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Chapter 8 - Fortunes of War[]
Galaport, Galatea
The Lyran Commonwealth
September 26th, 3024
All Kit wanted to do was get very drunk.
She told herself she was not trying to drink away her pain. She had seen the results of that up close. Although if there had been any liquor available on the Rochlitz during the journey back to Galatea, she believed she absolutely would have drank herself into a stupor.
Kit’s need for several stiff drinks had less to do with trauma and more to do with exhaustion. Her visit to the ComStar Mercenary Review Board office had taken nearly four hours as she had been shuffled from one robed functionary to another, had signed a ream of paperwork as thick as an armor plate on an average light weight class BattleMech, and sworn to three different affidavits affirming the demise or severance of all of Task Force Talon’s personnel save herself. There had also apparently been a brief call made to Captain Hahn of the Rochlitz to get his solemn testimony no other members of the unit remained on his vessel. The DropShip captain’s demeanor was, Kit surmised, unpleasant enough to ruffle even the customary ComStar unflappability of the acolyte who had spoken with him. Apparently the good captain had not only attested that there were no Talons personnel on the Rochlitz, he was very emphatic about his desire to get their ramshackle 'Mechs out of his hold as soon as possible. At the end of it, however, Kit had access to the Talons’ company account as the official MRB-sanctioned executor of the unit’s affairs by reason of the death or absence of all senior officers. A significant chunk of the funds deposited into the account by House Steiner for the successful completion of their contract had already been automatically paid out to the unit’s creditors to cover debts.
The next order of business was to find a better home for the ‘Mechs, now that it no longer seemed they were in imminent danger of being seized by creditors. This proved easier said than done. With so many units on Galatea between contracts, space of any kind was at a premium, and the cost of renting 'Mech bays where actual maintenance could be carried out would burn through the funds from the Talons’ last contract swiftly. For now she had to settle for storing the Vindicator and the Commando with the two maimed Wasps.
By the time Kit finished shuttling the four 'Mechs to the rented hangar on the MRV, she was exhausted, not just physically fatigued but mentally drained. She had spent days doing more physically strenuous work as a technician many times before. It was the bureaucracy, paperwork, finances, and haggling that she found exhausting. Her father had taught her to lubricate a 'Mech shoulder actuator, but the tasks required of a dead merc unit’s executor she was having to learn on the fly. If her father had been half as good a businessman as he was a tech, she reflected, the course of her life might have been very different.
She spent a few C-bills on a cab ride to take her into Galatea City itself. For years she had viewed the bustling crowds of the planetary capital with the contempt of familiarity. Now as she negotiated the side streets, her ancient field jacket zipped tight against the chill of the descending desert night, she found it oddly comforting to be in the middle of teeming humanity. At least three times in the past month she had woken up in a cold sweat from a dream where she was running down deserted, decaying streets in Konstantinople that had no end.
The reputability of the establishments she passed by declined with each corner she turned. Halfway down what was little more than a back alley she stopped and looked up at a sign emblazoned with a cartoon MechWarrior drinking from a rubber hose attached to a tanker truck. Flickering neon below the questionably-drafted caricature proclaimed the name of the place to be The Coolant Flush. Kit guessed this unfortunate choice was the result of the tavern’s original proprietor scraping the bottom of the barrel after every decent 'Mech-related pun had already been used as the name for another bar. Most patrons invariably just referred to the tavern as The Flush, while to others it was known as The Pisser.
The Flush Bar
Pushing open the dented metal door, Kit was struck as usual by how the bar always managed to maintain a slight sticky humidity in spite of Galatea’s arid climate. The damp air and dim lighting of the windowless watering hole contributed to the feeling that she had crawled under a rock, which suited her mood well. Most of the establishment’s clientele on this night were filling the tables that lined the four walls of the room, frustrating Kit’s desire to settle into a dark corner, so she settled for one of the stools at the bar. The bartenders at the Flush were not the type who felt that one of the duties of their ancient profession was to strike up conversations with patrons, so Kit was confident that she would at least get her wish to be left alone.
She did get her wish, for roughly one and a half beers. When someone sat down on the stool immediately to her right, despite the fact many others were free, she muttered a curse. The Flush was not the type of bar where people typically came to seek out new companionship, but Kit couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that someone just really had a thing for girls in grimy coveralls staring sullenly into pint glasses. The stranger didn’t speak, didn’t look at her, didn’t call for the bartender, which Kit found somehow even more annoying than if had started to strike up a conversation immediately. If he’s waiting for me to feel obligated to talk first, she thought, he’ll be waiting until General Kerensky comes back.
