A Question of Greatness
- Chapter 1[]
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Chapter 1[]
When Logan woke up, what happened next was probably the most confusing and existentially alarming few minutes of her life.
As consciousness returned to her, the first thing that she registered was pain. Her left arm and her skull were throbbing like mad. What happened? I remember… fighting. A raid. It was a pirate raid. I was in my Wasp… how did I get here?
Slowly she forced herself to open her eyes which felt dirty and crusty. As soon as she looked at her surroundings it was obvious that she was in a hospital bed. It was thankfully nighttime, but even the dim illumination in the room stung her eyes. Looking around she found she was hooked up to an IV and all sorts of monitoring equipment.
Funny, the basic IV pole and heart monitor hasn't changed much in the last thousand years Logan thought to herself, finding the idea to be somehow darkly amusing.
Then Logan realized something, stepped on the metaphorical mental breaks and frowned to herself in confusion. How the hell do I know what IV poles and heart monitors looked like a thousand years ago?
Then, all at once, the memories began to hit.
She was Logan Axe, second daughter of a noble family born on the planet of Detroit in the year 2989. She was also a man named Logan Axe, a successful workaholic shark in the corporate sector, born in the city of Detroit on Earth (Terra) in the year 1989.
Suddenly Logan was no longer at all certain of who and what she was. To an astute student of psychology it should also come as no surprise that she was suddenly hit with an overwhelming feeling existential fear and dread as she suddenly lost all coherent identity of who and what she was. The was no reason in that moment, no room for detached reflection, only raw overwhelming panic.
Some part of her dimly registered that the medical monitors attached to her began to beep like crazy as she began to thrash and scream in her hospital bed out of some deep rooted animal response to the terror she was suddenly feeling.
"Shit! Susan, get the crash cart and call a code. Lady Axe is having what looks like a seizure!"
Dimly aware of people suddenly bursting into her room, amid the swirling confusion and shattered identity, there was one set of memories that stood out like a beacon in her mind. She latched on to it, desperate for any stability in the chaotic storm of memories. However instead of grounding her the shock of the content of those memories that somehow didn't belong to either she-Logan or past-he-Logan completely turned everything she knew upside down.
Lostech, so much and so close.
An impossible machine.
A bored otherwordly being with his eyes now firmly on me.
"Damn it, she's going to hurt herself! Sedate her, right now!"
She felt the sting of a large needle being pushed not so gently into her arm, and then she knew no more.
It was nighttime again when I woke a second time.
This time I woke up slowly, feeling like I was slowly being dragged into consciousness from the bottom of the ocean. I was laying on my side and was comfortable, the pain in my arm and head dulled to something I could easily ignore. I didn't open her eyes yet, in no rush to return to the land of the waking just yet, and did what I could to take stock.
The memories… they were there still, but settled now. Calmer. No longer tearing me apart. Though for now I very firmly decided to keep my thoughts away from "who" Logan Axe actually was anymore. For now. It didn't help with the confusion that we were both named Logan Axe. It was just… I would just have to act and be myself for now. My 31th century self that is. I was going to be Logan Axe, the 31th century woman. Herself? Yeah, definitely herself. No need to add gender confusion on top of all the other problems I suspected I was going to have very soon. It helped a lot that other-Logan hadn't thought of being a man as a huge part of his core identity. Most of his pride had come from his work and how he managed to thrive and stand out as exceptional even in the cutthroat world of 21st century Earth (Terran!) corporate competition. Being a "man" only factored into that world when he was glad he didn't have to deal with some of the disadvantages his female colleagues had to deal with.
As for the "other" memories, those that didn't belong to either myself or other-Logan… Earth-Logan? Yeah, that didn't belong to either me or Earth-Logan. Lostech. The Machine. And the certainty that all of this, the memories, the Lostech, all of it, had been orchestrated by some higher being who just wanted to watch the mice dance.
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Leopard Class Mech-Carrier DropShip, deploying a Commando Light 'Mech for combat.
It sounded crazy, even in my own head. Was I going crazy? Had I completely lost it already? It certainly kind of felt like that, but no. I couldn't explain it but somehow I knew everything that was now in my head was real.
What was I going to do? I didn't have a clue. In fact, it'd be getting way ahead of myself to even think about what I could use all this information for. It suddenly dawned on me that I still didn't know what had happened to land me in the hospital. But I still remembered enough to put some of the pieces together.
There had been a pirate raid. A big one, going after our big industrial agricultural equipment and indiscriminately burning our crops of all things. They'd come on a Leopard and a Danais dropships, with six BattleMechs and two companies of infantry with support vehicles. I remembered dueling two Commandos in my Wasp, a COM-2D and a COM-1A of all things. My lips twitched into the ghost of a grin as I remembered destroying one and crippling the other, outmaneuvering them by repeatedly making the amateurs get in each other's way. Then after that it got blurry and then… nothing. I frowned as I realized what must have happened. I probably ejected, so that means one of those pirates must have gotten me.
Was my Wasp alright?
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Quickdraw Heavy 'Mech
And more importantly, what about my dad and Hector? Last I remembered my dad was dueling a Centurion and a Cicada in his Quickdraw with what little combat vehicle support we had, while Hector had run off in his Assassin to try and stop the two Firestarters that for some reason had decided to run around and burn every farm field within twenty kilometers. Which just so happened to be our most productive, most important farm fields.
I felt a heavy ball grow in my stomach. Even if things had gone near perfect after I blacked out, a lot of the damage had already been done. This raid had hurt us. Badly. Losing that many crops and equipment mere weeks before harvest was going to be a devastating blow, not only for us, but for all of Detroit.
