BattleTech: Shrapnel, Issue #5 (The Official BattleTech Magazine) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2021-06-14T05:00:00+00:00

Even as furious as she clearly was, Sachi Treyford wasn’t too hard on the eyes. Her blue eyes flashed easily, and she clearly hadn’t heard the word no all that often in her relatively brief life. “When I give an order, Colonel Kell, I expect it to be followed.”

“I have no doubt, Miss. Problem is, you’re not in my chain of command. I’m here on orders from the LCAF to assess and assist the maintenance of public order and safety.”

“You assist by eliminating the threat to this world.”

Patrick folded his arms across his chest. “If you think a half-dozen farm boys driving Mules wrapped in barbed wire are a threat to the planet, you’ve seriously overestimated what they can get up to.”

The woman’s chin came up and her nostrils flared as she made an attempt to suck all the air out of the hangar. “Perhaps, Colonel, this will change your mind!” She spoke into a communicator. “Pipe the holo from the Chosen ultimatum we just received into Hangar Bay Nine.”

The holodisplay at the diagnostics station lit up, showing a dimly lit gathering of maybe three dozen people in what looked to be a barn—complete with hay bales as backdrop and seating. A woman stood at the front of the congregation, reedy thin and hatchet-faced, with her hair pulled back into a severe bun. Smoke wafted through the air, coming from nine or ten urns with slitted sides, reminding Patrick of censers he’d seen at many Catholic Masses and too many funerals.

The camera zoomed in on the woman, getting tight in on her face for a moment. The closeup revealed red rimming her eyes and her pupils dilated wide enough to be the barrel of an autocannon. The shot pulled back and focused, showing her with her arms spread, her face lifted toward Heaven, and her beginning to sway and bob in time with music no one else could hear.

“He is coming for us, brothers and sisters. We saw Him carried bodily into Heaven, amid a host of angels who wept at my husband’s beauty. God welcomed Him in a booming voice. ‘Behold, Arlington Poore, of whom We are most proud. We are!’ And you know what that last means, my brethren, that God finally accepted Arlington back into His bosom, to once again to be one with Him. He is coming again, here, to Alioth, the New Eden. And He has a message for all of us.”

The woman then began to spin and utter a repetitive string of syllables that rose and fell in a rhythm. The language she spoke made no sense and didn’t vary from the twenty-sound cycle. Patrick didn’t recognize it as any language he’d ever heard, but caught enough of it that after the fourth pass he could have aped it with no problem. And I’m not stoned out of my gourd as they clearly are. The camera pulled back one more time, providing a clear view of the entire congregation standing, chanting and whirling with mindless abandon.

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