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Chapter 13 - Time Enough For A Cat -
- Enter, New Avalon -[]
Rough Bedside Manners[]
NAIS Medical Campus
New Avalon, Federated Suns
December 12th, 3025
Taking my shirt off, I grinned lightly as the garment pooled out around the chair I threw it in. I might not be the pillar of fitness that some Mechwarriors were, but the fact of the matter was that I was still in very good shape. More importantly, as I gave a subtle flex, I was a terrible show-off.
"Tam, quit posing for the crowd!" Anne called out, laughing. Rolling my eyes, I just went over to her chair to give her a kiss on the cheek, before putting on my second-most roguish grin.
"No."
"You're incorrigible," she muttered. The good mood died, though, when a latex glove snapped onto a hand.
"Mr. Gallowglass," an annoying near-screech said. "Please step away from my daughter and get on to the surgical table. I'm sure these students would prefer to see me working to your lackidasial attempts at romance."
"Once again, Dr. Szeny, you manage to say the absolute worst of things," I groused at my mother-in-law.
"Just get on the operating table."
Sighing, I just followed the doctor's orders. Finally getting to New Avalon meant we could get my implants looked at after the whole Nuclear Events on Artru, and I wanted to command my own mech when it came time to give the Bulls something back for the 'favor' they'd done. It might have pushed me over the cliff into marrying Anne, but I still remembered lying in my mech, caught up between the searing hot implants in my skull and the screaming pain of knowing every part of my body had been blasted by a hell-brew of radiation and that there was nothing waiting for me-
No. Let's stop that line of thinking now before it spiked my cortisol.
The funny thing about brain surgery was that it actually worked best when the patient was awake, most of the time. So, I got to lay on the very nice surgical table while Szeny droned on and on about my implants, slowly pulling apart various bits and inspecting the damage. In the meantime, I had Anne to talk to.
"So, how'd your professors take 'I had to go fight a war' as an excuse for why you missed a year and a half of classes?" I asked, before taking a second to yawn.
"There was a procedure for it. Incidentally, if you submit your AAR journals to the Department of Military Studies, you'll probably be able to knock out a class or two like that- I know I actually got out of... uh... Introduction to Interstellar Logistics? I think that was the class, doing that."
"Yeah, but I already took Intro to InterLogi," I grumbled, ear flicking. "Think I can use it to get out of the Military Law 300s class? That's probably mostly Ares Convention stuff anyway."
"Well, you can. I probably can't."
"I'd say you need to look out for Taurian assassins but a Taurian assassin thinks a forty ton mech will only get the job done if you're on foot."
"Hah!"
"Be quiet for a second, Tam," Dr. Szeny said, as I felt her forceps digging around. "Also, incidentally, it's a very good thing you didn't try and drive any new mechs after this."
"What happened, doc?"
"Well, you know how you use mostly COTS brain-cyber interfacings in this?"
COTS; Commercial Off The Shelf. Only in Canopus would we have COTS brain-cyber interface wetware. "Yeah, our ProsthTechs ID'd it as some of the... I think the read-ports got blown out?"
"Well, see, the read-ports blew out because the EMP fried some very important fuses. Without those safety fuses in place, the last-ditch ground fault into your Pain Shunt triggered, which... I'm loosing you, aren't I."
"Listen, doc, I have the Ares Suggestions, you have the Hippocratic Suggestion, neither of which says we need to know what the other is talking about."
Dr. Szeny tried to glare at me while the class had a little laugh at that.
"Alright, you illiterate monkey, let me explain it in sensible words. If you tried to get into a mech, the read ports wouldn't read anything. That means the write ports would write info-queries. The mech would try and deliver the boot sequence to connect to your implants, which would fail to write to your brain, and then you would not have the moment of 'd'oh I am a mech now' that is critical. Everything would work fine until something bad happened, at which point the mech would be, oh, in tipover or something and you'd be going 'it's fine!' before the mech sent an emergency screech down the pipe and BOOM!" Szeny yelled, clapping her hands. "It uses the emergency write-function on the read ports, your have a seizure since you're not primed for it, and then you can never pilot again."