Then in spite of her determination to ignore the interloper as long as possible, she found her eyes drawn away from the bottom of her glass. The man beside her was wiping down the dusty bar top with what appeared to be a silk handkerchief. Amazed, Kit turned to look at the stranger before she remembered her strategy was to pretend he wasn’t there. He was somewhere between a somewhat doughy thirty-five and a somewhat youthful fifty, hair graying at the temples and so shellacked with some sort of shiny cream or pomade Kit could almost see the dust from the dank bar settling into a solid layer on top of it. He was putting the silk handkerchief back into the breast pocket of a tailored suit accessorized with a necktie two notches louder than the background din of inebriated conversation in the tavern. Kit would have bet good money that nobody had entered the Flush wearing a suit and tie since the start of the Third Succession War.
She stared at the inexplicable new arrival for a long moment before her curiosity won out over her determination not to speak first. “I’m just going to come out and say it: are you lost?” She looked down at the bar, where the handkerchief had made no discernible impact on the layer of surface grime. “If cleanliness is a big priority for you, this might not be your type of place.”
The stranger glanced down at the bar and made a dismissive gesture. “I go where the money is." he said, as if that explained everything. He smiled at her but when he met her eyes there was an intensity in his stare that made her feel like it was meant for someone else and he wasn’t really seeing her.
Kit pointedly cast her gaze around the Flush’s dingy confines, then looked back at the stranger. “Well, then this definitely isn’t your type of place.” She turned her attention back to her glass. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now leave me to get drunk in peace.”
She could feel his stare still fixed on her. “There will be plenty of time for that later." he said. “Right now we have business to discuss.”
Kit set down her glass, squeezed her eyes shut, and mentally cursed herself for giving in and starting the conversation. “I think you’re looking for someone else.”
“Katryna Söderlund." the stranger said.
It was not a question. Kit rounded on him. “How do you know who I am?”
The stranger tilted his head as if considering her in a new light, then finally took his eyes off her and studied the various liquor bottles shelved behind the bar with apparent fascination, chuckling as though remembering a private joke. “Miss Söderlund, I think you would be shocked to discover how many people in this establishment, catering to a clientele of mercenaries, 'Mech techs, and related professions as it does, know who you are.” He held up an index finger as if to forestall an anticipated objection. “Now, to be clear, what I mean is that there are people all over this city who know of a person named Katryna Söderlund, certain facts about her, et cetera. There may not be anyone in this room who knows that you are Katryna Söderlund, except for me. And I know because I’ve made it my business to know.”
In spite of the stranger’s reassurance, Kit found herself considering the Flush in a different light. She glanced around the room. The comforting, anonymous isolation she had come here for, the solitude of blending into a crowd, was gone. Instead, she felt surrounded, and had to suppress a sudden urge to get off her stool and bolt for the door before she could speak. “Are you going to tell me what this business is?”.
The stranger gave no sign that he had heard her question. “You didn’t want to talk to me when I first sat down." he said.
Kit gave him a scowl. “What gave it away?”
Again he ignored her. “The reason you finally did is simple: curiosity. I’m perfectly aware of how out of place I look here. You saw something unusual and you just couldn’t help yourself. People are the same the whole galaxy over. They’re fascinated by things that are unusual, novel, unique.” He turned to meet her eyes again as he continued, waving his index finger to punctuate his monologue. “It’s the same with you. Do you know how often a mercenary outfit leaves this world on a contract and not a single member comes back? So often nobody even takes note of it, except maybe in toasts of remembrance by a few old friends in places like this. But do you know how often a mercenary outfit leaves this world on a contract and just one member comes back? And has a lance of BattleMechs fall into their lap when there are regiments of dispossessed 'Mech jocks on this planet who’d stab their own mothers for a ride?”
Kit’s vision blurred. She seized her glass and drained the rest of her beer in a single gulp.
“You are unusual. You are a curiosity. And where there is human curiosity, there is a business opportunity.” The stranger presented his right hand. “Titus Covelli. I’m an arena fight manager and promoter.”
Kit did not take his offered hand. She kept her own hands wrapped tightly around her empty glass to keep them from shaking. “What does an ‘arena fight manager and promoter’ want with me?”
Covelli folded his hands on the bar and resumed his study of the liquor selection. “What do I want with Katryna Söderlund? In the interest of letting you get back to your planned intoxication, perhaps our discussion might be productive if we talk about what Katryna Söderlund wants.”
Kit blinked at him. “What I want?”
“You have control over four BattleMechs." Covelli said, his tone sounding like he was patiently reminding her of something she had forgotten. “I doubt you have the money to hangar them for very long, let alone maintain them. But even in a semi-functional state, you could make enough C-bills by selling them to start a very nice new life on some other world, almost any world in the Inner Sphere. Or even if you just kept one, with a 'Mech of your own there’s any number of small-time mercenary outfits here on Galatea you could try to get to sign you on, even with your lack of formal training. Of course." he went on, “there may be other factors that would make many think twice.”
“Factors such as?”
Covelli chuckled. “Well, Miss Söderlund, merely that you might, in the estimation of some, just possibly be a jinx.”
She felt heat rising in her cheeks. “Bullshit. You can’t be serious.”
