BattleTech: Mercenary's Star (A Gray Death Legion Novella) by Jason Schmetzer

Author:Jason Schmetzer
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2022-06-30T05:00:00+00:00

“That’s the head honcho she’s with, Captain Carlyle,” Private Atwater told Blucher, as she walked past with Curtain and the others. He and Peat both nodded to the diminutive officer as she walked past, but Blucher just glanced at her and went back to his discussion. Movement behind the two infantrymen caught his eye: Istvan Sanchez, hands in his pockets, nodding at him.

“Will you guys excuse me?” Blucher asked. “I need to see a guy about a thing, if you catch my drift.”

“We should check in with the captain anyway,” Private Peat said. “Nice to meet you, Blucher.”

Blucher shook their hands again and walked slowly down the aisle, threading a needle between people until he stood next to Sanchez, who pretended not to know him.

“What the hell’s this about, Archon’s boy?” Sanchez snarled under his breath. “You send that tinspawn kid to us—”

“You heard about the invaders?” Blucher asked, cutting him off.

“Everyone has.”

“Well, I was just talking to two of them. You and your boys got a choice, Sanchez.”

“What kind of choice?”

Blucher licked his lips. “The Jade Falcons are gone. The invaders on the mainlands, they’re called Tamars, and they’re Lyran renegades.”

“Renegades,” Sanchez snorted. “That must chap your ass, Archon’s boy.”

“At some point the Archon will come fix the books,” Blucher said. “Think about those rumors we heard years ago, about that guy Widmer way the hell out on Buena?”

“So what if she does,” Sanchez said. “No skin off mine.”

“You know everyone on this island,” Blucher said. “I need you to get anyone like me—Archon’s boys and girls, whatever you call us, people who still believe in the Commonwealth—to the Fort. You and your boys. Right now, like in the next hour.”

Sanchez abandoned the charade and faced him. “What are you talking about?”

“These Tamars, they want the fort. I can keep them away from it. But I need people to watch my back. That’s sure as shit not you, I get it. But you know the right people.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I can pay you,” Blucher said. “Six thousand kroner, right now. And you can loot the bodies when I’m done.”

Sanchez laughed in his face. “You don’t have six thousand kroner.”

Blucher reached into his thigh pocket and pulled out a palm-size tool carrier. It flipped open on a hinge, revealing ranks of delicate electronics instruments. He dug a thumb into the seam and lifted the whole tool assembly free. Beneath it, hidden between the tools and the outer shell, was a single thousand-kroner note. “Don’t I?”

Sanchez stared, but Blucher could already see the wheels of avarice turning behind his watery brown eyes. “And I’ll sweeten the deal.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ll make sure you get pardons when the Lyrans come back. Blanket.”

Sanchez snorted again, disbelieving, but with the thousand-kroner note staring him in the face… “How?”

Blucher laughed. “I’ll have given an entire fortress on a remote island to the LCAF when they come to kick renegades back off their planet. They’ll give me anything I want. Me—and the people who helped me.”

“You’re crazy,” Sanchez said, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the thousand kroner.

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