Tales of the 1-I-Jacks
Prologue Chapter 2
A Change of Direction
By Neil Ikerd
Federated Suns, Crucis March
Andalusia
8 June, 3039
Frederick Thomas di Biasi looked outside and made a
disgusted sound. It was snowing,
again. It had snowed on and off everyday
for the five days he’d been back here on Andalusia. When he’d graduated from the Andalusia
Academy of Arts and Letters almost 18 years ago, he’d promised himself he’d
never end up somewhere this cold again. He’d gone to university on Gambier just to
find some place warmer. For the
hundredth time he glanced at his phone, no new messages. Frustrated, he shoved it in his pocket and
headed down stairs.
“Morning, sweetie.”
He looked across the room at the older woman sitting at the kitchen
island, reading a letter as she sipped a cup of coffee. She had aged well, her blonde hair had
streaks of grey in it that made it look more ash-blonde than the honey blonde
it had been when he was a boy.
“Morning, mom.” He
walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
It was nice to see his mom again, it had been almost six years since the
last time he’d seen her. That was the
harsh reality of interstellar empires, travelling to see relatives that lived 250
light years away was a major undertaking that took weeks of travel. “Who’s the letter from?”
“Ramage, do you remember him?”
“He was the tall guy that walked you down the aisle when you
and Devin got married, right? Wasn’t he
your sergeant when you were in infantry?”
His mom smiled at him.
“Good, I’m glad you remember him.
You’re right, he was. He was
writing to tell me he just retired, 35 years.
He said after being Command Sergeant Major of the 2nd Davion
Guards RCT, anything else would have just been a letdown. The only place for
him really left to go was central command on New Avalon, and he never wanted to
be a command staffer. He and his wife
are settling down to run a coffee plantation on Fomalhaut.”
Fred poured himself a cup of coffee, added one sugar cube
and two tablespoons of cream since it was just a standard French roast, and sat
down at the island. “I never stayed in contact with any of the people from my
unit. There were a few folks that I was
friends with there, but nobody I wanted to stay in contact with. Certainly not anybody I’d ask to be in my
wedding if I ever got married.”
“You weren’t in a combat unit,” she added as though it
explained everything. “When you have to
rely on each other to stay alive when bullets are flying, you get a lot
closer.” She pointed to his phone, “Any
word yet?”
“No. Kind of pisses
me off. I had to take a damn sabbatical
so that I could travel here to sign the paperwork. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to get out of
the office. I’ve had about all the
employee and union complaints I ever care to deal with, but I can’t seem to
break into the governmental contracts group.”
When his mom inquired further he told her about his frustration and his
belief that the AFFS people from the IG’s office that were always around were
part of the reason he was having trouble.
He suspected that reviews referring to his ‘ability to procure luxury
goods’ and ‘positive relations with senior supply managers’ were not the kind
of references the IG’s office wanted to see in the background of lawyers for
their vendors.
When his mom asked about his personal life, he relayed the
story of how the girl he’d been with three nights before he left to come home
had thrown coffee in his face because he’d called her by the wrong name. “It was probably time for me to take a
vacation anyway,” Fred commented, “but I don’t even know who the hell Rob di
Biasi is. And now I have to travel 250
light years so that I can sign for the inheritance he left me.” Fred blew out a
frustrated breath and took another drink of his coffee. “By all rights I should have been able to
sign the paperwork and just transmit it back through ComStar. I know enough about inheritance law to know
that there are only three or four reasons that I would have to travel here
personally. I seriously doubt that this
Rob guy left me anything like that, since I doubt he even knows who I am.”
“He’s your uncle.”
That brought Fred up short. He
didn’t have any extended family he knew of.
He thought his parents were both only children. “Your father and his family had a serious
falling out when he was younger. He
hasn’t spoken to his brother in almost 40 years that I know of.” She grabbed her tablet and opened it up. “I met Rob once when your father and I were
dating, then I didn’t see him again until well after Ted and I divorced. As a matter of fact, I think it was after you
headed to Tancredi that he looked me up.
He settled here on Andalusia after he left the mercenary unit he’d been
with.”
She turned the device so Fred could see it. The picture showed his mom and a guy that
looked like an older, skinnier, more weathered version of his dad. Fred studied the picture minutely. He had the same nose, and their hair line
seemed to be the same shape, though the older man’s was distinctly shorter and
darker. He had a long scar that ran
across his forehead and hooked on the end.
