Tales of the One-Eyed Jacks
Prologue Chapter 4
Pleased to Meet You
By Neil Ikerd
22 July, 3039
Andalusia
Crucis March
Federated Suns
The man didn’t even look away from his noteputer as he
reached over to hit the button to take the call. He missed his days in the 42nd
Avalon Hussars, when finding parts had just been a matter of requisition orders
and maybe greasing a palm or two. “Di
Biasi,” he replied; the ability to appear to be interested in a call while
reading something else was one he had perfected while working as a corporate
lawyer for Precision Weaponry at the home office on Tancredi IV.
“Sir, I have just sent a young man from the house over to
your office. He said he was a
‘Mechwarrior and was told to look you up.”
Fred put down what he was looking at.
Mrs. Winters had come to him as part of the inheritance- she wasn’t an
indentured servant or anything, but she had been house manager for his deceased
uncle ever since he had bought this estate in the early 30’s. She was a no-nonsense kind of woman, probably
5 or 6 years older than his own mother, but that was strictly a guess. He was pretty sure Mrs. Winters was born with
that perfectly coiffed white hair and stern expression. “He was erect of carriage and stern of
demeanor; seemed very professional.”
“You mean you liked him.”
“I didn’t say that, sir.”
Her voice sounded slightly shocked, like she was afraid she had
overstepped her boundaries.
“You didn’t have to.
Do you like him?”
“I don’t think that matters, sir. It’s not my place to say.”
“Lucille, can I call you Lucille?”
“No, sir. My name is
Mrs. Winters. It makes sure that
everyone understands the nature of the relationship, sir.”
“Very well, Mrs. Winters.
I think it should be your place to say.
This little endeavor needs someone capable behind the scenes. I need someone that can handle book-keeping
and payroll, can handle client reception, that can deal with minor issues, or
can interface with vendors when I’m not available. That person would also need to be able to
take care of managing my schedule and occasionally run interference for
me. I need an executive assistant.”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about BattleMech
operations, sir.”
“Not asking you to. I’m asking you to run the business side, so I
can run the ‘blowing shit up and killing people’ side of the business. Pay is 500 c-bills per month in addition to
your pay for running the household, which will continue to come out of the
estate trust that you so ably manage.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I won’t take care of getting rid of your doxies when you’re
done playing with them.”
“I know, Mrs. Winters, you made that very clear from day
one.”
“Very well, sir.
Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome Mrs. Winters, and thank you. Now, do you like him?”
“I think he’s exactly the kind of young officer you’re going
to need if you’re going to make this into a proper mercenary company, and not a
very expensive fraternity club.” There
was a brief pause, as though they were both waiting to see if thunder would
follow lightning. “He’s on his way to
the hangar, sir. You should probably
meet him there.”
“Probably so, have a good afternoon, Mrs. Winters.” She reminded him that a young officer would
probably be more receptive to serious response than a friendly one, then wished
him a good afternoon before he hung up.
Either he was a genius for hiring the old lady, or his life was about to
become a living hell. He stood and
stretched, then checked his calendar.
Stephen was supposed to be over in a little bit as well, something about
a pilot and crew.
Glancing at the wall display, he saw that it was a balmy 12
degrees outside. The calendar might say
it was the 22nd of July, but that was Terran-standard dating. The leaves hadn’t started coming out, and the
snow hadn’t even started melting above 3000 meters yet. Hopefully they could get their training done
during the brief summer and be off this rock before winter rolled around again-
maybe someplace tropical with girls in bikinis and umbrellas in the drinks.
***
Robert Monsoon was hard at work as usual. He and his three techs were in dismantling
the torso cavity so they could get to the cracked engine shielding. Rather than repairing it, they were going to
replace it completely. “Gorilla,” Fred
called across the echo-y hangar that was designed to hold four of the massive
BattleMechs, not just one.
“Yeah, boss.” The man
looked up from where one of the younger assistants was securing the final
straps of a lift harness so they could haul the engine out when the replacement
arrived tomorrow. Except for the hair and the nose, his new boss looked nothing
like his uncle. That probably had to do
more with life experience than genetics though.