Covelli nodded and grimaced, closing his eyes and making a pacifying gesture with his hand. “Now Miss Söderlund, please don’t get the wrong impression, of course I don’t personally subscribe to any such irrational beliefs. But the number of people who do still have these kinds of superstitious notions is greater than you might think, especially in professions where the consequences of a stroke of bad luck can be so high… such as, say, soldiers.” His eyes opened and he stared at her and through her again. “Was your grandfather a superstitious man?”
Kit once again had an impulse to run for the door. “You knew my grandfather?”
Covelli shook his head. “I have made it my business to know there was such a person as Samuel Blixt, once of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery, and certain other facts about him. Such a sad ending to a life of service, “ he sighed, and then gestured at Kit’s empty glass. “Umijiri Black Label. Not a lot of bars in Galatea City that serve beers from the Combine. Is that why you come here? Did you acquire the taste from him?”
A roaring in Kit’s ears drowned out the background drone of the tavern. She almost smashed the glass across Covelli’s face. Instead she seized him by his ridiculous necktie and pulled until their faces were just inches apart, until she could smell whatever product he used in such copious quantities in his hair. “Don’t you talk about him." she hissed. “You don’t know anything about him.”
Covelli made no move to free himself from her grasp, in fact he seemed completely unperturbed. “But I know enough about you, Miss Söderlund." he rasped. “I know your whole story. I know the demise of an entire mercenary outfit on their first contract with you as a member isn’t the first catastrophe you’ve been at the center of. The deaths of your parents amidst the failure of their business. Your grandfather taking charge of you only to drink himself into the grave not long after.” Kit wrenched harder on his tie, choking him, and he coughed but pressed on. “I know that your whole life things have happened to you, and around you, and now I think I know what it is you want.”
As Covelli gasped out the last few words, Kit became aware that conversation in the bar had suddenly grown quieter. She had attracted attention. With a great effort she forced herself to release her grasp on his tie. “What is it that I want, Mr. Covelli?” Kit said through gritted teeth.
Covelli re-centered himself on his stool, coughed, and carefully readjusted the knot of his tie. “People are the same the whole galaxy over. You want pretty much the same thing that many young people want…”
“Don’t try to sound paternal after you talk about my family." Kit hissed.
He held up his hands in acquiescence but continued. “You want to prove yourself, to yourself, and to others. You want to see what you can get by earning it and find out where you’ll end up by plotting your own course instead of being borne along by circumstances.”
Once more he turned away from her and stared across the bar. “I can give you the chance you want. I’ll start you with a six-fight contract. Pick one of the 'Mechs at your disposal and I’ll cover maintenance. In return I’ll take half the prize purse for each match you win.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. The normal background hum of conversation in the bar had resumed. Nobody was looking at them. Odds were good there would be at least one actual bar fight in the Flush before the night was done and nobody would remember an exhausted tech had almost strangled some guy who had walked in wearing a suit of all things. “Well, Mr. Covelli." she said at last, “I’m sure your offer is very generous, but I have one objection. How much money could the prize purse for an arena match at the level I’d be fighting at possibly even be? This isn’t Solaris, and I’m not a star. My name and face aren’t in any holovids. There must be hundreds of anonymous 'Mech jocks trying to make it in the arenas on Galatea, fighting in matches nobody who watches will even remember after their next beer.”
Covelli threw his head back and laughed, long and loud, loudly enough that Kit was startled and looked around the room to see if they had attracted attention again. “Miss Söderlund." Covelli said, still chuckling, “Even after everything I’ve explained you still don’t seem to grasp your own uniqueness. I said a moment ago I know your whole story. That is why I sought you out and why I believe we can form a profitable partnership. What you have which all those other anonymous gladiators lack is a story. And that, more than raw talent in a 'Mech cockpit, more than good looks for the holovids…” he squinted at her appraisingly. “...although you would clean up passably well if it came to it, I think, pardon my saying so… a good story is what elevates a fighter from the crowd and starts them on their way to stardom.”
Kit blinked at him. “So what do you mean? You’re going to promote fights based on my family tragedies or something?” She slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to profit off anybody’s pity.”
“Not at all, Miss Söderlund.”
“Then what?”
Covelli fixed her once more with his intense gaze. “It is true that all your life, misfortune has befallen those around you. And all your life, you yourself have escaped more or less unscathed. Some would even say you have benefited from the misfortunes of others. Now as I believe I have said earlier in this conversation, people are the same the whole galaxy over. And even now with all of our scientific advancements that have allowed mankind to spread across the stars, people are the same as they were before our species ever set foot off Terra. They’re irrational and superstitious.”
Kit considered choking the man again. “You can’t mean…”
“Precisely, Miss Söderlund. We won’t need to get people to watch you by telling them they should be sorry for you.” When he stopped waving his finger in the air to punctuate his speech and pointed it right at her face, it was like staring down the barrel of a weapon. “We will tell them that you’re a jinx.”