"And this doesn't kill me in a regular tipover... why?"
"You're brain is on mech mode and in synch, so it has a nice warmup period of going 'fuck fuck fuck' first and all the bad juju can get handled by the pain shunt."
I would have hit my forehead if I had the hand free to do it. "Doctor. You do not inspire confidence, you inspire terror."
"I know. Incidentally, while I'm under the hood here- so to speak- do you want me to look into some upgrades?"
"Upgrades?"
"Yeah, there's some- well- I hate to say it, but your mother is a brain surgeon third, and she was rushing me when we put all this in the first time."
I groaned. "Anything lethal in there?"
"No."
"Well that's a relief-"
"Probably not, at least."
"Damnit, Szeny."
"Anyway, those upgrades," Szeny said, laughing a little. "So, since we had a box of extra- er, since we did some scientific studies related to central nervous system, I was wondering if we could fit you out for a military-grade cat tail."
"Doc, can you finish the surgery first?" I asked, sighing.
"Eh, sure, this is just a few fuse changes- oh- oh dear."
I kept my heart rate steady through force of practice. "Oh dear?"
"Dropped something, nothing serious."
"I'll take your word for it."
Szeny laughed a little for a second. "So, Tam, upgrades?"
"Talk to Marie," I grumbled.
"Who?"
"Howler," I clarified.
"Ah."
After that, the conversation died out, and about a half-hour later Szeny sealed up the work site and put a comically large bandage on it all. "Right, you're good. Don't get nuked again."
"Thanks."
Talk of Mechs and Kids[]
NAIS Campus Bar
New Avalon, Federated Suns
December 14th, 3025
"Somehow, I think we've been here before," Howler mused, looking up at the ceiling of the back room here. "Pass me a drink, Nyan?"
"Sure," I replied, grabbing a beer out of the cooler and sending it skidding down the table to her. "Feels like it's been a dozen years since we got together for this."
"Well yeah, we've been busy!" Anne said from over by the wall. "We won a war between then and now!"
"And you got married, and Sokoloy decided he'd rather futz around an icebox than keep going with us," Howler added. "It's... whew."
Banging on the door twice, I leaned over and opened it up to let in Dr. Murad. Unlike my disgraceful excuse for a parent, Dr. Murad was both happily married and more importantly not an idiot though: instead, she was the chief engineer of the Argo, and her main restoration specialist.
"Cup of chocolate, doctor?" I asked, getting a carafe.
"Please and thank you," she said, sighing. "I just got off the shuttle down, it's a circus up there right now."
"What's our timeline look like?" I asked, tapping my hands on the table.
"Well, that depends. If you have it here, the NAIS team think they might get done by 3040. However, if it goes to New Syrtis, the shipyards there will let them get it done in three years or so- they think. As it stands though, we're getting a lot of attention on the matter: everyone is interested in our big home."
"Odds of them trying to make a derivative design?"
"Decent. The grav deck is complicated, but frankly speaking if that's just turned into pod space or hangers or something, you're gonna see some amazing results. I'm hearing squadrons, multiple squadrons even. They like the concept a lot, especially in conjunction with using it as a mobile supply ship. Taking up two collars is a problem, but for what they're looking at it doing it might be worth it."
Howler chuckled. "Thanks for the info, Murad. If you want to stick around for the rest of the meeting, we got more chocolate."
"There's not anything classified coming up?" she asked.
"Eh, depends. Nobody's throwing around spreadsheets," I joked, "so I don't care."
"Alright, then."
Pouring her another hot chocolate and one for myself as well, I made sure mine had a healthy shot of mint schnapps in it. "Right, then. Who knows what the engine boys are for right now?"
