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  Spurs, blushing, squeezed his way through the doorway. Walter followed. “See you tomorrow.”

  The mercenary said nothing more until they’d left the building and closed themselves into their hovercar. “Wow.”

  Spurs buckled himself in. “Did she say…”

  “She did, but that’s not important.”

  “Maybe not to you…”

  “Spurs, focus.” Walter smiled. “Remember the mission. Did you get what you needed?”

  Walter’s blond companion nodded. “Yeah, we should be set. A week from now we’ll know.”

  “Great.” Walter started the hovercar. “I don’t think they make shots any longer than this, but when everything comes together, the Collective will be very surprised.”

  Chapter Two

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  Solaris VII (The Game World)

  Rahneshire, Lyran Commonwealth

  28 April 3001

  Sophia Litzau hadn’t realized how worried she’d been until Captain Isolde MacDonald appeared from the bridge of the Vulture’s Egg. “Guards at the gate just called in. Walter and Spurs are back.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Sophia replied. The petite woman shivered. “I don’t know why I was so concerned about their outing. After all the hard traveling we’ve done, that was nothing.”

  The dark-haired woman smiled down at her companion. “Solaris is the first time we’ve been on solid ground since we left Maldive. We were lucky getting this far this quickly—JumpShip routes running to Sian got us away from the Periphery fast, and Solaris gets trade all its own. That accelerated schedule of jumps is enough to drive anyone a bit batty. Then a hard burn down and you researching hard… I don’t think you’ve had a real day of rest since before the Collective struck.”

  Sophia tucked a golden lock of hair behind her left ear. “That’s all true. Having friends leave us en route didn’t help.” Jim Conason had departed the Vulture’s Egg with Ambassador Allard, and most of the other escapees from the Golden Prosperity Reeducation Camp had booked passage to worlds where they had friends or relatives, or where the local job market had something to offer for them. Of the original crew, only Raymond Angelis, Ash Knight, and the chef, Jacques, had made it all the way to Solaris. Sophia had expected Jacques to take off at any point, since his skills were in high demand, but so far he’d stuck with the ship and worked miracles in the galley.

  “Driving a DropShip, even for a mercenary company, you get used to turnover.” Isolde shook her head. “That said, no mercs, no ’Mechs, and a skeleton crew does make the ship feel all hollow.”

  “Yet it makes our planning all that much easier.” Sophia put a hopeful smile on her face as Walter and her brother walked up the loading ramp. “With your shields, or on them?”

  Ivan jerked a thumb in Walter’s direction. “He’s on his. Went toe to toe with a ’Mech that outmassed him by ten tons. Me, I died pretty.”

  Walter raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t really all that pretty.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Hey, Spurs, you did get the girl.”

  Ivan’s quick blush and grumble made Sophia curious, but she withheld a request for details. “So, you have an in on working into the fight game?”

  Walter laughed and pointed toward the crew mess. “Let me explain to everyone at once, then you can get me caught up.”

  Isolde flipped a switch on the wall-mounted comm unit. “Ash, Raymond, Jacques, report to crew mess.”

  Jacques had beaten them to the mess, and set a tray with coffee and tea on the central table. As with most DropShips, the Vulture’s Egg had been furnished in a decidedly Spartan fashion. Metal bulkheads and decks defined the galley and mess in stainless steel glory. The tables seated six, with bench seats attached, and were secured to the floor with bolts. In the blink of an eye, they could all be unfastened and folded down into flat panels for ease of movement or storage. Four large screens mounted on the walls provided local media coverage as well as ship data, and they played holovids when the crew needed downtime.

  Jacques, who’d lost some of his tummy on the journey to Solaris, poured tea for Sophia first, then for Captain MacDonald. “It’s an oolong and fairly fresh, not like that black dust you had to drink before we touched down.”

  Sophia accepted the cup and breathed the steam in. “Perfect, thank you.”

