Lancer, not a Mechwarrior
Chapter 3
-VB-
John looked at the four mechs that now populated the Leopard’s mech hangars where there used to be one.
The first four were familiar to him despite how recent their acquisition was for the company(?). The largest and heaviest of them, and holding a hangar by itself, was Hunchback. It was missing its left arm and most of its armor, but that was because Darius lacked a mechtech to fix the mech. The next three mechs, all Locusts, were in the same boat as the Hunchback: missing limbs and armor. However, they remained operational and were small enough to stack into hangars together instead of each one taking up an entire hangar; two Locusts shared one hangar and the last one had a hangar to itself, and the Hunchback sat in its own berth.
These new acquisitions filled out the Leopard…
…but there was no one else to pilot them.
Right now, the only mech in use by the company was his boss’s one and only unique mech, the “Raleigh.” A somewhat thinly armored but structurally bulky, hard-hitting despite its many utility options, and absurdly photogenic cowboy of a heavy mech.
John still had a hard time grasping the fact that Raleigh - or rather Rayray as Darius calls his “baby” - had an alpha strike comparable to double AC/20 and LRM20.
“Boss, where do you want the cargo?”
John looked over his shoulder at the new hires that Darius had picked up on Inner End. Most of them were young boys who didn’t know jackshit about mechs but had enough enthusiasm and “lack of connections” to not be a problem for the mercenary.
“Over there,” John pointed towards the cargo hold, which was the rear end of the Leopard’s cargo hold, which was adjacent to the mech hangars.
The boys nodded and drove the fork lift around with a heavy unit of eight cubic meter cargo box.
He turned back around and looked at the rest of the scene.
With no dedicated mechtechs, the best they were able to do was to hire a regular mechanic, a bunch of old manuals, and get him to try to fix the mechs. Or at least put some armor on them. Doing so during transit was kind of risky, especially because Darius was pushing the Leopard to catch the jumpship waiting for them at the zenith of the local star. Moving all of these cargos around to find the right armor panels had been busy work in and of itself, but they got it done.
“So?”
“... It shouldn’t be too hard,” the mechanic, a middle aged divorcee, grunted as he looked over the piled plates of battlearmors and the Hunchback in front of them. After he left, John decided that he should go and have a conversation with his boss, if not about hiring some new mechwarriors than to know where they were heading to.
He walked across the mech hangars towards the back of the dropship. As he did that, he noted a lot of things different about this Leopard than those that he was familiar with. For one, there was a distinct lack of an “industrial” feel that most dropships and jumpships had. A lot of the walls were richly decorated with heraldry and symbols, though he didn’t understand where most of them came from. Hell, he didn’t recognize any of them… but then again, recognizing the sigils, symbols, heraldry, and the like were not exactly the material taught to a ship kid like him.
The metal floor was also polished, even though it was going to get scuffed up again because this was the mech hangars where heavy materials, wheels, and accidents occurred. Hell, even the lights were set to an orange-ish white that cast a soft glow over the corridors; only the lights above the mechs themselves were kept as industrial white floodlights.
Then there was the food.
The food was good. Too good. Most of the food served to them came from some sort of a vending machine that appeared out of nowhere one day while it was just him and Darius. Darius said he made it… but he wasn’t sure if he believed the man. And whatever it was, it would make food as long as ingredients were put in.
Put in a “steak” ration and get an actual steak out of it. The input determined the output, but the quality of the output always ensured that everyone, including him and Darius, would come back to it for their meals. It was also conveniently placed in the cafeteria.
But Darius put limitations on it: two inputs per twenty-four hour period per person. Each person had their own biokeyed card to use it with, which meant that even if any of the crew had another crew member’s card, they wouldn’t be able to use it and would actually alert the security to the potential theft.
Why only two? Darius never explained, so most people used it for lunch and dinner, because lunch was right before most people started work and dinner was during their main break. Because Darius also, somehow, set up a system where the Leopard’s systems also tracked how many hours people worked without Darius or them needing to log it in manually.
As for how precise it was? Pretty precise. John checked it himself, and while it missed a few minutes here and there everyday, that was very much stated in everyone’s contract and that “the additional compensation listed under [Discretionary Payment] is supposed to cover it and more.” And considered that DP gave everyone anywhere from 10% to 20% more pay per hour, no one complained. There was, however, a minimum number of hours one had to work per day as well as mandatory team work hours they all had to put in.
And finally, plants. There were plants in a lot of places, most of them growing out of specific tubes. Some of them were vegetables that anyone could take. Some were just … grass. Others were flowers. But it gave the corridors and each room of the ship this … pleasant vibe that wouldn’t be found in any other ship. And Darius was glad for that. While he did know that plants were necessary for humans to keep their sanity, he didn’t realize just how much calmer he was with plants around in abundance.