"Last message said they were about done with the extralight 120 line, and they're shuffling staff over. Same basic line throughput limitations as the other one- about three a month starting out, two gotta be actual 120s and the other one can be from a 105 to a 135- not that I know what we'd need a 135 XLFE for," Hooker said around a pretzel. "Funniest thing is we're not selling to Triple-M, those bastards are too cheap. No, we're selling to Irian, up on… Shiro III? It's going into a new production run of Wasps, apparently, the new -3E line."
"What's the scope on it?"
"It's a Wasp. They put another medium laser and ton of armor on it," Hooker said, deadpan. "They're not miracle workers."
"You know, I got an idea," Anne said, grinning. "Do they do trade-in-kinds?"
"Little bit, but I don't want to push it," Hooker said, shaking her head. "So no, you cannot do what the Star League did and make an entire regiment out of Stalkers."
"Damn it!"
"Which brings us to our next point," I smirked. "Endo Steel."
"Do not remind me of that pisswhistle substance," Mersies- for she wasn't Anne when she was bitching about work- complained. "We had enough money in the slush funds at the factory after the campaign to just get a whole-ass space station core delivered from… somewhere in Andurien. It's en route, we'll set it up when it gets there. Meantime, Scrapheap Station's finally done the impossible: ask us if they can start working on mech bits."
I groaned. "You gotta be shitting me."
"Nope! Turns out our Worker Education Initiatives for the groundside half of the enterprise kind of spawned a lot of people who want to build mechs because 'that's where the money is' or somesuch bullshit."
Time to put another slug of schnapps in my hot chocolate, before throwing the bottle over to Mersies so she could do the same.
"It's madness, Nyan. They're actually coming up with plans, and not shitty ones, for all this stuff. Even got a name picked out already, and a hypothetical weapons load! It's almost credible, what they're doing, and I'm scared they might actually get permission to do it!"
"Come on, it can't be that bad-"
Throwing a tablet at me, Mersies just glared. Opening it up, I blinked. This was a mech skeleton, alright. Looked like a standard thirty-tonner, nothing weird there, kind of weak integration with the engine- one of our home-built XLFE 270s- and hmm. Going back to the notes sheet, I blinked a few times when I saw the fine details.
ARMAMENT 1x Hellas Carronade Mk.3 Light PPC 1x Virtanen Model 2 Vibroblade ARMOR
5t Starbreaker Ferro-Fibrous, heavy mount system
SYSTEMS
6x StratoLifter Jump Jets 2x van Drake Aerocanard Coolers
"Right, what is half this crap?" I asked, slapping the table next to the tablet. "Starbreaker Ferro-Fibrous in a heavy mount system? van Drake Aerocanard Coolers? Virtanen model 2 Vibroblade? Come on, this is some bullshit."
"The vibroblade's on me," Mersies said with a slight smile. "I walked Yang through building and maintenance on mine a few times, and he decided he wanted to see if he could build a copy. Turns out, the answer is both 'yes' and 'holy shit this is idiotproof' for someone on the Argo- so therefore, we can probably mass-manufacture 'em."
"Okay, so I see the logic, but the, quote, Aerocanard Coolers, unquote, those are a fucking mystery to me."
"That's just the wing system off your old Catapult."
My face hit my palm. "Ah."
"Before you ask, the heavy mount system was actually one of the few times we needed to use our- er, proprietary info from Nautilus, yeah, that stuff- to help," Mersies added. "See, Ferro armors tend to shear like bitches, which is what the 'fiber' is to help deal with. More fiber more stronger- so we figured out and tested it with maximum backing tie-in and holy shit is that stuff good. An entire quarter again stronger than standard armor!"
"So what, five tons of it is equal to…"
"Six tons standard."
I whistled. "So, assuming this isn't going to dumpster itself explosively, it'll be a nasty little harasser."
"It'll be a nasty little harasser that does it at long range for mechs, refuses to die, and can fly like a bird. Everyone will love it."
