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

While Nathan didn't fall of the frame he came damn close to it, regaining balance right as he reached the edge. Once he was sure he wasn't about to fall off.....he got low on the crown of the robot and yelled out "Please tell me that wasn't the sound of a gunshot!"

"No it was the sound of a champagne bottle popping a cork--OF COURSE IT WAS A GUNSHOT!" the female mechanic yelled. "Christ, was that from those Imperials they brought in?" she asked, standing up slowly. He carefully climbed down, sighing as he said "Oh I'd bet money on that being a yes...."

A crowd was forming up behind the guards, who now had to work between keeping the Imperials under check and the crowd at bay. "Step away from the pistol!" Someone shouted, which only worked to get the crowd more worked up at this point. Someone comm'd Irving, who started coming in the distance as fast as he could run.

Juno complied, stepping away from the pistol. Some of the defectors were wary, a couple of them even checking that their own weapons were nearby. Juno couldn't tell them not to, they had a right to feel that they could defend themselves if it came to that; she just hoped it didn't.

Nathan and the other mechanic soon joined the crowd of people, both eager to find out what was going on or what would happen next. When he saw that it was indeed the defectors, Nathan quietly groaned and whispered "Here we go again....." He recognized a few faces, including the woman who was standing there, and from the looks of things she was the one involved in the single shot.

King had already helped in dealing with the first situation that had happened in Sierra Quatro, so when he heard the gunshot ring out he stayed in the officer's quarters. After years of firing weapons and piloting a Frame, he can tell the difference between a gunshot and a piece of metal dropping. This isn't to say he didn't flinch, because he did. He almost came running, but he stopped himself when Irving shot off. Anything that happens will be his to deal with.

Irving came up to the back end of the crowd and started pushing his way through, shoving people out of the way if need be. "What is going on here! Out of the way! MOVE! Someone tell me what has happened this instant!" He shouted, angry. As he got closer one of the guards shouted back to him. "Imperials shot someone. Looks like one of their own!" Now the crowd got even more restless and Irving had to fight harder to get through. "Imperials? Here? Why the hell aren't they being hung!?" People were shouting, all shoving and trying to get a glimpse. Irving made a mental note to repremand whoever made that comment. With a little brute force he eventually made his way up to the guard line and pushed through. With all the infantry now holding back the crowds, only the Scout Frames were pointed at the defectors. Irving looked about, and spotted Juno. "Alright, you tell me what went on around here and why I shouldn't be as pissed off as I am right now."

"I shot and killed this man in a duel." Juno replied, "He wished to take command of the unit, and I gave him the chance to do so. He failed." She looked away from the corpse, over to Irving. "You're not going to be angry because I stopped a cowardly man, concerned only for himself, from taking command. Officer's like him are never satisfied with what they have, and I assure you, he will have wanted more eventually."

"And you aren't going to be slaughtering anybody who wants to take over, are you? Because we don't do things over here like you Imperials do. We don't kill people just to prove our worth." He walked up to her, glaring hard. "Understand?" Someone from the crowd shouted out. "Why are you talking to that bitch! Shoot her already!" And a wrench came flying out of the crowd to smack into the Frame nearby.

"No disrespect, sir, but problems like that are an example of why the Imperial military is so much better than your own. These men will follow their orders. Yours will stop to question them." Juno said, keeping her eyes locked on Irving even as the wrench flew overhead, "Your army needs to be your fist. Your fist doesn't pause when you throw a punch."

"Jesus!" Nathan hissed as the mechanic he stood next to threw a wrench....the same one that hit the frame. "Kill them now!" she yelled, drowned out by the surrounding noise. Honestly, Nathan was of similar thinking; he didn't like the defectors, plain and simple, no matter what benefit they may bring. Fact was, they had lost a lot of people because of the Imperials. And they had just taken a serious kick to the balls at Opportunity. So he wasn't feeling the need to welcome traitors in to their stronghold and ranks.

Irving glared at Juno, then at the crowd, then back to Juno. "The are different methods to get that same result. Does your Frame have external speakers? A way to adress the crowd."

"It does." Juno said, most Imperial Frames were equipped with them, along with loud, piercing sirens. Useful for crowd dispersal.