  The two missing members of the escapees joined them immediately. Raymond Angelis, a tall, slender man with bright green eyes, waved Ashleigh Knight through the hatch before him. Ash, who was a head shorter than he was, handed him a mug of coffee, then sat at the table beside Ivan. Ray stood beside Jacques, and Walter perched himself on the edge of the next table over.

  Sophia looked at Walter. “Please bring us up to date.”

  “Spurs and I visited Simon Traeger, a small-time fight promoter who, a couple of years ago, actually managed some MechWarriors in Solaris City. He ran the two of us through a simulator battle against two of his best fighters—brother-and-sister team. Spurs disarmed the brother, I took down the sister. It was touch and go for a moment if he’d sign us on, but Aniki Sturludottir, the sister, convinced him. I sign a contract tomorrow to do some circuit fighting in one of the counties south of here.”

  Ash patted Ivan on the back. “You guys did great.”

  Ivan shook his head as he stared down into his coffee mug. “Walter did all the work, and he got the contract. Traeger said I was bad, ‘really, really bad.’”

  “But he said he liked you.”

  “Not enough to hire me.”

  Ray frowned. “Why did the sister intervene on your behalf?”

  Walter cracked a grin. “She thinks Spurs is cute.”

  Ivan groaned, but Ash hugged him across the shoulders. “He is—charming, too, not like you apes.”

  Walter raised his hands. “We need all the help we can get.”

  Sophia agreed, both that they needed allies and that her brother could be cute and charming; yet, she was uncertain whether his attributes could really help them achieve their goal. Until they were overthrown by the Collective, the Litzaus had led the Planetary Board of Maldive. They had barely escaped with their lives. If they were to return to take their world back, they’d need an overwhelming amount of power. To get power, they had to amass wealth, information, influence, and the manufacturing capability to create and deliver product—’Mech parts and munitions being chief among them. They were starting their quest to conquer a planet with nothing more than big dreams and bigger hopes.

  Ray set his cup on the table. “I’ve got good news in that department. I’ve been scouting around, and I’ve learned which of the top shops here do ’Mech optimization. They tweak engines, myomers, and weapons to make them that much more efficient or powerful. Not huge swings, since the ’Mech Battle Commission sets rules out for what can and can’t be done in sanctioned fights, but these shops get paid a lot for even incremental increases. This one company, Paradigm Shifters, has an opening. Gray Noton just took one of their best techs on as his private tech, so I’m getting hired in. Not only do they pay well, but we’re all allowed to use the shop to work on our own hobby projects. When you’re ready for Solaris City, you’ll be the cutting edge.”

  “That’s great, Ray.” Sophia glanced at Isolde. “You might as well bring them up to speed with our project.”

  “Gladly.” Isolde smiled, although Sophia read a hint of strain in it. “I did some more research, and what we heard out at the jump point is true. The big trend in high-end housing for visitors is luxury DropShip accommodations. Clients come in, we snag them from the point, bring them down, and we’re a cruise ship for them. Gourmet food thanks to Jacques, and we have Ash to chauffeur them in style. Sophia will manage agendas and bookings. She has the class and charm for it, plus she has an idea of what the ultrarich will want. We hop them from point to point if th
ey head out of town, and we can accommodate banquets in the ’Mech bays.”

  Ivan tapped a finger against the metal tabletop. “This really isn’t that luxurious.”

  “True, but we start small. We refit the galley and the MechWarrior quarters. We can build out a couple of the ’Mech bays into another suite. I’ve been told that having some ‘grim with the glitz’—a direct quote from the booking agent—lets the customer think they’re in touch with the common folk. Galley and quarters will cost 20–30,000 C-bills.”

  Ray whistled. “I should become a carpenter.”

  Walter frowned. “That’s a lot, but I think it’s a good expenditure in more ways than one.”

  Sophia looked over. “What are you thinking, Walter?”