I sighed. "This is gonna be your baby, isn't it?"
Mersies froze like a statue. It wasn't a long freeze, but I could see it. "Yep. This will be my firstborn child!" she said, a slight edge of cheer around her voice. Behind me, I could hear Dr. Murad leaving, quietly abandoning the disaster brewing here. Good plan, doc. Good plan.
Next to Mersies, Howler leaned in, shooting her a gimlet eye. "You sure about that? It's gonna take at least a year or two to get that bad boy out the door, and I know you're sloppy about your birth control. Sure you want to challenge Nyan to a race like that?"
"No," Mersies said, trying to smile and absolutely botching it. "Not really, since, uh, he might already be winning."
I let that process for a moment. If I was winning in that hypothetical race, then that would imply I'd gotten Mersies knocked up. Which wasn't out of the question, mind, I'd just have to figure out when it happened. Normally not too hard, except it had been a very slow JumpShip trip up to New Avalon, and we'd been vigorously breaking in the new wedding bands, and yeah that'd do it if Mersies forgot to take her birth control. We didn't use condoms anymore, mostly because we kept running out- and boy was I regretting that right now!
"Wait, shit...you're preggers!?" Howler, well, howled. "Damnit, you know you're supposed to tell me this stuff!"
"Listen, I'm not totally solid yet, okay? We haven't even been planetside for a month yet, this might be my period doing tricks on me because of the trip over. It might not be a pregnancy."
Yeah that was a big fat lie. Mersies had probably gotten a pregnancy test already if she wasn't sure, and that should have firmed up the answer to the question. Of course, then that would mean I needed to firm up my answer, and that way lie a next of thorns. Did I want kids? Did Mersies want kids? Did we want kids right now? Important questions and really not questions for when I was a little buzzed and still in tech-mindset.
"So as fun as the thought of Anne and I playing baker is," I said, tapping the table lightly, "we have so many other fish to fry right now it's not even funny. So we've got the 120 extralight fusion engines coming online, we've got a second endosteel factory coming online, we've got the 270 line worked out to- er, how many engines a month?"
"Six specialties, ten stock 270s," Howler said, grinning. "We now make more LosTech goldmine engines in a month than Majesty Metals and Manufacturing does standards in a year, the fucking incompetents, and we do it by dint of having an assembly line where half the workers are horses."
"Half?" I asked, squinting. "You're shitting me."
"Nah. How it works is each engine core gets put on a carriage, and then we just roll the carriage from station to station. Any sub-core assembly gets done on a normal line, and then implanted onto a core and we work it from there. Of course, with the new 120 line, it's been going, uh, very fun at the core casting center. I really hope they don't need to source another ten hundred ton press, the last one was a bitch to get."
"Financials, though?"
"We've got enough money coming in to permanently station a company of Red Horse at Adherlwin, which is good since nominally you're the Duke."
"Oh hell," I mutterd. "I have to raise a militia."
"Well no, your senschel has to raise a militia," Howler said with a smirk.
At about that time, someone started banging on the door. Getting up to open it, I blinked. What was Emma doing here?
"Emma?" I asked, before she slugged me in the gut and threw a newspaper at me.
"Nyan, you bastard," she said, glaring at me. "You motherfucker, I thought you and Mersies were reliable!"
"Emma, what the fuck?" Mersies asked, standing up suddenly. "What did Nyan do?"
"You want to know what this dumb as a fuck cat did?" Emma asked, snarling. "He fucked the Magestrix! Worse, the idiot bastard forgot to wear a rubber, so now I have another damn brother!"
"Oh," Mersies said, before Emma shoulder-checked me into a chair and went around to Mersies, spitting fire.
"Oh? Oh? He was cheating on you!"
"Hey, hold on, it doesn't count as cheating if I'm there too."