Irving started climbing. "Open it up, I need to borrow them for a minute." More bits of machinery tools and spare parts were being flung at them, as well as bits of rocks and such. The guards had to actively push back, but it looked like some were thinking of letting the crowd in.

"I warn you, sir, that my men will open fire if that crowd gets through," Juno said, opening her Frame and keeping it that way, "Vanessa, activate external speakers."

"I'm well aware, and would expect no less." Irving took a microphone and adjusted his position to face the crowd. "ALL OF YOU QUIET DOWN THIS INSTANT!" He shouted into the microphone, his angry tone amplified quickly by the speakers. "THESE IMPERIAL SOLDIERS ARE DEFECTORS WHO WISH TO JOIN OUR CAUSE! I KNOW YOU ARE ANGRY BUT NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR FIGHTING!"

"That just makes them worse!" someone shouted. "If they could turn on the Empire, what's stopping them from turning again?" another person asked.

Juno kept quiet, silently noting the fact that every single one of these rebels were also traitors to the Empire.

Irving couldn't tell who shouted it out but he heard them nonetheless. "IF YOU HATE THESE DEFECTORS THEN LET ME REMIND YOU OF SOMETHING. RAISE YOUR FIST IN THE AIR IF YOU HAVEN'T SPENT ONE HOUR WORKING UNDER THE EMPIRE IN SOME REGARD!" Irving raised his fist up into the air, watching as only a handful of those in the crowd followed suit. "THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T HAVE YOUR FIST RAISED, WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT THAN THESE SOLDIERS!"

"We weren't executing civilians in the street?" someone suggested as if the question was really so stupid. Nathan felt his hands ball into fists as he remembered what it was like, watching from the window as suspected terrorists or traitors were made examples of in public, before being shot like animals and their bodies left to rot.

"AND WOULD YOU REALLY STOOP TO THEIR LEVEL HERE? WOULD YOU REALLY TURN INTO THE VERY THING YOU WANT TO STOP!? THESE SOLDIERS TURNED THEIR BACK ON THEIR HOME AND LOYALTY TO JOIN OUR CAUSE! DID ANY OF YOU DO THAT TO ANYBODY ELSE WHEN THEY JOINED US? HUH!? WE! ARE! BETTER! THAN! THEM!" Irving shouted out, even overloading the microphone a bit.

"Sir!" Nathan called out, slowly, hesitantly walking over, "you're gonna break the microphone. Or your vocal chords. We lost people, good people, in that ass-beating over at Opportunity. Now maybe we don't kill them, but I'm not about to call them allies. Prisoners, I can live with if we're keeping them alive."

Irving looked over at Nathan, coughing away from the microphone for a moment. He wasn't used to shouting this much. "Then you'll be happy to know that's how they're going to be treated for the time being, until all of us in command can better decide what to do. I gave my word to them that they would be integrated into out fighting force, and son, if you who don't know me I was one of the first to sign onto this business. I've been fighting from the very beginning and I've seen everything these assholes can throw our way. I'm no happier about this than any of you. In fact, I would say I'm the least happy person in this very city with this. Why would I, Major Irving Sulson of the Martian Rebellion, willing join forces with defectors if I did not think it was for the greater good?"

"With respect sir," Nathan said, remembering the punch from Dudley yesterday, "I'll hold off on voicing my opinions on that. But if they are prisoners, why did they still have weapons? Or access to frames?"

"I honestly didn't know they had their weapons and they have weapons trained on them at all times. I sort of expected the guards to keep a better eye on them. I was wrong, and shall rectify that." Irving said, still talking into the microphone for everybody to hear.

Well, aside from criticizing the guards (and no doubt earning another fist to his face) Nathan remained silent, backing up a bit. The crowd seemed to lose some of its steam, though no one else was moving.

Irving took a deep breath, glad that the crowd was finalyl losing steam. "Anybody else? Anybody else want to debate about this? If nobody else has anything to say then this will be case closed until the officers can come to a conclusion."

Since no one else said anything, Nathan spoke again and said "Alright everyone, show's over. We've got real work to do, so let's get to it." Not that many people seemed glad about the mechanic giving orders.....but he had a point; there were still frames to repair. By now, everyone was eager to avoid another Opportunity. So slowly, and with no lack of spite in their eyes for the defectors, they filed out and headed for their own projects.