His eyes looked a little bleary and Fred noticed three long necks on the
table. His mom reached over and flicked
to the next picture. The man’s hair was
a little longer and going gray. His nose
appeared to be a bit red and swollen, he was smiling though, and toasting the
picture taker with an amber colored beer.
He flipped through more pictures and watched the man age atrociously
fast. In every one he had a beer in his
hand, sometimes in a glass, others in a can, and most frequently in a
bottle.
“Cirrhosis of the liver?” Fred asked as he looked at the
last picture of the man in the hospital.
He looked to be in pain, even in sleep.
His nose was swollen, red, and pockmarked. His skin was sallow and discolored, and he
looked gaunt.
“Yeah,” his mother said, an obscure kind of sadness in her
voice. “He knew he had a problem, but
his solution was just more of the problem.
Beer made him a happy drunk, but he was still a drunk.” She flipped back a couple of shots to one
where the two of them were sitting on the back deck in long sleeved shirts
while the sun set in a cold, gray sky behind them. They were obviously laughing about something,
and Rob had both hands in the air and both feet off the ground as he leaned
back in his chair. “That’s my favorite
picture. Rob told the funniest
stories. He’s telling me the story of
how he got the scar on his forehead from his neurohelmet smashing in to it
after he slipped trying to turn a sharp corner running down an icy street.”
“He was a ‘Mech pilot?”
“Yes, he served with Carter’s Chevaliers for almost twenty
years after doing a ten year stint in the AFFS with 34th Avalon
Hussars. He was mustered out of the 34th
after the disaster on Halstead Station.”
She was about to continue when Fred’s phone buzzed. He flipped it open and answered.
“Mr. di Biasi, this is Vince Mahon of MacCann and Mahon, the
firm representing your uncle’s estate.
We have the last of the confirmations we’ve been waiting on and we were
wondering if you would be available to come in after lunch today.” Fred replied he could since he was just
cooling his heels. When the lawyer asked
if he was in contact with his mother, Charlene Fontaine, formerly Charlene
Angela di Biasi, he said that he was and handed the phone over. There were a couple of non-committal
‘uh-huhs’ and then a confirmation she would be at the office at 1:00 PM as
well.
The city was quiet compared to life on Tancredi IV, but he
knew that was in part because there were significant underground walkways and
subways here in the city. With as much
snow and cold as it got in the winter, it was easier and safer to travel
underground, so really there was only vehicle traffic on the surface and most
of the buildings above ground were living or office space, most shops were
either underground or inside the larger office and apartment complexes. Fred pulled into a parking garage adjacent to
the building they were going to. They
stopped for lunch at a sushi bar, which Fred was grateful for because most of
the fish on Tancredi had to be thoroughly cooked to kill off various toxic
bacteria that were native to the fauna there.
The conference room they were led to was small and richly
appointed. Shortly they were joined by a
stout man with silvery hair that introduced himself as Johnny MacCann. His demeanor was serious and somber, and Fred
was instantly on edge. In his own
office, senior attorneys only adopted that tone when there were serious
problems or very bad news.
“Mr. di Biasi, Mrs. Fontaine, it is with deep regret that I
inform you that six days ago our office received word that Theodore Allan di
Biasi, his wife Kaileen, and their two daughters Lily Abigail and Rose Marie
were killed aboard the passenger drop ship Carnivale
in the Bryceland system when the ship was attacked by pirates on the 14th
of April this year.”
Fred leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. While he believed his father was a philandering
prick and an asshole to boot, he was still his father. More importantly, he had loved his
step-mother and his half-sisters. Lily
had been a bright spot in the universe for him.
She was smart and kind, she’d just graduated from the NAIS in December
with a doctorate in planetary engineering, and a masters in water ecology. Rose had been like his younger self, a party
girl, but she was insightful and had a good eye for design. She had her own interior design firm and was
supposed to be getting married later this year.
Kaileen, his step-mother, had been very much like his own mother, loving
and caring; she weathered his difficult years following the divorce and treated
him with the same affection as she had her own daughters. When he went away to boarding school, she had
seen him off when his father couldn’t be there, and made sure he got care
packages from home just when he needed them most.
The next couple of days were a blur for Fred. His mother, being more emotionally separated
from what had happened handled the paperwork.
He’d signed his name to several minor documents, but had the presence of
mind to know not to make any important decisions or sign any permanent binding
legal documents until he’d had a little time to clear his head. Three days
later, he was again sitting in the small conference room with Mr. MacCann, a legal
secretary, his mother, his step-father, and a woman that was introduced as
Lucille Winters who was caretaker of the estate. Fred was glad he’d brought the others to back
him, because when the will indicated that he had inherited a BattleMech, two
semi-functional dropships, a 500-acre compound with a private launch pad and
small ‘Mech storage facility, and enough funds to keep the compound running for
2 years, Fred about dropped his teeth.
