Mech RP [Ch. 1] The Hand of the Empire

Seconds ticked by, Nathan facedown in the dirt with the guy he dragged with him. He was expecting a boom, some loud explosion and a rain of dust and shrapnel. Instead......nothing, and he looked up. Spotting the piece of scrap, he realized that was just what it was: scrap. "Oh for fucks sake!" he yelled.

The other guy, the pharmacist just sort of cowered on the ground. "Is...is it a dud?" He stammered, some of the other nearby pilots drawing whatever weapons they had on hand.

"Not even that," Nathan growled as he stood up, marching over to the piece. Picking it up he gave it a once over before saying "One of the magnetic gears they use these for newer models." Marching towards the Imps, he started to shout "And the power....is supposed to be....OFF! You start working with these, you always turn the power off!"

"If you're such a fucking expert, you should be able to tell the difference between a gear blowing and somebody throwing a fucking grenade." He shouted back, lowering his SMG. "Pathetic." He added, shaking his head as he walked towards the mechanic.

Just before King had entered the next building, he heard the commotion. At the word, "Grenade" he sprinted toward the source and arrived just as everyone had realized it wasn't an actual grenade. It was simply a blown off gear that had made everyone nearly start firing at one another. He stands back, away from the one who had apparently yelled the warning. He didn't recognize this one and he doubts he belongs to the defectors.

"I'm a fucking mechanic, not a soldier. Fucking Imps, course I'm gonna freak out when something comes flying at me from your side of camp," Nathan shouted. He threw the gear back, the magnetized metal landing a short distance from one of the Imperial defectors.

A mechanic, right.

He steps from the crowd and behind the mechanic. He refrains from physical contact, considering what had just transpired, it is very likely that this mechanic would start throwing punches. Instead, he opts to just converse with him. He will try his best to defuse a situation that may arise from this man's inability to follow orders.

"Mechanic, please compose yourself."

Turning on his heel to face the newcomer, a tall guy who looked to be ten years his senior. "Hey, put me behind some machinery to fix I'll compose myself just fine. Fuck, I'll compose the machine into a piece of art." Setting his knuckles on his hips, he said through clenched teeth "But after just getting our asses handed to us, don't expect me to play nice with Imperial soldiers, defectors or not."

"It's no wonder you're losing with mechanics like you." The sokdier shouted back, picking the gear up from the sand, "You probably put a grenade inside somebody's frame."

"Yeah maybe next time it'll be your frame!" Nathan shouted back, ready to march over and.....well, he sorta got lost at that one. Kick the trained soldiers ass?

Juno strode forwards as the defecto heftwd the gear in hid hand and prepared to throw it.
"Both of you, stand down." She ordered, before speaking exclusively to the mechanic. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't make death threats towards my men. The next one you make will be taken seriously."

Glaring at the new speaker, a woman this time, Nathan decided to shut up. Hey, he was usually smart, like right then. Turning away, he started to stalk off.....before stopping, and turning to look back at the guy with the gear. "Make sure the power is off when you start working with that. Set it back in place and let the gears align themselves, then ease the power levels back up. It'll let you know if it's working without going so fast it spins out of the frame!" Imperials, he didn't like. Incompetent mechanics and repairs, even less.

Everybody else just sort of glared at one another like it was an old Earth standoff, only the furthest away lowering their weapons and going back to working on their Frames. The guy who originally asked Nathan for help got up, still prone on the ground and looked around nervously, taking deep breaths before trying to head back towards his frame

Juno turned to the Imperial defector,
"Ignore him and continue following protocol. If we're attacked again, we need to be ready for combat."

"Ignore the mechanic that knows what he's talking about, yeah see how far that gets ya," Nathan muttered before following the stranger. He felt like kicking something, but he knew it wouldn't help. "Okay so, your frame," he said, clearly frustrated. "Let's get a look at it eh?"

Of course, I'm sure you're an expert on Imperial Military Protocol," Juno replied as he left, rolling her eyes, before returning to her own frame. It was quite ridiculous that there were members of the rebellion who couldnt tell the difference between a gear and a grenade.

He keeps his eyes on the mechanic and says firmly, "Mechanic, do not leave just yet. I would like to have a word with you."