Irving waited for the crowd to disperse before setting the microphone back where it was and climbing down. "There. Disaster averted for now."

"Until you alienate your new soldiers by taking them 'prisoner'," Juno replied, glancing at some of the men. Sure enough, none of them looked thrilled. "And there's a strong possibility that they'll fight." She added.

The female mechanic followed Nathan out, back to the frame he stole. Along the way she let out the breath she had been holding onto, just now realizing she had stopped breathing. "So uhm.....tension, knife?" she suggested, to which Nathan gave a small grunt of agreement. "The real issue is going to be with people who lost friends and family to the Empire," he said. "They're going to want blood."

Nodding her head, she stopped back at her workstation, opening a screen as the diagnostics she had set up for his frame finished. "Well, everything for your frame's in order," she said, changing topics now. "Could use a little more work, because right now it's just functional." At that, they both shared a look of disgust and said "Blech...functional."

"I promised to integrate you into our fighting force, and I will do just that. However, in order to do that I need you to NOT kill anybody for a little bit, and I will need you to surrender your weapons to make sure that happens. Almost everybody here has gone through the same process. Your spies have done enough damage as is." Irving replied, giving Juno a stare that could melt steel beams in an alternate reality.

Nathan wasn't a fan of getting a machine functional, at least not as he'd have defined it. To him, functional was just scraping by, meeting an acceptable standard. But when he was fixing machines in the shop, he wasn't going to settle for functional; it was either stellar across the board, or it just wasn't done. His new friend shared that sentiment, which was how they both found themselves working together on the Frame. "We're gonna need to get some new armor plating......and hell, let's see about putting in a requisition order for actual armor. Just bolting on plates isn't gonna work."

His new coworker looked up from a raised panel, some soot covering the bandanna and goggles she wore while resodering some circuits. "Not gonna be easy," she said, pulling the fabric down. "If we want stronger than this, to hold up to actual weapons, you'd need military grade plating. We're the Rebellion, Carver, with limited to non-existent supplies." Looking up at her, he replied "Yeah but there's a trail of dead frames outside the city--think we can strip them down, get the actual parts we need."

"Of course, Diana. I will be home as soon as I am able. How has Scarlet been?" King pauses for a moment to allow his wife to speak. "I see, we will speak about that when I get there. I must go over some things with the other officers concerning... the state of things." Another pause, "Alright, I love you and Scarlet more than anything on this planet. Farewell" King ends the call and sighs. He had been away from Sojourner for two years and in those two years he had not been in full contact with his wife and child. He assumes that the gunshot didn't do too much, considering he hadn't heard much else besides the Major's blaring voice through a speaker.

"We can not keep repeating ourselves if they are unwilling to listen." He says quietly in the officer's quarters.

"Possible," she responded, stowing her sodering tool. "Problem is, in order to transport the parts back we'd need a rig. And a team, to get those parts off the Frames. So we'd need to requisition a rig and a recovery team....." Shrugging, Nathan said "It's doable.....if I can find the right people. It shouldn't be too hard to convince them anyway; we restore any frames we can and keep the parts of the ones we can't. Fair trade."

Sigrid had far too much work to do. There seemed to be an endless sea of injured rebels, bleeding, battered and demoralised. She could only do so much to help the endless tide, just like during the retreat back from Opportunity. After what felt like a life time one of the doctors told her to get some rest, she had done enough. Besides with her own medical supplies depleted there was little left for her to do but get in the way.
She stumbled off finding an empty spot out of the way in one of the mech hangers, where she found some empty crates against a wall. Sigrid placed her medical pack behind her so that it would form a rather uncomfortable pillow, at first she thought she would never sleep but as soon as her eyes closed she slept. Her mind filled with images of the retreat.

"Well you'll have to contact them tomorrow," the mechanic said. "It's late now and last thing people will want to do is go back out there." She jumped down from the Frame, stretching a little. "For now, how about drinks? I know a nice bar not too far from the hangar." "In a bit," Nathan responded. "First.....I just gotta put this stuff away." He gestured to the tools around them, and she shrugged, though with a small smile. "Sure thing, want me to help?" she asked. He shook his head and said "Nah, go grab a drink. Just keep a place at the bar open for me eh?"