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Cicada Medium 'Mech
A thought suddenly sprung into my head. Lower supply means higher prices. I frowned. Okay, yes, that was true. But it was still callous.
Right. Well, I wasn't going to learn anything just laying there being a lump, and I was no longer in the mood to enjoy being comfortably curled up in bed. With an effort of will I forced my eyes to open.
I almost started at seeing someone in a chair next to my bed, his head hung and his face cradled in his hands. It took me a moment in the semi-darkness to realize who it was. Messy mop of blonde hair, lithe but fit shoulders, the tattoo of the face of an Atlas on his left arm from a drunken misadventure when he'd been fifteen. It was my older brother, Hector Axe, and even in the dim light I could tell he looked like death warmed over.
It gave me a sinking feeling about just how bad things might have gone.
My throat was dry and it took me a couple of tries before I could actually speak. "Hey."
Hector's head shot up like he'd been shot. "Logan?" he said, before reaching out and turning a light on.
I recoiled and hissed in pain. "Hector! Turn that off."
The light clicked off. "Right. My bad. But ghost of Terra, are you alright? I was so damn worried you weren't going to make it," he said, his face tight and anxious as he looked at me, like he couldn't quite trust his eyes that she was really awake and in one piece.
I tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. "Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to kick the bucket, though I'm also pretty sure I've got at least a broken arm and a bad bump to the head. Do you have any water? My throat feels like it's coated in sand."
Hector looked like he was debating if he should give me water or call the nurse before thankfully just reaching over to a table filled with flowers and grabbing one of a number of water bottles that had been left there. He cracked open the seal and handed it to me. It was a bit of a struggle to sit up with one arm, but I managed it, Hector looking at me with anxious and exhausted eyes the entire time.
I didn't like that look. It didn't suit him.
After I took a sip I asked what I most desperately wanted to know first. "What happened? Last I remember was coring a Commando and then crippling the hip actuator of another. Then it all just kind of goes blurry. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here."
Hector looks at me assessingly, as if to determine whether I'm in a good enough state to handle unpleasant news, before nodding. "It was a lucky shot. The Centurion was a good ways away, and for some reason decided to turn and fire his AC/10 in your direction. Shouldn't have hit, the pilot was a mediocre shot at best, but it did and it hit you full on the rear armor. Your Wasp was done at that point. Thankfully you managed to punch out. Doctors say you're going to be fine now. Just a bad concussion and a broken arm."
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Centurion Medium 'Mech
By the way he said "bad concussion", I knew Hector had been told of my little fit when I'd first woken up. And obviously that was part of why he'd been so stressed. I wanted to apologize, but what could I say? In that moment I wasn't in the right headspace to even start thinking about talking about the strange memories that had been rammed into my head.
I sipped the water slowly for a minute while the both of us kept trying to discreetly examine the other. Where to go from here? There was so much to ask. However, seeing how worn out and exhausted my brother looked, how haggard and tired, and how he had been the only one sitting at my bedside when I woke up and not someone else… I was already dreading the answer I was all but certain was coming.
"Dad?" I asked, my voice sounding uncharacteristically young and uncertain.
Hector swallowed and looked away, his shoulders hunching down. "It… it was pretty much a draw. As far as the battle goes, I mean. I killed one of the Firestarters but the other one got away. However by then I was almost completely out of ammo and couldn't do much. Dad killed the Cicada and literally disarmed the Centurion but… the last Firestarter had circled around and come back. It along with some of their infantry with SRM launchers finished off dad's Quickdraw. It was already badly mauled. He… he didn't make it."
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Firestarter Light 'Mech
I expected some big explosion of emotion when I heard the news I'd already suspected. But, it didn't turn out like that. Instead it felt deeper, like someone had punched and bruised my soul, pain that didn't explode to the surface but ached at the very bottom of who I was. Hector kept talking, but I was only half listening.
"Then me with almost no ammo and the armless Centurion and the Firestarter just had an awkward stare off. They'd already loaded most of what they'd managed to take from us back onto their DropShips. I just… let them collect their destroyed 'mechs and leave. I think the Centurion's LRM-10 was probably still working, but I'm not sure. I don't know if I could have won. I don't know if I did the right thing."
I managed to drag myself away from my own pain, if only for the moment, at hearing and realizing how torn up Hector was over this. How torn up he'd been over this for what had probably been at least a couple of days. I wanted to comfort him, but comforting people had never been something I'd been particularly good at. I had no idea what to say to him in a situation like this.
Except, that wasn't exactly true anymore. Earth-Logan… Earth-Logan just got people. What made them tick. It was part of what had made him so damn good at his job.
Which meant that I now simply also got people, I realized with a start.
Pushing back any trepidation from that realization, instead I said and did what now came naturally to me.
I leaned over half-off the bed, which was made a little awkward with a broken arm, but I managed it. Hector jerked and looked like he wanted to protest but I silenced that by wrapping my good arm around his shoulders in a hug. Ignoring his obvious bafflement and confusion (I normally didn't randomly hug people) I spoke what I felt he needed to hear.
"Dad would have approved of the choice you made," I said, and I heard his sharp intake of breath. "The damage was already done and the important thing was keeping more of our people from dying. There was nothing more to be gained, nothing more you could have done. It would have been too dangerous. You made the right call. I know dad would be the first to tell you that, if he could."
I pretended not to hear the soft sobbing from my older brother as he hugged me back. Instead, we just held each other for a good long while. Tears were soon streaming down my face as well.
This sucked. This sucked so hard. But this wouldn't break the Axe family. It wouldn't.