Disgust
October 16, 3072
Second Calvary Barracks
Elgin
Aching in more than just her body, Marlana slowly sank down in a chair that was tucked in an out of the way spot to give herself a chance to collect her thoughts without any interruptions. She knew she should be asleep like the others, but as usual when her mind was overactive there wouldn’t be any point in trying to get sleep. For a moment she studied the chip she held in one hand as an old memory surfaced.
Storm grey eyes of an impeccably dressed and groomed woman of good breeding gazed down at what the casual passerby would think of as a younger version of herself, only with black hair and sapphire eyes instead of blonde and grey. Finally the woman nodded to her daughter, “You’ll do. I have to say that who ever designed the dress version of your school uniform had some modicum of talent going for them since the seamstress didn’t have that much work to do to make it presentable. Hopefully you remember a small shred of your deportment classes so that you won’t embarrass either of us.”
Her tone made it clear that she believed otherwise.
“I want you to remember something, Marlana Halas. No matter what you think, everyone can be bought, sometimes you can’t, or won’t, pay the price. Everyone has a weak spot you can exploit to use against them. Everyone is out to use you. If not for your money and connections, then it’s for your pretty face. And yes, that does include me. Unlike some, I at least will admit that to your face. Keep these things in mind tonight and see if you can spot those whose price you can pay or those you can exploit if you can’t.”
The girl’s voice was carefully neutral to hide her hate and disgust, “Yes, lady mother.”
Twelve years later she still had to swallow back the hate and disgust. Then a bitter smile curved her lips as she imagined her mother’s reaction to how she was going to use those lessons. Then she slotted the chip and began to study and make notes on its contents.
Hours later the young lieutenant slowly stretched, wincing as abused muscles protested the movement and smiled a little at the results. It had been interesting in a way, to construct the analysis of the mid-ranked nobility of Mai-Lao and Westphalia. It wasn’t comprehensive in anyway, she would need a few days to do that. But she thought it provided a decent idea of the ones who provided the most support to the important nobility.
“Remember, Marlana, it’s easy enough to find out information about the princes and dukes. The ones you truly want to watch, to study, to be wary of are the lesser nobles. They’re a pack of dogs, toss them meat and bones, the occasion kind word and they are yours for life. Treat them ill and they’ll turn on you and drag you down so fast you will not know what killed you.”
Not for the first, or the last, time she wondered if doing things like this is what led her mother down the path she did. Wondered if her mother had poisoned her in slow subtle ways that she was only now discovering when it was too late to do anything. She pulled out the locket she wore over her heart all of the time now and wondered sickly if she’d done something subconsciously to pay Nicholai’s price that she was just using him for her own ends without knowing what it was that she was doing or why.
Irritably she shook her head, scrubbed at her tired eyes, telling herself fiercely that it was just the exhaustion talking. Making one last quick read through what she’d come up with, she hesitated for a long moment, then sent it to Bingham with a brief note of what she’d come up with and why. Then she headed off for a couple of hours of shuteye while trying not to think about the events of the night before and failing.
The Blackout Bravo lance had been sent out to investigate anomalous heat signatures that satellites had picked up in areas where there was no record of human habitation nor any small bases of any known military forces. Arriving on the scene they’d found old prefab metal buildings in an arroyo. While the shanty town had the air of a place long abandoned there’d been signs of a large number of people mustering for something, including vehicles and mechs. Unfortunately do recent rain the traces had been wiped enough that they could not determine what direction the unknown force had taken. They’d spent the rest of the day trying to locate the unknown force, but to no avail.
That night while Jain had been on watch, an explosion had gone off in a distant fishing village. By the time they’d arrived all they’d discovered was that the town had been attacked, apparently by incendiaries, flamers and energy weapons. There were no survivors to be found and the local boats had gone missing. Hoping the boats had been taken by survivors of the village and not the unknown hostiles a message came through on the civilian frequencies from a neighboring village that reported signs of unknown mechs and people in boats.
Dreading what they might find, they confronted an unknown lance of mechs as they came shoreward as the boats they’d been accompanying took off. There Lana had danced a dangerous line trying to keep the unknowns in place without alienating her lance or pissing off her commanding officers overly much. During that time she’d managed to pry out of the unknown mechwarriors that they belonged to the merc unit the Whirling Dervishes. A unit declared rogue by the MRBC, a fact that didn’t endear her to them when she brought up the matter. Then began a minor scuffle where she tried to delay the Dervishes more in the hopes of getting them to let something slip that she could work with.
To complicate matters she had Spyros muttering that something was wrong with the whole setup since their weapons didn’t match what had been used against the village. And once again she berated herself for not listening to her instincts that something stank to high heaven with regards to these mercs who were in mechs clearly meant for raiding.
With the aid of the Wailing Banshees, they fought the Dervishes, destroying two mechs, along with their pilots, and capturing the other two pilots. The next four hours were uneventful as they brought their captives back to base. Only to find the base was in a stage of pandemonium since apparently Mai-Lao and Westphalia had decided they were going to create a “polite fiction” to start a civil war against Lunzberg and the planetary government.
Deschain’s apparent glee at the situation sickened her and from what she could see, his reaction as he told them of the assassination attempts against the Dawn and the government caused the same reaction in the rest of her lance. Which finally led up to the analysis she’d just sent off to her CO, wondering if she’d just wasted everyone’s time with it and if she should bother with the more a more detailed examination and report.
As she slowly drifted off for a short nap, she wondered if she took another step down the path in her mother’s footsteps.