Grinning, she thumped him on the shoulder and said "Sure thing." Walking away, he then realized.... "Hey, I never asked: what's your name?" Still smiling as she turned her head back, she said "Come find me at the bar and find out." And with that, she was gone, leaving Nathan to cleanup in the hangar.

With that talk out of the way, Irving walked off, leaving the guards and Juno to collect any weapons the defectors may still have on them. They were allowed to keep any combat knives they might have had with the stipulation that none of said defectors approach the guards with the knife out of it's scabbard in any way.

Irving himself wandered through the mech hanger, dodging past falling sparks and almost bumped into a sleeping medic. "'scuse me." He mumbled, not even registering if they noticed, and continued on his way to the barracks, intent on finishing changing into something not stained with dirt and blood. Perhaps something even comfortable.

Sigrid woked briefly from her exhausted slumber when someone walked past, saying 'Excuse me'. "Its alright." She murmmered before shuffling, making herself more comfortable as sleep claimed her again. At some point she would need to shower and change out of her uniform and armour to wash the dust, grime and blood off of her. But for now she figured she could wait, sleep first, get clean later. Much much later.

"Well Nathan," he mumbled to himself, "guess this makes it the second time a girl's left you with the broom...." Sighing, he went to work putting the tools away, each one going to a drawer in the work-tables, cabinets and boxes around the hangar. "Alright that makes everything except.....my plasma cutter. Where did I lea....." His gaze went upward, and he saw the handle of it poking over the side of the Frames crown. "Of course," he muttered, slowly climbing up. "Get everything else except my own tool, well done..."

Sadly, he had overlooked something; while performing the repairs, his hands and soles of his boots had gotten a nice coating of grease from the machinery. He managed to make it half-way up before his grip slipped and he fell backwards, screaming "FUCK!" He landed with a heavy sound of impact on the metal floor, dazed and with stars in his vision.

Someone yelled out in the hanger, another mechanic by the looks of it. "MEDIC!" Irving turned to look, but once someone called out he left it alone. He wasn't much help to something like this, it was much better to be left to someone with better skills as a doctor.

A few minutes later and he got back to the barracks and headed for the shower.

Sigrid awoke at the all too real yell which was swiftly joined by a cry of a medic. Well nap time was over, not that she had any medical supplies to currently help. She rushed over. "On my way." She found a engineer/mechanic/grease monkey lying on his back. Sigrid skidded to a halt beside him. "Where's it hurt?" He might have just bruised himself rather than done himself any serious injuries.

Groaning, Nathan remained on the floor of the hangar, staring up at the ceiling high above as lights flashed before his eyes. At this point, he thought the Frame above him was doing interpretive dance moves, his head was so jumbled. "That.....hurt," he slurred. Someone was then above him, a woman by the looks of it. "Uhm.....I think....everywhere," he mumbled. He wasn't sure if it was understandable or not.

She sighed. "How many fingers am I holding up?" Sigrid inquired, thinking that he might be slightly concussed.

Staring at her hand, he focused and said "Three."

"Well you don't seem to be too concussed." She looked down at him. "Can you stand up?" Sigrid then joked. "Maybe I'll see if I can find you a lollipop and a stretcher."

"Yeah fuck you too," Nathan grumbled, sitting up slowly. "Fucking......always check for grease. Fucking rookie mistake," he muttered to himself.


Meanwhile, several blocks away from the hangar, Nathan's friend and possible date had entered the bar. Heading to the actual bar she ordered a drink, waiting for Nathan to show.

She smirked. "Well your most welcome, if you still have pain in a few days or feel dizzy go see a doctor."

His vision snapped to her, and he blushed a little. "Guess I do owe you a thanks huh? Sorry just.....I hate making stupid mistakes like that."

She shrugged perhaps he did. "You were just lucky that I chose to sleep in the hanger." Otherwise it might have taken someone longer to arrive.

"Sleep in the hangar? Seriously?" Nathan asked in disbelief. "You know that come morning you'd have gotten one hell of a wake up call. These machines get loud."