves off this world. She would see countless warriors just like this guy come and go during the course of the fight, and getting to actually know them would just make things harder.

     "Makes you think, doesn't it, though," she replied as she glanced across the slightly rippled water of the river, "in another set of circumstances, it could be you out there. A whole society, bred for war. Could be glorious, don't you think."

     She didn't need to look at the space viking to see the disdain he displayed at her comment. "They're beasts, barbarians, and conquerors. Slip up for even a second out there and you can be a slave in that 'glorious' society." he said. She couldn't blame him. These Clans had eaten up most of the man's nation, maybe even his home planet. But that didn't change her sense of curiosity.

     What if she had been born on that side of the battle line? How would she have measured up. Would she have even survived? Would she have thrived? She found herself thinking that there was something almost romantic about it, a warrior having ultimate and total control of their legacy, in their hands.

     It struck her then that legacy was something she had never given much thought to. She fought to win, and because she was good at it. She fought for the feeling, for the rush. She lived that way too. She had never much bothered to put her battles into any grander perspective. She had never really thought about having children either, it was always something way down the road, as she lived for today. But those warriors across the way, they were fighting for today, but fighting for their legacy as well, for their story. And in a few hours, it would be her job to write the final chapter for a few of those stories.

Bacum City
Bacum
Capellan Confederation
4 April, 3050



     The first thing Faith was aware of was a distant buzzing sound. It wasn't constant, but intermittent, like a fly or a bee intent on annoying her and robbing her of sleep. Did being passed out count as "sleep"? If the doctor asked, she decided that it would. For now, she wanted more of it. The buzzing grew louder and louder over time, until finally it seemed almost deafening in her ears.

     Her eyes snapped open for a second, and she instantly regretted it. Accompanying the morning light, or maybe it was afternoon light, she didn't know, was a massive headache, as if the light itself were a dagger being plunged into her forehead.

     "Gah! Go away! Switch off!" The noise did not respond to her commands as she screwed her eyes shut again to keep out the painful light. The only effect of her protests was to make her aware of how annoyingly dry her mouth was.

     She blindly reached out an arm, flailing about until she found the nightstand, and then her comm unit, and smacked it several times, more violently that it deserved. The buzzing sound still did not stop. She opened her eyes slowly, hoping to stave off the pain that accompanied the light. It didn't work. After several excruciating moments, she picked up her comm unit and stared at the screen blankly for a few seconds.

     "MISSED MESSAGES FROM: ORKDUNG, COL., KALLER, LTC., VANDRIL, MAJ." The buzzing continued. By now it was so loud that she was half tempted to wrap a sheet over her head to try to muffle the noise. Then, for whatever reason, it dawned on her that it was not her comm that was buzzing.

     She sprang out of bed, but her foot landed on something awkwardly and sent her spawling awkwardly onto the floor. "Shit! I'm coming, I'm coming! Just stop making that noise!" She stood up a little more slowly and gingerly regained her balance. Her eyes cast about the floor, searching for wherever her drunken self had decided to toss her clothes the previous night. Then the buzzing started again. "Oh for god's sake. I'm coming asshole, just be quiet!"

     Still mildly confused, she gave up and grabbed a handful of the bed sheet and yanked on it, then wrapped it around herself and shuffled toward the door as quickly as she was confidant that she could without taking another spill onto the floor. She made her way to the door, and yanked it open to find the three 4TCR command staff standing at her doorstep.

     "This better be good"...