Is all this over some scrap heap?
Imperator Pax
Talon Master
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Scrap heap
In hindsight loading everyone into the beds of trucks and making them drive into town on pain of pulse laser could have gone a lot worse. The villagers of via Caballero could have gotten the pitchforks and the nooses out. That they didn't immediately resort to that was [probably] because they'd never seen a Marauder before. Having to tell them he'd be coming back with the rest of the would be invaders was probably another reason they didn't start lynching anyone.
Don't piss people with giant robots is a lesson that is especially engrained throughout the denizens of many a periphery world... and the Inner Sphere for that matter... and Aquagea was no exception. He was willing to leave things to the townspeople since the planetary militia still hadn't shown up. The recovery work party was a bigger issue...
Gene had ended up telling them to take all of their shit and load it back into their ship. He frankly doubted he was going to get to keep any of it, and maybe if he had wanted to be sneaky he should have left it where it was before having them all load up on the vehicles and drive into town.
It was kind of like a cattle drive, wasn't exactly the best thought to have, but that took care of the problem at least. The decision to go poking around on the inside of the Union now that it was abandoned in hindsight had been a little risky as well.
He had discarded the kooky idea of telling the computer to take off, and then try and have it autonavigate to the outpost castle's nav beacon to land in the underground dropship bays. It was tempting for a fleeting moment, but quickly put aside. It didn't hurt that he was pretty sure the castle's bays were for whatever reason configured specifically for aerodyne hullshapes.
The files on the computer put the kibosh that idea all together. Zathras wasn't just here because they were greedy assholes who wanted to be a minor periphery power. They wanted to be that, it was true, but they thought they had a lead on LosTech, and while the information contained in the computer banks didn't jive with what he knew of the Outpost Castle he called home it didn't necessarily mean someone might not find his home while looking for some other el dorado that might not even exist.
The question was how many of the Zathras personnel knew about the information in the banks... the captain, the 'viceroy', probably the unit mech commander... who had been in the Zeus like he had expected... who else? Who might have gotten told by accident or otherwise? He couldn't say. It explained the BattleMech Company's condition and presence. Thankfully their files were pretty clear that the legendary loot should have been somewhere south of town, well south of town, though not quite half way.
It was definitely something to look into, and he planned to. The question was whether or not to tell the townspeople the next time he was in Via Cabarello. He didn't take anything from the Union. He really didn't have anyway to take anything, which was really only part of it. He needed to get off world and find something to do, or rather find somewhere with an actual job market. As comfortable as the Outpost castle, as much as there was to learn from its library, and practice in the simulators it wasn't the same thing as being out in the world. He'd have been safe, but bored out of his mind, and he knew that. He also knew he wasn't in any way set to start a mercenary company.
Groaning he pushed the Star League era Terran Hegemony educational material off to one side as the signals filtered in. The Outpost had been built and staffed by Terran Hegemony troops of the SLDF, probably intelligence cut outs but even those spooks weren't all knowing. It was entirely possible that the LosTech they were after could have been pre Amaris, or into the first or second succession war. This had at one point been a world belonging to the Cappies, before the Mariks had come along.
He ran a hand through his hair, and reminded himself that he needed to grab a hat to throw in his day bag in case of either bright sun or rain. There was a cargo hauler that needed work in the bay, which was probably why it had been left behind.
Heavy equipment transport cross country had existed since the first world war, eleven hundred years in the distant past on earth, and engines capable of pulling not just the rig's weight but a vehicle or piece of equipment even heavier meant that recovering a mech was about getting a mech on to the flat bed not driving off with it once it was up there.
It might be useful if he went anywhere, assuming that it could be gotten to start again, but he was still working with only a rudimentary grasp of Star League systems and technology, and knew most of the work would be done by automated SLDF gantries, and mechanic systems.
--
Via Caballero had an eighties meets tombstone kind of look to it. The town was dominated as sort of made sense by the Caballero railway running straight down the middle of the town. It would have just been a farming community really before the Marik's came and mucked everything up. There weren't but a couple of thousand full time residents anyway.
"The bastards were trying to jump a lostech claim?" The sheriff's twang was funny given he was five four bald and looked to be southern Chinese in ethnicity, if Gene were to guess. Aquagea... or here this town at least... had a lot of Chinese, Sikhs, Russians and English or Scots-Irish who spoke with an absurd south western US accented English.... with the odd duck loan word thrown in to the mix.
Maybe it was just from being hunched over from age, but he was shorter than the thirteen year old bold of the MechWarrior, which was something else that he, Gene, found funny. "They say anything about that?"
"Nothing of the sort." The Sheriff replied, "You a lostech prospector too? Look a lil young."
Gene shrugged and looked over to the county gaol where the not pirates were being held, "I'm not one to pass up an opportunity, even if I doubt that there is anything there. I'll ride along as security," He offered, "You going to do something about Zathras's equipment?"
"You aiming to collect?"
"Not in salvage, I don't have any place to put it." He replied, having decided "I'm not planning to stay around sheriff probably see about getting off world."
The mayor who was a dandy looking maybe slavic mix of some stripe thought he looked a bit young for the mercenary life, which Gene figured he'd probably get a lot of.
"I'm looking for a quiet job that pays for food and drink, or a loud job running pirates, in that order by preference, but I wasn't planning to stick around here."
"Fair enough." The old timer snorted, "Well if you're right about why they're here, I suppose having a MechWarrior along wouldn't hurt. As fer the salvage, that will be something you'll have to take up with what passes for a planetary gubermint on this world, gunslinger." As if reading his mind regarding the pointed absence of the Planetary Militia even still the Sheriff hocked and spat in the dirt, "Once they're sure all the real work is done I'm well sure they'll come up from down south, but not quickly... could still be a few more weeks."
He resisted the urge to groan but he supposed he really shouldn't have been surprised. "You have any ideal how they'll handle the Zathras personnel?"
"Not a one." The sheriff replied. "Probably ship the live ones home, sure as shit don't want them here. That dropship fly?"
"It should."
"Gubmint gonna wan' keep it then. Even if it didn't they'd want it. Give you a tin star maybe, or a fancy title over some pile a dirt fer it, but probably not much in cash that'll spend any where other than here I bet."
That figured, and it was his turn to shrug. "Guess we'll see."
"You serious about them think'," thinking that "there is something buried south of town?"
"Someone in some place called the Aurigan reach certainly seems to think so, enough to convince them." He replied remembering what had been in the databanks. There was no telling if there was even anything there, or if there would be anything worth anything.
"I can get some excavating equipment from the mayor, take a few days, but I can do it if you can wait that long."
What else was he going to do in the interim exactly? Nothing except drive the Marauder back out to the Outpost castle and make sure he wasn't followed and bushwacked, or attempted to be bushwacked. They were probably just assuming he was camped somewhere near the salvage sight or in the city ruins, which was fine they could keep thinking that as long as no body followed him.
--
Commentary: Not entirely happy with this one, and it was originally going to come with other character perspectives but I've shifted around my scheduling for posting. The story will be coming back to Aquagea at least two distinct times in the future at least in present outlines in the later 3010s, and again in the likely early to mid 3020s so I'd like to have some of via Caballero's townsfolk fleshed out, but not today.
As to the locals perspective, some of the 'young folks' (read teens early twenties) have ground cars and road out to video tape the fighting, which we've seen from Gene's perspective is a lot of scoot and shoot, but from the Zathras perspective its getting shot at by a guy who doesn't show up on any of your electronics, and for the locals its stuff like the jumpjets and point blank shooting down another giant robot.