He was then informed that Mrs. Winters was under contract to maintain
the trust and the house; he had the option to buy her out or keep her on. He opted to keep her on, he had enough
monumental decisions to make that having someone around that knew what was
going on would be more than helpful.
That afternoon he met in a larger conference room with Mr.
MacCann, Mr. Mahon, three legal secretaries, four lawyers he didn’t know, five
of his father’s business partners, his mother and step father, and a pretty
young brunette that was Mr. di Biasi’s executive assistant. While not as jaw dropping as the first
meeting, it was a great deal more tense.
His father owned 20% of a multi-million c-bill interstellar optical
research company that had just signed a contract with Precision Technologies, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Precision Weaponry, his own employer. His inheritance of 100% of his father’s
shares screamed “ethical concerns” louder than anyone in the room really wanted
hear. Within 24 hours he would accept an
attractive buyout option from the partners and place the funds in the living
trust that now included his father’s house and 80% of his worldly possessions,
along with all those of his step-mother and half-sisters. It seemed 10% went to his mother per the
terms of the divorce; and another 10%, plus his luxury hover-car, went to his
father’s buxom young executive assistant.
He was glad Kaileen hadn’t been here for that, but his mother’s
expression had spoken whole volumes that only reinforced his opinion of his
father as a philandering fuck-toad.
The next few days passed in a flurry of planning and
memorial ceremonies that the young executive assistant had been politely but
firmly denied access to. Friends he
hadn’t seen since boarding school stopped to wish him well and express their
condolences. Kaileen’s extended family,
most of whom he hadn’t seen in almost 20 years was suddenly everywhere. Friends of Rose and Lilly that still lived on
Andalusia showed up in droves. It was
several days before he finally made arrangements with Mrs. Winters to see his
new house and compound.
The house was surprisingly modern, being that it was
referred to as a ‘compound.’ He had half
expected some survivalist shack in the woods with a giant underground bunker
full of weapons and rations. The house
was an open design and large enough to accommodate a large extended family or a
small military unit. Most of the house
was closed off and sealed up. Mrs.
Winters maintained a residence in a separate wing of the house that was
intended to hold a small army of servants or assistants. His uncle’s suite included a very well
stocked bar and several partial cases of booze from all over the
inner-sphere. A little poking around
revealed that the bar/liquor storage was actually supposed to be a library/study
with a wet bar that had been added recently.
A tour of the compound led him to a massive hangar. Inside the hangar was something that looked
like a Leopard class dropship, except
for the fact that it was half-disassembled and surrounded by crates with no
labels. A second Leopard was sitting by a massive bay door. It looked a bit worse for wear, but Mrs.
Winters informed him that there was currently a contract for use by a local
shipping concern; it was used once or twice a week and the shipping
company handled the maintenance. When he
asked about the contact at the shipping company, she assured him she’d get him
the info when they got back to the house, but there was only a couple of months
left on the contract. He nodded and she
led him to the adjacent hangar.
It was cavernous, and the lights only lit one of the four
gantries. In the one that was lit stood
a 10-meter mass of servos, wires, weapons, and armor known as a
Battlemech. Its humanoid appearance was
interrupted by the lack of hands on the arms that ended in the barrels of laser
cannons. Its chest had 10 holes on each
side that Fred recognized as LRM launch tubes.
A hole in the middle of the forehead also resembled the laser cannons on
the arms. It took Fred only a minute to
recognize the machine from his years of playing “Immortal Warrior” or even the
time he had spent in the simulators when he was logistics officer for the 42nd
Avalon Hussars: it was Whitworth. Forty tons, packing a mix of medium lasers and long-range missiles, it was
slow for a medium ‘Mech, but had a fairly good long range punch. Jokingly referred to as “The Worthless,” to
Fred it was more than just a robotic killing machine, it was the key to
changing his life. Almost before he knew
what he was doing, he walked up to the giant machine and patted it on the
leg. “For you Lily, and for Rose, and
for you too Kaileen. We’re going to find
those pirate motherfuckers, and they are going to pay.”
He turned back to the sharp eyed older woman that was his
housekeeper and the manager of one of his estates. “I need to find somebody that can make sure
this thing is in working order. Did my
uncle have someone that did that for him?”
“I have a couple of names and contacts,” the old lady
responded, and Fred thought he might have heard approval in the clipped
syllables of her reply.
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