Rob had always been a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, and had openly
mocked guys that dressed like his new boss; but Robert didn’t care how he
dressed. His money was yellow and spent
just fine, and it meant getting back to repairing BattleMechs, not those
glorified exoskeletons that people called “agro-mechs.”
“I know you don’t know much about avionics systems, but do
you know enough to know a bull-shitter when you hear one?”
Robert considered for a long moment. He knew tech-speak, and you could always
pinpoint some that was bullshitting their way through tech-speak. The real trick was not to get caught yourself
when you were talking to a real expert.
“As a rule.” Just
like figuring out if someone was bullshitting their way through, most of the
time it better to just shut up and let the other person talk.
“Good. I’ve got a guy
that wants to come by and give me a quote to get ‘The Crate’ running and supply
a crew. Since I know even less about
dropship operations than I do about BattleMech operations, I need somebody
there that knows their ass from a hole in the ground.”
While not the most inspiring speech ever given, at least his
boss had the good sense to know that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. That was really rare in a ‘Mech-jock. It didn’t give him great hope for the longevity
of the new startup merc company, but the money was the right color and there
was enough of if it to make it worthwhile for now.
“When are they supposed to be here?” His crew was at a good stopping point, but
the ‘Mech was by no means ready to be viewed by anyone that wasn’t deeply
involved with its restoration. He wiped
his large hands on the rag he kept in his pocket, then put it back.
The boss glanced at his gold watch. “Soon.
Are you guys at a point where you can take a break?” He glanced at his watch again. “Or maybe you could let them go home early
today if you’re at a good stopping point.”
“Full pay?” Robert
liked this crew. They were young, but
they had good sense and listened well.
“Sure, it’s only 2 hours to quitting time, let them head out
early if you think it’s alright.”
“Thank you, sir. The
men will appreciate it.” Robert glanced
down at his coveralls. “I’ll need about
10 minutes to wrap up and change.” With
a nod, he headed back over to where the ancient Whitworth stood in her gantry and called up to the crew. There was a fair amount of whooping and
hollering when he told them to put away their tools and they could head home
early. He waited until they were putting
on their coats to drop the other shoe on them.
“Tomorrow’s going to be a bitch of a day. There’s nothing worse than pulling an engine
out of a cold ‘Mech.” That wasn’t
exactly true, but these greenies had no way of knowing that. “Any of you
numb-nuts shows up crawling out of a bottle and I’ll hang you from the gantry
myself. Clear?”
“Crystal,” they all replied, if not enthusiastically. He dismissed them with a grunt and went to change
out of his coveralls. He didn’t want to
look like a tech if he was going to be grilling one.
***
Fred glanced up from his tablet at the click of the far
door, but was careful to keep his head down.
Through the fringe of his bangs he watched the man walk across the
hangar. ‘Erect of carriage,’ as Mrs.
Winters had said. He walked like an
academy graduate, standard 30” step, heel-toe, hands swinging 60/30, Fred
wondered if he even realized he was doing it.
Fred’s ROTC instructors hadn’t been overly strict about marching, but he
definitely remembered having done it.
Another door opened and a small group entered. It took a couple of seconds for him to
recognize Stephen, the consultant he’d hired to help him get legal as a
mercenary and find pilots and crew. He
had his suspicions about who Stephen really worked for, but the background
checks had all come up clean and Stephen hadn’t led him afoul of the law-
yet. He realized the people with him
must be the restoration and repair crew from Kessel Interstellar. The lights came on across the hangar as
Gorilla exited the locker room and headed toward them. The lights illuminated his inherited Whitworth in all its battered
glory. Fred thought all it really needed
to complete the look was an old 4-wheeler up on blocks.
“What a hunk of junk!” Fred snapped around to see who had
said it. Sure it was ugly, but it was
his ugly baby, and only he got to call it a hunk of junk. He glared at the young man that had come in
alone. In turn, the young man turned to
look at a guy in an old flight jacket with distinctive military lines. Fred
didn’t recognize it, but the blue color looked pretty standard for Lyran
Commonwealth uniforms.
“It’s not that bad, just needs some work.” Fred looked back to the young man. His bearing said louder than words that he
was ready to throw down on the loud-mouth that had insulted the half dismantled
‘Mech in the gantry. He seemed to take a
deep breath and turned, “Leftennant
Jonathon Wilkerson. I am looking for a
job.”