That wasn’t what he was heading toward the captain’s room for, though.
No, it was clear to him that Darius needed to get proper personnel fit for a mercenary company, including ship security, and that’s what he was heading up to talk about.
He wove through the narrow corridors that were barely wider than his shoulder width and came up to the captain’s room. He knocked thrice. “Darius, it’s me, John.”
“Come in.”
He opened the door, realizing it was open, and entered the captain’s quarters.
Like all quarters fit for leaders, it was the biggest residence room aboard the ship but not by much. It was just big enough for a wide bed, a table with a computer and chairs, and a small kitchenette with chairs. And Darius sat at the computer desk, fiddling with goggles over his eyes, a hammer in one hand, and pick-like tool in the other hand. He rhythmically and slowly engraved into the barrel of a pistol. But as soon as Darius stepped twice into the room, he stopped, set all of the tools down including the goggles, and turned to look at him.
“What is it, John?” he asked.
“I think our destination has to focus on recruitment,” John replied after a moment. “We need dedicated mechtechs, mechwarriors, and security.”
Darius nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” he replied. “But I don’t know where a good recruitment ground would be.”
“Well, if there’s a few places you go nearby, if you’re willing to take suggestions.”
“Sure, lay it on me.”
“Kilbourne would be our best bet. It’s got a military academy and everything, and it’s the main base of operation for the FedSuns’ local militia. There are sure to be dispossessed mechwarriors there as well as mechtechs looking for work. Security will be easier to hire in a place that trains them in bulk.”
Darius hummed. “And what about their loyalties?”
John sniffed. “The Federated Suns doesn’t have the best opinion of mercenaries like their coreward neighbor. But they tend to follow the letter of the law and agreement at the very least. As long as you don’t screw them or their honor, they won’t try to screw you.” He paused for a second. “Usually.”
“Fair enough,” his boss replied. “Kilbourne, you said?”
“Yes.”
“Then can you negotiate on behalf of the company for passage?”
John nodded. “I sure can.” Even though he was never ever given such an opportunity with his clan. But he knew enough from listening to how it should go and what the prices were.
Darius looked him over once and smiled. “Alright, then. Anything else you were concerned about?” he asked as he slowly turned back toward his half-completed engravings on the gun barrel.
He glanced at the barrel. That was one of the service pistols that could be given out to anyone.
“Um. Are you sure about engraving that?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“That. It’s supposed to be our stock pistol, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why engrave on it? Shouldn’t it be done on something with actual value?”
Darius tilted his head from side to side before stopping. “I don’t have a reason. I just want to.”
“... I guess that’s your hobby?”
“Close enough,” his boss smiled. Then he fully turned to face his desk, put his goggles back on, and began to engrave into the barrel again.
-VB-
While Darius and his company moved about in space to physically reach a jumpship, information traveled far faster than they ever could. Even before they left the planet, quite a number of people sent messages from the HPG station on Inner End to their respective superiors with questions regarding “this new mech he/she saw” along with the pictures taken.
As the picture of the mech circulated the Inner Sphere, people initially dismissed it as a frakenmech. After all, the periphery was known for frankenmechs. Everyone who knew anything about mechs knew that the periphery was filled with pirates and poor barbarians who couldn’t buy mechs wholesale for either being too poor or, well, pirates, so they slapped mech parts together.
Most of the time, this was to the detriment of the people using those frankenmechs as parts incompatibility and shoddy materials usually resulted in a barely functioning machine.
So people laughed at the cape-wearing mech. That was a first!
… Initially. They laughed initially.
As the circulation continued, smarter people began to notice things.
Like how none of the parts that the pictures showed matched any known mech parts. At first, people shrugged it off. Periphery barbarians weren’t dumb by any means, so it wasn’t impossible for them to put something decently mech-like if they were lacking a part.
But the inconsistencies continued.
Designers were called in for their opinion.
Engineers were called in to discuss what they were seeing.
And then one of the pirate mechs’ battleROMs got leaked from Inner End.
And suddenly, the Inner Sphere realized that they weren’t looking at a frankenmech. They were looking at a mature design that destroyed a company of pirate mechs. No matter how shoddy pirate mechs were and regardless of the help that came in the form of a dropship, a mech that can hold its ground against an entire company was not one to be underestimated.
People got curious.
And where people got curious, they investigated.
So by the time Darius’s company jumped into the Kilbourne system in search of mechwarriors, mechtechs, and more, everyone knew about him, his mech, and his company. And everyone was eager to get a piece of him - verbally, metaphorically, or literally.
Including the Combine spies on Kilbourne.