Ignore the bitch, Nathan thought to himself. Then the other guy spoke and he turned to him. "What's up boss?" he asked.

He places his hands behind his back and nods to him. "Corporal Dudley King of the Rebellion"
He introduces himself before continuing.

"I realize the current position we are all in, but you will treat them as our own. Without them, we would not be standing here. At this current point in time, we do not need to be at each other's throats"

We'll leave that for after.

"We must all make our way back to our home as a family, not matter how disjointed. If you do not feel like you can handle that, you may go on ahead without us." He says this last bit about going on ahead a little bit louder so the other Rebels can hear. "This goes likewise for the Imperial defectors. Am I understood?

"Nathan Carver, mechanic," Nathan said in response to Dudley giving his name. Then he stood there and listened to the man talk, trying to interject but being overridden. Finally when he had a chance, he said "Fine, sir. But honestly, I don't like them being here. And not just because their Imperials, but they're defectors. Traitors. So don't be surprised if I'm hesitant to trust a group of traitors."

"They took their own names and besmirched them for us. Juno has given us some valuable information. As of right now, I believe their intentions are for the best for both them and us. Thank you for your time, Carver. Dismissed." He gives a mechanical salute.

Not bothering to return it, Nathan simple sighed and said "Just don't expect me to help out if one of their idiots burns themselves fixing their stuff."

Noticing Carver's refusal to show just a little bit of common courtesy and his apparent lack of wanting to follow simple orders, King's free hand balls into a fist and is sent flying towards Carver's right cheek while his saluted hand drops to King's side.

Words, it seems, will not be enough for this one to fall in. He will be an example.

Not seeing the punch coming, Nathan could only take the punch with a surprised grunt, stumbling back as he was disoriented. He didn't straighten up, rubbing his cheek where already the bruise was forming.

"Sometimes family needs to be hard on family." He says while rubbing his hand. "Please do not take my action in the wrong manner. Everything I do, I do for the good of the family. Disciplining those who make trouble is one of those things I do. We might not be a formal military, but when one salutes another, that one is expected to salute back. It is the respectful thing to do.

He keeps facing Carver, knowing if he exposes his back, the chance for a counterattack is great.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you. I will not repeat myself." He shouts this time, his patience at its breaking point. "Dismissed!" He salutes one final time and departs for Killer Queen.

He wanted to hit him back. But what was that going to achieve, aside from either putting Nathan in the brig or court martial and summary execution. So he let Dudley have his speech and walk off, quietly muttering "You......are not my family." Then he gave up on repairing the other guys frame, returning to his own. While he had been inside, he noted a few things he could tweak or improve. May as well get to work.

A few hours later, enough to where the sun had just started dipping on the horizon, Irving sent out another broadcast. "Everyone pack up. We're moving again. Now's the time to decide if your frame can handle the trek back to Sojourner. Close up shop and power on, we're moving again." He said into the radio, walking through the camp while doing so. Just about everyone scrambled to put panels in place and the whir of engines powering on filled the makeshift camp quickly. A few frames started powering up but then shutdown a few minutes later, either trouble with the engine or the system diagnostic registered some kind of failure. Either way, several more Frames would have to be left behind, and not everyone had backup equipment to deal with ejecting. Several frames had to take on passengers, cramping into the cockpit or just having it ride open-top.

A few minutes later, however, and everyone started moving. It was disorganized, disorderly, but it was moving, and Irving did his best to keep it under control. Despite the rage of warfare having died down some hours ago, everyone was still on edge that the Imperials might be following them, and the defectors weren't helping in any way. Irving rode on top of a Brawler class up front, holding onto the side with some those spare clamps and issuing orders to the convoy. Every now and then another Frame fell apart, the hasty repairs ultimately proving fruitless, and every single time someone fell over it wasn't drop in morale. by the time they could see Sojourner in the distance, it was night, a cold bitter darkness falling across the landscape that dropped the temperature quickly. A forward squad of Scout-type Frames from Sojourner met them part way, taking up positions around the defectors while also taking some of the passenger load off of the convoy.