  “The Federated Suns froze some Collective and Litzau assets. They can’t give you and Ivan access to them without revealing your existence and causing a diplomatic rift with the Collective, but they are willing to let you borrow against them. Spending that money to do a luxury refit of this DropShip will make sense to bureaucrats—that’s what planetary rulers do, even in exile. Plus, it’s not being spent on an overtly political move to get back into power. This makes it easier to deny if there ever is trouble. Heck, the fact that you’re going into business and could generate revenue to pay the loans back is going to be a good thing.”

  Ivan shrugged. “It lessens the chances they’ll figure out what we’re doing.”

  “No, Spurs, don’t ever think that.” Walter’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t any of you think that. In fact, we have to assume, at all times, that the Federated Suns, the Capellan Confederation, and the Collective know what we’re doing. I doubt the Collective is looking for us, but the Fed Suns and CapCon know you two are still alive. When it suits them, they will reveal that information to the Collective. And if any of the other Houses glean that information, or if any of the dissident factions in those Houses learn about it, they’ll use it to their advantage.”

  The room fell silent, and Sophia let the gravity of Walter’s words sink in. She hated the nagging, paranoid sensation that nibbled at her consciousness every waking moment, but realized it was important to their remaining alive. For some groups such as the Collective, she and her brother posed a direct threat. For others, they were bargaining chips. In the effort to gather power, the first and constant need was to survive.

  “Thank you, Walter, for that reminder. Solaris VII may be part of the Lyran Commonwealth, but it’s really an open world. Intelligence agencies from all over operate here. Criminal cartels operate here.” Sophia laughed. “Heavens, every dissident group and liberation front operates here—just as we are doing. Even though we are willing to play a long game to liberate our world, we’re a threat. People have a lot to lose, and I don’t want any of you to die in this effort.”

  Isolde rested a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “I think you mean to say ‘any of us.’”

  “Thank you.”

  Ivan pointed at one of the screens showing a ComStar news broadcast. “Any news from Maldive?”

  Sophia shook her head. “No, but I’ve learned more about ComStar and rates and data tiers than I ever wanted to know. Your top tier—ComStar messages, news from the various capitals, and premium advertising—gets high-speed distribution everywhere. That’s why even in Rivergaard we’d hear about Ian Davion’s exploits, or about every time Katrina Steiner sneezed. We got to feel that we were part of the Inner Sphere. Tier two—all the regional news, fights from Solaris, other entertainment properties, and more advertising. It gets everywhere eventually. Each tier down goes a smaller distance and even more slowly. If it weren’t for word of mouth from DropShip and JumpShip crews, word of the Collective’s revolution wouldn’t have trickled this far for another six months.”

  Isolde pointed skyward. “I’ve left word with other spacers that we’re interested—after all, the Vulture’s Egg was hired by a mercenary company that died on Maldive—but I don’t have much in the way of hopes of hearing anything.”

  “And asking ComStar to expedite news from the Periphery…?”

  “Walter, the quote I got…” Sophia sighed. “We could buy a new DropShip for less than the yearly rate. I got told, ‘Honestly, no one cares what the Riff lords are up to.’”

  Ivan smiled cautiously. “Maybe one of Traeger’s friends is in ComStar…”

  Walter shook his head. “Operational security. No one can know who we are—who the two of you are. The Collective might be a long way away, but you’re still valuable commodities. Someone will sell you out.”

  Weariness washed over Sophia, and she thought she saw Walter’s shoulders slump a bit. Reestablishing the Litzau family on Maldive was an enormous task, and one to which she’d dedicated her life. She tried to have no illusions about how close to impossible it would be to succeed, but that little scintilla of hope was enough to keep her going. Maldive and the fate of the people they’d left behind loomed large in her mind, and it was crushing to learn that for others, her world wasn’t anything more than a faint glimmer of light in the distant sky.

  Jacques smiled. “This is not a thing to be sad about. Not at all.”

