Bckstone Medical Facility"Freddy, what in the hell did you do to yourself?" John asked, walking into the hospital's general ward with Lucy two steps behind him. There were eight beds here, though only two others were occupied. Jerome and Dar were beside Freddy's bed, seated on stools they must have grabbed from somewhere else, as there were no other seats nearby.

  "HEEEEYYYY!!! IT'S JOHNNY!!! JOHNNY BOY!!!" Franky said loudly, sounding a bit delirious. He had a cast on his arm and bandages over part of his cheek.

  "Don't mind him, hon. They have him hopped up on some morphine right now." Dar said, answering his unspoken question.

  "YEEEAAAHHH! I'M FEELING GOOD, SON!"

  "Right. So what happened?" John asked.

  "YA KNOW THOSE TWO SISTERS I TOLD YA ABOUT! WELL, THEY WERE JUST WILD MAN! WHAT A NIGHT!"

  "Shut up and drink your juice!" Dar said, stuffing a juice box with a straw into Freddy's mouth. "It wasn't quite like that. This dummy went back to their pce after his set st night, and when he left this morning, fell down a flight of stairs."

  John just pinched the bridge of his nose. He was half expecting him to have gotten hurt while parachuting at night or deciding to fight the tweakers over on the other side of the city for a sandwich, again. Or having a wild night with a couple of sisters and breaking something. Tripping down the stairs was rather tame for the way Freddy usually got into trouble.

  "Well, I guess it can't be helped. While we are here, I would like you all to meet Lucy, our potential new recruit." John said, introducing her to the rest of the nce.

  They had talked on the way over here about her joining the guards, even temporarily, just to make this official. She was fine with that, but asked if they could discuss it more after her daughter was rescued. She seemed a bit conflicted about something, but he wasn't sure what. It didn't seem like it was important at the moment, so he didn't activate his Scouter skill to find out. She was entitled to having her own secrets now that she wasn't a danger to him.

  "It's nice to meet you all. I'm happy to be working with you." Lucy said, bowing her head slightly.

  After a quick round of introductions, he continued. "She will be piloting Freddy's Bck Jack for now. Hopefully, by the time Freddy has recovered, she will either have my old Hunchback or the old man's Centurion. Unless one of you two wants to upgrade to a medium mech?"

  "Hell no. You know I like to jump around. That Marauder pilot would have ripped me a new one if I were piloting almost anything else. Maybe if you get one of those Phoenix Hawks working, I'll think about it."

  "If you find an Archer or Catapult, I might consider it. I have always used LRM ptforms, and see no reason to change things now."

  "HEEEEYYY!!! WHAT ABOUT ME!?! DON'T I GET A CHANCE AT NEW MECH TOO?"

  "I got an Urbie with your name all over it if you want ya old coot. Now, heal up. I'm going to take Lucy over to the hangar to get her neurohelmet calibrated. I'll check in on you ter. Let me know if you need anything, okay? " He said, patting the injured man's leg.

  "Later, boss." "See you soon, hon." "BBBBYYYYEEE!!!"

  They left the hospital then and started making their way over to the Guards Facility. Lucy was still walking a step behind him to his right, apparently deep in thought.

  "You okay?" He asked her.

  "They seem to be quite the energetic sorts... is everyone in your unit that..." She stumbled, at a loss for words.

  "That old? Yeah. Actually, I am the youngest mechwarrior, though I was the only one, other than the CO, to become a company commander when we served in our respective militaries. Every one of them are retired mechwarriors from the Innersphere, living out here on the edge of nowhere, soldiering now only as a part-time job."

  "I was going to say eccentric, but that kind of comes with the job. I only did it for fourteen years and thought I was the old dy in my old unit at that point."

  "Yeah, most of us have over forty years of experience, or you could be like the old man. He has been piloting mechs for over eighty years now. It is incredible that he hasn't died from radiation exposure already. Actually, I am taking over for him in a couple of months." John said. Her expression looked confused, so he added. "It's not as bad as it sounds, usually we do rotating shifts, four days on call, four off. Unless there is something going on, we usually just work a couple of hours in the morning to run up the mechs and prove we are still alive. We don't have the budget to train or anything, and given how long we have been in the seats, there isn't much skill fade. Even the old man only works until noon at most, a few days a week. It's all the colony can afford to pay us without raising taxes, and most of us wouldn't work here if they tried to sm more hours on us."

  "No, it's not that. Just, how tied are you to living here?" She asked, her voice dropping off a bit at the end.

  "Umm... odd question. Why?" He said, stopping to look at her. Her head was down again, and she looked uncomfortable.

  "Oh... it just doesn't seem to be a great pce for children, is all. Don't mind me, I am just thinking out loud." She said, then pstered a fake smile on her face.

  "I really haven't looked into that part. I came here to retire after all, though I know there are plenty of families because of the miners." He replied. "You know, you don't need to stay here; you can head back to the Innersphere once we rescue your daughter. I can even book you passage easily enough, though I won't be able to spend as much money as you did masking your trail."

  "No, I can't... can we talk about this another time? After my daughter is safe?" She asked.

  "Of course. Your family is what matters most. Everything else can wait."

  The pair of them continued to facility in silence, John confused at why she was worried about how tied he was to living here, and Lucy unable to articute how torn she felt by not having a clear way to repay her debt to him.

  Governor's Office

  John had introduced Lucy to Maggie as a new recruit, and after a retelling of Franky's misadventure, she had one of her techs start calibrating her on a neurohelmet they dug out of storage. Leaving her in their care, he left to attend the meeting with James.