Queen had been slowing down considerably as more and more cells began to slowly die off. Frustration begins to plague King. The only thing to alleviate this pain is the sight of his home. His beautiful home of Sojourner releases him from his thoughts and gives him the extra push he needs to get back to the major Frame hub known simply as the Shatterdome. He forces excess power into the already dying cells and continues the march to the rebel stronghold. It would not only be a place for Queen to be repaired, but also a time to spend with his wife and child until he would next be deployed.

Diana, Scarlet I am coming home. Do not worry.

Once more, Nathan found himself in the pilot's seat of the frame. It wasn't exactly his favorite spot so far, given the history he had with it but he was proving capable. Of getting it to move, anyway..... After his public punishment from King, he had kept to the Frame for the rest of their stay in the settlement, making repairs and tune-ups where needed. By the time they moved out, the Frame was moving as well as it should have been back in Opportunity. Along the journey, he did his best, trying to help out on repairs for other frames. But at the end of the day, skill only did so much before parts became an absolute necessity. There was a spaced out trail of Frames in the desert behind them, empty and crippled.

If they were lucky, recovery teams would be sent out for them. If not to bring the whole thing back to life, then for much needed parts. Once Sojourner came within sight, he breathed a sigh of relief, even going so far as to say on an open comm "I don't know about you boys but first thing I'm doin', is hitting the bar."

He hears Carver's open comm message and refuses to reply.

A drink for our failures. A way to cope with the pain of letting the others down. I guess it would not harm anything, but going out to the bar after such a slaughter is such a cliche. Though, I would not mind some scotch. No one saw the Imperials coming we could not have known we were going to fail, so why does it feel like someone... no... I must not go down this path.

Juno spent the journey in silence, none of the defectors were talking; at least not over open comm channels. Almost all of them had their Frames to themselves, most rebels keeping their distance from them. She didn't mind, in fact, she liked the quiet. She'd only ever seen Sojourner once, from a distance, during a deep reconnaissance mission. It felt strange approaching the rebel stronghold in this manner.

There wasn't much of a response to Nathan's comment about the bar. Either it was because no one was in the mood for a drink, or they knew it came from the mechanic Dudley King gave an ass-beating to--even if that term was an exaggeration of what happened. Whatever the reason, he sighed in his cockpit and waited for them to actually come to a stop in the city.

That stop didn't happen until the Frames had all been shepherded into the makeshift hangar bay the Rebels had put together. He was too far from the defectors on the way in to tell, so he wasn't sure if they had been grouped with them, or more likely taken somewhere else for the higher ups to deal with. Not giving them much more thought, he made sure his Frame was safely docked before getting out.

Irving waited until everyone had parked before climbing down. The defectors were herded off to the side, not quite in the same hanger but at least somewhat nearby, with their escort closeby with weapons armed. Irving sent a message to the other officers and one to Juno, converted speech to text.

Code:

"You are being sent details on a meeting to discuss what to do with the Imperial defectors. The leader of the group will be joining us in this meeting. This will potentially decide what happens with them as a whole. Until then they shall remain in the hanger with a guard on them, in a restricted fashion.

The details were sparse, as Irving was dictating while making his way back towards the officer's quarters, but they were complete, and basically said that they would meet in one of the canteens afterhours, one that was fairly close to the hanger. All the while, all of the Frames aside from the Imperials were starting to get work done on them, powering down and slumping over in some way or another, large carts full of spares rushing back and forth every which way.

King brings Queen to a full stop on one of the walls. He receives the message Irving had sent out and calls the elevator which would soon bring him back down. As the door slides open he hears the all to familiar sounds of Framework happening. Heavy machinery moving from one place to another mixed in with the sound of feet pounding on the hard ground. He is eventually met by a couple mechanics. He refers them to the damages Queen had sustained and they work out some agreements. Salvaging an ax from a destroyed Frame would be easy and all they would need to do is integrate it with Queen. Allowing the mechanics to do their work, he shoves off towards the officer's quarters.