Second Calvary Barracks
Elgin
Aching in more than just her body, Marlana slowly sank down in a chair that was tucked in an out of the way spot to give herself a chance to collect her thoughts without any interruptions. She knew she should be asleep like the others, but as usual when her mind was overactive there wouldn’t be any point in trying to get sleep. For a moment she studied the chip she held in one hand as an old memory surfaced.
Storm grey eyes of an impeccably dressed and groomed woman of good breeding gazed down at what the casual passerby would think of as a younger version of herself, only with black hair and sapphire eyes instead of blonde and grey. Finally the woman nodded to her daughter, “You’ll do. I have to say that who ever designed the dress version of your school uniform had some modicum of talent going for them since the seamstress didn’t have that much work to do to make it presentable. Hopefully you remember a small shred of your deportment classes so that you won’t embarrass either of us.”
Her tone made it clear that she believed otherwise.
“I want you to remember something, Marlana Halas. No matter what you think, everyone can be bought, sometimes you can’t, or won’t, pay the price. Everyone has a weak spot you can exploit to use against them. Everyone is out to use you. If not for your money and connections, then it’s for your pretty face. And yes, that does include me. Unlike some, I at least will admit that to your face. Keep these things in mind tonight and see if you can spot those whose price you can pay or those you can exploit if you can’t.”
The girl’s voice was carefully neutral to hide her hate and disgust, “Yes, lady mother.”
Twelve years later she still had to swallow back the hate and disgust. Then a bitter smile curved her lips as she imagined her mother’s reaction to how she was going to use those lessons. Then she slotted the chip and began to study and make notes on its contents.
Hours later the young lieutenant slowly stretched, wincing as abused muscles protested the movement and smiled a little at the results. It had been interesting in a way, to construct the analysis of the mid-ranked nobility of Mai-Lao and Westphalia. It wasn’t comprehensive in anyway, she would need a few days to do that. But she thought it provided a decent idea of the ones who provided the most support to the important nobility.
“Remember, Marlana, it’s easy enough to find out information about the princes and dukes. The ones you truly want to watch, to study, to be wary of are the lesser nobles. They’re a pack of dogs, toss them meat and bones, the occasion kind word and they are yours for life. Treat them ill and they’ll turn on you and drag you down so fast you will not know what killed you.”
Not for the first, or the last, time she wondered if doing things like this is what led her mother down the path she did. Wondered if her mother had poisoned her in slow subtle ways that she was only now discovering when it was too late to do anything. She pulled out the locket she wore over her heart all of the time now and wondered sickly if she’d done something subconsciously to pay Nicholai’s price that she was just using him for her own ends without knowing what it was that she was doing or why.
Irritably she shook her head, scrubbed at her tired eyes, telling herself fiercely that it was just the exhaustion talking. Making one last quick read through what she’d come up with, she hesitated for a long moment, then sent it to Bingham with a brief note of what she’d come up with and why. Then she headed off for a couple of hours of shuteye while trying not to think about the events of the night before and failing.
The Blackout Bravo lance had been sent out to investigate anomalous heat signatures that satellites had picked up in areas where there was no record of human habitation nor any small bases of any known military forces. Arriving on the scene they’d found old prefab metal buildings in an arroyo. While the shanty town had the air of a place long abandoned there’d been signs of a large number of people mustering for something, including vehicles and mechs. Unfortunately do recent rain the traces had been wiped enough that they could not determine what direction the unknown force had taken. They’d spent the rest of the day trying to locate the unknown force, but to no avail.
That night while Jain had been on watch, an explosion had gone off in a distant fishing village. By the time they’d arrived all they’d discovered was that the town had been attacked, apparently by incendiaries, flamers and energy weapons. There were no survivors to be found and the local boats had gone missing. Hoping the boats had been taken by survivors of the village and not the unknown hostiles a message came through on the civilian frequencies from a neighboring village that reported signs of unknown mechs and people in boats.
Dreading what they might find, they confronted an unknown lance of mechs as they came shoreward as the boats they’d been accompanying took off. There Lana had danced a dangerous line trying to keep the unknowns in place without alienating her lance or pissing off her commanding officers overly much. During that time she’d managed to pry out of the unknown mechwarriors that they belonged to the merc unit the Whirling Dervishes. A unit declared rogue by the MRBC, a fact that didn’t endear her to them when she brought up the matter. Then began a minor scuffle where she tried to delay the Dervishes more in the hopes of getting them to let something slip that she could work with.
To complicate matters she had Spyros muttering that something was wrong with the whole setup since their weapons didn’t match what had been used against the village. And once again she berated herself for not listening to her instincts that something stank to high heaven with regards to these mercs who were in mechs clearly meant for raiding.
With the aid of the Wailing Banshees, they fought the Dervishes, destroying two mechs, along with their pilots, and capturing the other two pilots. The next four hours were uneventful as they brought their captives back to base. Only to find the base was in a stage of pandemonium since apparently Mai-Lao and Westphalia had decided they were going to create a “polite fiction” to start a civil war against Lunzberg and the planetary government.
Deschain’s apparent glee at the situation sickened her and from what she could see, his reaction as he told them of the assassination attempts against the Dawn and the government caused the same reaction in the rest of her lance. Which finally led up to the analysis she’d just sent off to her CO, wondering if she’d just wasted everyone’s time with it and if she should bother with the more a more detailed examination and report.
As she slowly drifted off for a short nap, she wondered if she took another step down the path in her mother’s footsteps.
posted by Reika at 1:02 AM
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