“Pleased to meet you Leftennant.”
Fred extended his hand and shook firmly.
“Fred di Biasi, owner of… this little lash up. We don’t have a name yet, because ‘Fred’s
Furious Fighters’ sounds pretty stupid to me, despite what Stephen
thinks.” He extended his hand and indicated
a slender man with a wary expression.
“Stephen is a consultant I hired to help me locate crew and other
necessities.” Stephen and Jonathon shook
hands, and Fred was pretty sure Jonathon had suppressed a look of recognition,
but Stephen had been cool as an Andalusian spring day. He was starting to get a sense of collusion
that he was going to have to look into.
Stephen indicated the group he was with. “This is Lewis
Davis, Szymon Kukowski, Ramla Zein, and Bonnie Michel. They’ll be the core of the crew handling your
drop ship and getting her back online.
Jonathon shook each of their hands in turn.
“Call me Solo,” Lewis said as they shook hands. “I’m the captain, and leader of this merry
band of rapscallions. These are my
pilot, lead gunner, and ship’s doctor, who also doubles as engineer.” He indicated the same group Fred had just
shaken hands with. “I understand you
have a Leopard we’ll be running for
you.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” Fred said with a smile. He was going to cut the legs out from under
this guy. There was only room for one
hot shot in this outfit, and since Fred was paying the bills, he got to be that
hot shot. “It’s over this way.” He indicated a door in the far wall from
where everyone had come in. Gorilla fell
in behind the group as they trudged across the hangar. “Solo, your boss said he understood the ship
needed a little repair, and that he’d send someone over who could get it up and
running in no time flat. I have high
hopes for you.”
Fred smiled to himself as he hit the button to open the
hangar door. The lights came on and
illuminated what was supposed to be a Leopard
class dropship. Repair panels were open
or missing across most of the nose and visible port side. The tail assembly had been removed and one of
the left side thrusters was actually sitting on a small army of the cinder
blocks. With a flourish and grand
announcement like he was the proudest father in the galaxy, he crowed, “I give
to you Spare Parts.”
Solo’s face collapsed.
Fred smiled to himself as he watched the young hot shot try to quickly
pull himself together.
The piece de
resistance though was when Gorilla clapped the man on the back and said
with as much excitement as he could muster, “Man, am I excited to have you
around. The avionics in this ain’t
nuttin’ like the circuits in daddy’s old crop duster. Imma tellin’ you, I couldn’t figger out where
half that shit went when I was a done takin’ it out. Pretty sure we still got all the parts though,
they ‘round here somewhere or other.”
“So, Mr. Solo, your boss assured me you could have it back
up and running by the end of the month.
You ready to jump in?” Fred
watched the man assemble a brave façade from obvious disappointment.
“We’ll take inventory and do diagnostics in the
morning. It’ll probably take a couple of
days to get a handle on it, but we’ll… we’ll take care of it.” That was what Fred had really been looking
for.
“Good, because that’s not the ship you’ll be flying. We call it Spare Parts for a reason.
Mr. Hutch told me it would probably cost ten to twenty million to get
that thing back in the air. The Crate doesn’t look like much, but I
understand she’s got it where it counts.”
He led the small group over to another door and opened it to reveal an
old, but serviceable Leopard sitting
on the pad. “I was leasing it to a local
transport company for sub-orbital transport up until about a month ago, so we
know it was air and space-worthy at least that recently.”
“Whew, that’s a relief,” Solo said as Fred closed the
door. “Hutch said you needed a pilot and
crew, not a miracle worker. Not that I
couldn’t get it back up and running,” he hastily added.
“Good for all of us.
It’s going to cost me enough to get my ‘Mech online and find some more
pilots without trying to resurrect that pile of parts.” He led them back into the ‘Mech hangar and
closed the bay doors behind them. “It’s
getting late, how does everyone feel about Chinese food for dinner? There’s a good place about 20 minutes from
here.”
“You buying?” Stephen asked with a smile.
“You’re the vendor, Stephen, aren’t you supposed to be
buying?”
“Sure, I’ll just bill you for it.”
“Then in that case, I’ll buy and save myself 10%.” Stephen protested his innocence, but given the
volume and length of his defense, they were all pretty sure that was exactly
what he would do.
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