  The man himself was just arriving, getting out of one of the units' armoured cars instead of walking like most did on this pnet. At his age, that was a forgivable use of their limited resources. After a quick greeting and John filling him in on Freddy's situation and his solution with Lucy, they walked into the building that served as both the city hall and the governor's residence.

  "That is some good luck finding someone who could fill in for Freddy; I swear that man turned eighteen and never grew up. Are you sure she isn't some pirate mole trying to worm their way into our ranks?" James asked as they waited for the elevator to the governor's office.

  "Sure as I can be. She says her daughter is one of the captives, so we will know soon enough if she is telling the truth."

  "Well, it seems a bit too convenient. I want you to stay close to her tomorrow. If she turns on us, make sure she blows up before the rest of us go down."

  "Sure. Though I am positive she is on our side." John said, humouring the old man. If he didn't read her mind, he would probably be just as skeptical. Actually, if he hadn't, she would probably be dead already.

  "Good. Now, let's get this over with. Do you still want to dey a day?"

  "No, let's just go get this done. Did Recon see anything?"

  "No. We sent a Leopard to do a high flyover, but if there is anything in that area, it is well hidden. Terrain is garbage as well, a lot of rocky outcroppings and cave systems. If they do have anything hidden there, it might take a serious amount of searching to find."

  "Great, and on my days off too," John said, ughing a bit.

  The elevator door opened then, and they got on board. They made some more small talk on the way up to the office, where John spotted the two people he had seen at the Bckcat the other night. They were both still wearing those business casual suits, looking quite out of pce here on Bckstone. Before they could introduce themselves, the governor's door opened. The governor's secretary, an middle aged woman whom his memories said was also his wife, beckoned them inside.

  John was somewhat surprised by just how utilitarian the seat of Bckstone's power was. The room was rather spartan, made mostly of concrete like most of the buildings in the city, with only the desk and two of the four chairs made of old wood brought in from off-world at some point in the past. The extra chairs were just metal folding chairs with a thin pad on the seats, obviously brought in just for this meeting. There were some framed photos on the walls, but they were just pictures of the pnet's ndscape, maps, or prominent figures from the different mining companies.

  The governor himself, Trevor Hamash, was an unassuming middle-aged man, with an average build, short brown hair and brown eyes. His only real defining feature seemed to be the fact that there was nothing special about him. A proverbial grey man. Until he opened his mouth anyway, and a deep baritone voice that didn't match his body came out. "Thank you for coming. Did you four get a chance to introduce yourselves?"

  "Afraid not," James replied, then introduced the pair of them, making it clear that John was the new CO in training.

  "I am Abby Steinbech, and this is my brother Cid. We are coming out of Tharkrad University at the behest of House Steiner-Davion to search for a possible Star League Lostech Cache here on Bckstone, we discovered through our research." Abby said, offering her hand to the pair of soldiers. They shook it and her brothers, then sat down on the extra chairs that were provided.

  "So, you want our help in recovering this Cache? What is in it for us?" James asked without any preamble.

  "Several things. Despite its size, we understand your unit is rather underfunded. We will pay you a sizable amount of cash just for the attempt at this search alone, amounting to two years of your annual budget." Abby replied with a smile, then raised a finger in emphasis for her next point. "If we do find the Cache, you are welcome to half of its contents and the base itself. We are much more interested in whatever Lostech or manufacturing methods that may have been stored there than any weapons that have been locked away. Depending on what we find, House Steiner-Davion is willing to pay a significant amount of money to Bckstone as a bonus for your assistance."

  James and Trevor were nodding along with her, both seeming pleased with the offer. John was surprised by how generous they were being, considering they had been trying to hire a local pilot to take them out there without letting them know their intentions. He activated his Scouter skill, then asked a question. "Why did you try to hire a local VTOL contractor to take you there instead of coming to us to start?"

  She stiffened up, obviously not expecting that question.

  Crap! How did he know? Can't tell him that we were going to come back with a battalion of mechs and an engineering core to clean the pce out. Damn pirate base!

  He pounced on that. "You see, I think you were not pnning to negotiate in good faith with us to begin with. You were going to walk in there, take what data you could, and if necessary, return to the Federated Commonwealth to get reinforcements to come take whatever you wanted. You Lyran's are snakes, and joining with the Federated Suns didn't change that fact. Now, I am not against working with snakes; I had to for many years during my time in FedCom military, but I refuse to believe you are being genuine with this offer." He said, leaning on his memories for this information. The Lyran's were the industrial and economic powerhouse of the Innersphere even before they joined the Federated Suns and became the Federated Commonwealth, and they didn't get to that point by being benevolent with weaker parties.

  James and Trevor were wide-eyed, the pair of them just realizing the offer was too good to be true.

  Abby was mouthing like a blowfish, stumbling over her words, "That... that... that's not true! We would-

  "Enough, Abby. They figured it out somehow." Her brother said with a sigh. He looked over at John. "Yes. That was pretty much the pn. Still, we want the data that is in that cache. You can keep anything else; we just ask that you let a small group of engineers look it over so we can replicate the technology back home. We have twenty million C-Bills to pay you for your troubles of getting us in there, and we will give your colony a three percent royalty on any technology we develop from this research. That is the best I can offer, and my cousin Katrina is probably going to kill me for signing such a contract when she finds out. I can't guarantee she won't renege on it ter on, hence why the rge lump sum up front."

  John nodded, the man's thoughts matching his words. That sum was nearly ten years' worth of operational expenses for the guards if they didn't need to go off-world too often. He stood up and offered the man his hand. "Good enough. Let's go find this Cache of yours."

  Juia_Darkcrest