1 - Burnt Offerings

Solaris City
Solaris VII, Lyran Commonwealth
29 January 3053

    Katsumi Kuramoto frowns at her noteputer’s display before looking up at the silent, rust-streaked pile of metal looming above her. Shaking her head, she turns away from the mangled Quickdraw and looks over at the heap of broken BattleMechs on the other side of the broad aisle.
    The tangle of wreckage puts her in mind of some of José Tanaka’s later poetry. She pushes the thought aside. She’s here to work, not daydream. Still, there is something oddly pathetic about the half-destroyed ’Mechs surrounding her…
    This is the part of the Solaris games the fans never get to see – and never really give a passing thought to. The aftermath. This salvage yard is located in the Montenegro district. It’s just one of several in Solaris City, and it is stocked with enough wreckage and scrap parts to build a battalion of heavy ’Mechs. Maybe more.
    “What about that one?” Katsumi turns to her companion. He is pointing at a scorched, battered chassis lying next to a Cyclops that has lost both of its arms.
    “What about it?” She studies the mystery ’Mech for a second. A heavy, she guesses. “What is it?”
    Cameron Mackenzie scratches his cheek reflectively. “It’s a Lancelot, I think. Let’s take a closer look at it.”

    The Lancelot is a mess. Lying on its back like a giant mechanical casualty, the machine has clearly been picked over for parts. Its arms are missing, and Katsumi can see where its lower left leg has been uncoupled at the knee actuator. The gaudy lime-and-gold livery is covered in grime, and the faceplate is webbed with cracks.
    Cameron is walking the length of the derelict machine, eyeballing it. He pauses to examine the hip actuator on the truncated left leg before he clambers up onto the Lancelot’s chest.
    Katsumi follows him up, not at all sure why he’s so interested in this wreck.
    “This could be useful,” the Highlander says at length.
    She brushes the soot and dirt off her hands. “Oh? In what way?”
    He taps the chipped armour plating underfoot with the toe of his boot. “This is a copy of an old Star League design. A fairly bad copy that was built by Luthien Armour Works… the same company that makes your Dragon. It’s got quite a few parts in common with your ride.”
    “Such as?” She starts to see why he’s so interested.
    Cameron points out the pair of weapons ports recessed into the chest. “A Lord’s Light PPC and a Victory 23R medium laser. The exact same weapons as you’ll have in your Dragon. They’d be handy to have as spare parts.
    “The real prize, though, are those.” He points at the ’Mech’s hips. “When I was with Gilman’s Gladiators, I worked on a Dragon. I happen to know that their hip actuators burn out frequently. I reckon that I can adapt those to work in your ’Mech. The Lancelot weighs the same as a Dragon.”
    Katsumi keys in the ’Mech’s reference number, which has been spray-painted onto the shoulder housing. A potted description scrolls up on her noteputer’s display. “Says here that its gyro has been removed. That’s a pity.”
    “Aye, but it means we’ll be able to argue down the asking price. The engine compartment seems intact, and I can tell you now, there are plenty of people in our line of work who’ll need a Pitban 240 in good shape. It’s a popular type; I can think of a half-dozen machines that use it. The Rifleman, the Awesome, the Spider…”
    Katsumi nods. “All right. Number… 1017. We’ll put it on our shortlist.”

    By the end of the grey, drizzly Solaran day they have added two more derelict BattleMechs to their list. One is an old-model Charger that had once belonged to Sunburst Stables. The other is a CLN-7V Chameleon, listed as lot number 1138 in the database. The Chameleon is a surprising choice, but Katsumi is beginning to understand Cameron’s line of thinking.
    The Chameleon is a design that has been employed by each and every Great House… albeit never in a combat rôle. Chameleons are used by military academies to train rookie MechWarriors; even the long-defunct Star League Defence Force employed them.
    “I’ve heard stories that some people have actually taken these things into battle,” Katsumi says as she examines the tubular large laser built into the ’Mech’s right forearm.
    Cameron nods. “They have. Then they got their arses killed. You can upgrade the guns, if you have the money, but you’re better off going with a different design. The Chameleon’s armour just isn’t tough enough to survive a shooting battle – especially now those Clan bastards are on the scene.
    “No, I’m looking at this thing as a source of spare parts. A Vlar 300 engine, jump jets, lasers… and the limbs. We can fix them up and trade them with other units. Same goes for the head assembly.”
    Katsumi regards the crippled Chameleon with surprise. As a part of her apprenticeship in a Solaris stable, she has learned some basic maintenance skills, but she’s starting to realise that the rules are totally different for a mercenary unit. A barter system for parts and equipment has never even occurred to her.