I facepalmed at about the same time as Emma, if for entirely different reasons. "Great. So you're both idiotic motherfuckers. Wonderful. Anyone else here want to admit to sleeping with the most manipulative woman in the bedroom inside or outside the Inner Sphere? Anyone?"
Taking the newspaper off my chest, I just opened it up. "Magestrix of Canopus celebrates third birthday of latest children, Raas and Mau?"
"The picture, dipshit!"
"What could be important about the picture-"
That's when I saw it. Both had slate-gray hair a few shades lighter than mine, and bright, piercing eyes of Tikhonov blue- just like their father. As I looked Mersies in the eye, shock evident on my face, I dropped the paper on the table. Taking a look at it, my wife gulped as she looked me over. The Centrella skin had overwritten my own paler complexion, but there was no mistaking those eyes.
"Tam," Anne said, gulping. "I can't- they-"
"This is such a shitstorm," I growled, trying to keep my emotions under control
"Tam, look at their ears."
"What do you mean-"
That's when I saw it. The clean sides of their head, and on top, a pair of bright, triangular feline ears. "No," I muttered. "No. Those- those aren't genetic. Nothing says my kids will-"
"They could be," Emma growled, pacing angrily. "We have the technology. Nobody's looked into doing much with genetic modification recently because you run into instability about six generations down the line that leads to some nasty health issues, but the Magistracy is the only state with any ability to care for that."
"I don't know what's worse," Howler muttered. "The thought those ears are genetic, or that they aren't."
"Doctor Gallowglass couldn't possibly-" Anne said, before I grabbed the table, faint. "She couldn't. There's no way to do brain surgery on a three-year-old without unacceptable risks!"
"She doesn't need to hold the knife," I growled, eyes swimming. "Szeny- Anne's mother- she wasn't the first person willing to put people on the test-table for the project. She was just the first that agreed with the concept."
"And with using war orphans for it, but we don't talk about that too much."
I choked out a short laugh. "God, yeah, that was the bad days. Just when we thought the Dracs couldn't keep going, they were on the doorstep to New Avalon. Every day, we saw more refugees. It was horrible."
"Wait, hold on, pump the brakes!" Howler said, holding up her hands and looking a little sick. "What are you on about?"
"Well, I ate today, so we can't tell the whole story," Anne said with a bitter laugh, "but the short version is that the malpracticing hacks that make up our collective mothers needed to do some field trials, back in the day, on the DNI system. Unfortunately for the unwatched refugee populations, however, there was a large body of volunteers right there who weren't picky about paperwork."
"Or, to be quite frank, their burial conditions," I added with a dollop of rancor. "God, I hated running the burn pit."
Howler just put her head on the table. "You're telling me that your demon parents did Traditional Capellan Science to make the DNI system?"
"Hey, hold on, it's only Traditional Capellan Science if there's four digits of dead test subjects, I don't think we passed mid-three digits."
"That really doesn't make it better, Nyan!"
"Okay, so morality and lack thereof for the Dr. Gallowglass aside," Emma said, now much less angry and far more disgusted, "we know my mother's been working with her to do some sketchy shit, and I'm still mad at Nyan for sticking his dick where he really shouldn't have. The question is, what are we gonna do about it?"
"I don't know," I muttered. "I just- I don't know. Excuse me for a moment."
Turning around to head to the door, I reached out to open it, before feeling my core give out. I don't know how I was holding myself together at the thought of my mother, that bastard, doing something to what were my children. I didn't need a paternity test to know that much at least- those eyes and ears were a dead ringer, combined with being named for cat breeds. I was a cat, my children would be cats sayeth the Magestrix. I couldn't tell if I was upset, raging, or just too unsteady from the revelations- the many, many revelations.
So, ignoring my unsteadiness, I tried to reach for the door, that escape growing farther and farther away from me as I tried to get closer and closer. Something wasn't right here-
"Tam!"
Ah. I was falling- and then my head struck the floor, and there was blessed silence.