  Ivan frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “It was how we set out planning before. We’re making over the Vulture’s Egg into luxury accommodations so we attract people with wealth and influence. I have served people who are rich and famous. No matter how high or how rich, they all want to know they are liked and respected. More often than not, when I serve them a meal, they ask to see me, to compliment me, to ask after a recipe. They invite me to have a drink. They want to learn about me in case I can be useful to them later. Ivan, Sophia, you have certainly seen this behavior before.”

  Sophia slowly smiled. “I have, chef.”

  “So, we cultivate the story. We make it interesting and understandable enough without revealing ourselves. We are expatriates who came here after we lost our homes. They will never know who you two are—since you are presumed dead—but they will want to learn more about your tragic situation. They will tell others the sad story.” Jacques opened his hands to take them all in. “When they have their chefs prepare one of my recipes, they will tell our story to their guests—who will share that story. Who will come here to see us. We will make money, yes; but our influence will build. And when there comes a time that we need their help, a big or a small favor, they will repay us. It allows them to feel better about themselves. It allows them to build their self-worth. If we succeed, they own a piece of our victory. If we fail, we are a tragedy they tried to avert. Either way they will feel alive, and this is useful to us.”

  Ivan nodded. “Walter, isn’t that pretty much what Traeger said to you, about having a story to sell?”

  “Yeah.” Walter shrugged. “Perception becomes reality. I’m not sure I like it, but if they look hard at the story we’ve made up, maybe they won’t look at the reality and get us into trouble.”

  Chapter Three

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  Bentlyville, South County

  Solaris VII (The Game World)

  Rahneshire, Lyran Commonwealth

  3 May 3001

  Walter wasn’t certain whether he should be amazed that people had raised tents big enough to house BattleMechs, or horrified at the utterly primitive state of the ’Mech hangar at the county fair. One more difference between entertainment and combat. He and Spurs moved through the massive tent’s dark interior, flashing badges that identified them as performers.

  He glanced at his compatriot. “You know, Spurs, you'd look a bit more formidable without rainbow wisps of cotton candy melting at the corners of your mouth.”

  “Well, you’re the talent. I’m just support staff.”

  Had Spurs not exaggerated the whine in his voice, Walter might have assumed his status still rankled. “Right, well, there’s more talent over there, so wipe
your face.” He pointed toward where Aniki Sturludottir was waving to them in the hangar tent’s far corner.

  Spurs licked at the corner of his mouth, and tried to wipe the residue away, but he just smeared it a little and made his fingers even stickier.

  Walter extended his hand to her. “Sorry we’re late. Spurs wanted to sample local cuisine, and there’s a bit of a crowd outside the tent.”

  Spurs, blushing, tried to wipe his hand off on his pants, then started to offer it to Aniki, but hesitated. “Sorry, my hand is kind of…”

  She smiled and tore a small bit of cotton candy from his stick. “I love this stuff. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Take all you want.” Spurs glanced back toward the entrance. “You can have this one. I’ll get more. I mean, get you a fresh one.”

  “This is fine. I like that you’re willing to share.” She gave him a wink. “Sweet, just like you.”

  Okay, we’ve lost Spurs… “Aniki, some of these look like normal ’Mechs, but…”

  “But they aren’t.” She crossed to a table in front of a bank of monitors and picked up a dinner-plate-sized armor scale. “Armor panels are smaller, modular, easier to replace.” She tossed the armor plate to Walter.

  He caught it, but almost dropped it, since it wasn’t nearly as heavy as it should have been. He rapped a knuckle against the outer surface. “This isn’t ferro-ceramic. It won’t stop much of anything.”

  “Doesn’t have to. It’s show business, remember?” She grabbed a small ball and likewise lofted it to Walter. “Instead of depleted uranium rounds, the autocannons shoot these—vulcanized rubber. Charges are smaller, too, but the balls will shatter that lightweight ceramic armor pretty easily and very dramatically. Lasers and particle projection cannons, which are more light than heat on the circuit, melt it really well. Missiles are a lot of flash-bang, and in pretty colors, too. Only the ’Mech cockpits have full armor—to keep everyone safe.”