    Coming away from the yard, they take the small electric rental Cameron has hired out. Katsumi’s glad that they’re headed west towards Kobe, the district of Solaris City given over to the Draconis Combine community. Her home.
    She counts herself as a citizen of the Combine, although she has never set foot off of Solaris VII. That is soon to change, assuming that this fledgling mercenary command works out. She watches the people crowding along the sidewalks and feels uneasy. If all goes well, she’ll be travelling into space for the very first time.
    “You all right? You’re very quiet.”
    She blinks and glances over at Cameron. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
    “We’ve got a lot to do, and not much time to do it in,” he points out. “Trust me on that. Getting a unit packed aboard a DropShip is chaos itself.”
    He ought to know, she realises. Maybe that’s why she feels so anxious. She’s a Solaris gladiator, true, been there and done that, but this is effectively a whole new world she’s entering. Cameron, on the other hand, has had first-hand experience. It’s a daunting sensation.
    “What’s it like? Going through hyperspace?”
    Cameron looks at her for a moment. “So that’s it. Afraid you’ll have TDS?”
    “Yeah,” she says, not looking back. “Something like that.”
    Transit Displacement Syndrome. The translation through hyperspace can affect people badly. They can suffer from vomiting and dreadful migraines. Bizarre hallucinations have been reported. There is no way of knowing who is affected beforehand. All JumpShip medics carry medication to help cushion the side effects of a jump, of course, but even after centuries of faster-than-light travel, there is no telling how someone new to the experience might react.
    The prospect… be honest, the fear… of finding out is preying on Katsumi’s mind.
    “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Cameron says as he steers them around a junction. “Without my meds, I heave up every time. Even with my meds, it’s not fun. Rebecca doesn’t even notice the jump. Takes after her grandma in that respect.”
    “Really?”
    “Aye. She’s appointed herself to look after me whenever we’re on a JumpShip. Bosses me around, tells me to make sure I’ve had my meds in plenty of time for the jump. A right little tyrant.”
    That makes Katsumi grin. “Hah. All Rebecca has to do is smile at you and you melt, you big idiot! You turn into a giant pile of goo.”
    Mackenzie turns a little red at that. “All right, don’t rub it in.”
    She relents. “So… assuming the parts from those old wrecks check out, you’ll be dismantling them for shipment, right?”
    He nods. “Easier that way. We’ll get ourselves a few shipping containers and pack them tight with the parts. The loadmaster of a DropShip has a hard enough time without a bunch of idiots turning up with a pile of loose cargo. You don’t want to see what happens when fifty tons of payload breaks free during a vector burn, trust me.”
    “You’ve seen it happen?”
    “Back aboard the Kilmarnock. Some stupid wee shite hadn’t secured a load properly. A pallet of spare heat sinks tore loose and went crashing across the upper ’Mech bay. Two young astechs got turned to pulp against the bulkhead. Never even stood a chance.”
    Katsumi shudders. She isn’t sure if it’s because of the awful picture Cameron’s words conjure, or the matter-of-fact way he puts it…
    “The easiest part will be disconnecting the limbs,” Cameron goes on. “The engines will have to come out, of course. I want to have that old Charger’s power plant pulled before we pay for the frame. I’m not handing over money for something we’re never going to use.”
    “So why even bother with the ’Mech at all?”
    He grins. “House Kurita’s turned out piles of those things, so getting spare arms and legs won’t be a problem. What I have in mind for the frame involves a smaller power plant and a few more heat sinks…”
    Katsumi thinks about that. “You’re planning to ditch those stupid small lasers, aren’t you? Upgrade the guns and add more armour?”
    “That’s right. It’ll take a fair bit of effort, but the targeting systems on a Charger don’t have to be altered that much… not if you go with bigger lasers. I read about this custom job some mercenary outfit in the Free Worlds League cooked up ages ago. They stripped out the engine and lasers from a couple of scrapped Rifleman ’Mechs and grafted them onto this old Charger they’d recovered from some pirates. They loaded the frame up with armour and jammed as many heat sinks as they could find into the ’Mech.
    “When they’d finished, they had themselves a machine that looked almost identical to a Charger, but it packed four large lasers. It could take a serious beating, too. I want to talk it over with Brigitte and Horst first, see what they think.”
    “You think you can build it?”
    Cameron nods. “It’s straightforward stuff. Just needs a lot of sweat, like I said. The Pitban 240 out of that Chameleon would be a starting point.”
    “It’d be slow. About the same foot speed as an Atlas…”
    “I know. But it’d have no ammunition to worry about, it’d be easy to find parts for, and a lot of people will underestimate it – right up until the moment it burns them to a crisp.”
    Katsumi folds her arms. “You know, for a family man, you’ve got a nasty turn of mind.”
    “Maybe… but that’s why you like me, isn’t it?”
    She looks out the side window. You really have no idea, she thinks.