Nathan was, embarrassingly, mistaken for a pilot by another mechanic. She had walked over from her workstation, wearing coveralls worn with use and spattered with grease. "Sir," she said to him as she snapped a salute, "what's the damage?" At first, he was caught off guard by the 'sir'. Then he realized he had jumped out of a Frame, a weapon that typically, only officers would be using. "Oh uhm.......superficial damage to the chassis but mostly just dents and minor holes. Machine gun jammed up, auto-cannon's aiming servos were malfunctioning....." Briskly, she walked past him reaching for her toolbelt before he said "Wait! I already fixed it."

Turning back, she shot him a skeptical look and said "Yeah I find that hard to believe sir, no offense. Unless they teach pilots mechanical engineering and repairs." Frowning at her, he said in response "Except I'm not a pilot. Nathan Carver, mechanical engineer, Tier Two," he said, slightly irritated.

The officer's quarters were a fair distance away, and as Irving walked, several soldiers gathered up around him, trying to ask questions. Some pilots, some soldiers, almost none of them fully trained in anything. He waved them off quickly stating "There will be a debrief shortly, there is an announcement to make and it will be made in due time. Until then, please go about your everyday tasks." A couple people near the back were already discussing the Imperials, the news of which he was trying to rapidly out walk. The older man succeeded, but only barely, leaving a confused mess just outside the officer's quarters. He set his gun down by the door, and went to his locker, a soft beep coming from it as it registered his heartbeat and retinal scan, and opened up with a soft hiss. He sighed and looked around, glad nobody else was inside with him just yet. He could use a bit of stress relief.

While she didn't blush, it was clear that the mix-up had left her a little....flustered. "Oops, sorry about that.....guess it means we can drop the salutes though," she said with a small hopeful grin. Shaking his head though, Nathan said "So long as you remember to salute Dudley King. Otherwise he'll punch you and call you a member of his family." The mechanic rolled her eyes at that and said "Good grief.....learned that from experience?"

Snorting, he stayed rooted to the spot and said "Something like that. Anyway, the Frame's in condition to fight, just needs a pilot and some juice." He began walking away, though she started to follow. "What, you don't want to keep piloting it?" she asked, curious. "I'm a mechanic," he groaned, "not a pilot. Most I managed was to get it moving. But I'm not one of those pilots who actually trained for this."

King comes closer to the officer's quarters, and as he does he sees a large group of people gathered around looking confused, some looking angry. A few see him coming and whispers begin. To say they slowly drift off is an understatement, they hoof it back to what they had been doing. He hides a small smile as he comes up to the door and opens it. He sees Irving at his locker but doesn't approach him, instead he moves to the left of the door and leans on the wall behind him.

"We were lucky to have gotten out of there." He says. His mind still on business.

"We were more lucky we even won Opportunity to begin with. It's not often we get any kind of victory against the Imperials." Irving replies. He takes off his emergency infantry equipment and set it down, rolling his shoulders and neck to stave off some cramping. "With any luck we'll get some new recruits and get a better fighting force, or perhaps get a cell or something on the inside. Either way, we showed they aren't invincible, as hard as that might seem." Irving doesn't look over yet, content to just fiddle with his stuff and try to unwind.

"True you're probably not," the female mechanic said, all too honest. "But, doubt they can be as effective in the field as you can when it comes to repair work. I mean hell, especially with patch-jobs like that bad boy back there, you could tune it up and really make a beast out of it," she said. "And why do you care?" he asked. "We're the mechanics, we fix things up," Nathan stated, as if it were a natural law.

"I don't know," she answered. "Call it me entertaining a thought. So, what's the name of this thing anyway?" she asked, and he actually blinked. "Uhm......good question," he asked.

He closes his eyes "We must have done something to win over the defectors and a member of the 45th no less. We don't have anything the Emperor wants, except our lives. If he planted them here on purpose it wouldn't make sense for Juno to give us the datapad. It is all very strange, even stranger on how everything on Opportunity happened. They caught us off guard, but it was an entire section of the city that came down before we knew anything." He rubs his chin in thought.

Why am I pushing these excuses. Our own men wouldn't betray us.

"A show of force, about how he has so much firepower and capacity for destruction at his will that he can level a city block just because we are on the other side. A message that you should stay on his good side or he'll do everything he can to make sure you're wiped from existence. I doubt those defectors are up to anything good on our end, but I do think they'll help, as much as I want to rip my tongue out saying something like that."

He nods slightly before continuing, "Now the real challenge is to win over our own people. I pray I won't have to use the force I did on Mr. Carver." He sighs trying to change topics, "I've heard rumors of things going on over at Viking. The Empire's grasp doesn't reach that far anymore. We might have a chance at taking it, but it'd mean having to go through Curiosity. I'm unsure of their standing at this point in time."

"Let's save that for the meeting. Lina will probably have more info on that, what with her seemingly unlimited amounts of connections. Until then, I suppose it's try to keep everybody from tearing the Imperials apart? Again, I feel like i should swallow acid when I say something like that." Irving takes off his sidearm and sets it in the locker before slamming it closed, and finally looks over at King. "Unless you have a better idea?"

He shakes his head. "They will learn to accept it, I guess. They will have to when the fighting starts again. The only thing I can see working is just having it happen naturally over time. Locking them all up in one area like this and telling them to get along hasn't yielded much results besides them going after us." He shrugs and opens his eyes. "We will leave it for time and I will hope it will not take too long to take into effect. If it does, we will lose more than we gain."

Irving snorts and starts towards King, heading for the door. "Like we haven't been doing that from the start."

"Lieutenant," Someone said, a man, and Juno looked away from the message sent by Irving. He appeared to be quite a lot older than her, and she noted that he had the look of a soldier around him. "I demand that you step down as representative for this group. I am of higher rank than you, and have much more experience than you are with these matters."
Juno mentally sighed, she had expected some officer wanting to get back his little power base sooner or later. Thankfully, she had made herself aware of some of the more obscure and unused rules.
"Then, Captain," Juno replied coolly, "I will cite paragraph 95 of Protocol 574b, "In the event where two officers clash over the direction of a unit cut off from all Imperial support, one may challenge the other to a pistol duel."" Juno hid a smile as his face drained with colour, clearly wanting to keep his own life safe. He'd probably only defected because the men around him had.

"T-that can't be a real protocol," He said, floundering as he panicked, and sought a way out of this. One of the defectors had found the protocol, and the final nail hit down on his hopes,
"She's right. Word for word." He said, almost in disbelief.

"Count down from three." Juno ordered the man who had spoken, off-handedly. The Captain was still trying to blubber his way out, and hadn't noticed.

The soldier reacted immediately, counting down to two before the Captain took notice.
"What the hell are you counting for? We're not actually going to go through with that."
Juno didn't move, the Captain continuing to shout at the soldier. It was almost ammusing.

When the final second passed, Juno drew her pistol. The Captain panicked, fumbling for his own and-
Juno shot him through the head.

Breaking away from the mechanic, Nathan clambered onto the Frame, looking for a name that may have been plastered on the top. Nothing. No name, no fancy decal, nothing beyond the usual numbers that were printed onto the steel. "We got a nameless here," he called back down to her. "Maybe we should name her then," she called back. "'Her'?" Nathan said. "Come on, bad boy like this, gotta be a guy."

"Oh so because the machine's a badass, it can't be a girl?" the mechanic shot back with a withering glare. "Not what I said. But I'm in charge of this frame, so I'm labeling it a dude." Just then, a shot rang out. It was low, muffled from distance but they both heard it. A single pistol shot was all it took for Nathan to nearly lose his balance on the frame. "Fucking hell!" the other mechanic yelled, crouching low and moving for cover behind a large tool-chest.

Almost instantly at the sound of gunfire, all of the people tasked with guarding the defectors quickly raised their hodgepodge of guns and pointed them into the little camp. The Scout Frames soon following suit with their machine guns and flechette cannons. One of the shouted out at the group. "Drop your guns right now! I won't be asking again!" To anyone on the receiving end of the guns, it would look more like they were being threatened by militia and farmers than rebel soldiers. Shotguns and carbines, few of the military caliber, all pointed at the defectors like spears surrounding prisoners. The only thing all of them had in common was the relative inexperience of the wielder, something that could lead to things going wrong very very quickly.

Juno pointed her pistol into the air and raised her left hand to beside her head. Complying with the guard's command, she slowly crouched, before placing the pistol on the floor and resuming standing.