Chapter Forty-Two: The difficult we do immediately, the Impossible takes a little longer.
Kentares IV Draconis March, January 14th, 3010
"Why?" Sheppard asked.
I just raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"
"Why do you have a Farm in the middle of the base?" He asked, clearly struggling not to throttle me for my latest bout of sanity.
"Well, I for one happen to enjoy farm fresh eggs and meat." I shrugged. "And it's not like there's a whole lot of options on that front around us." I gestured at the rusting cities and factories in the distance.
"But starting your own farm instead of hiring someone?" He questioned.
"Jack, I was raised on a farm back on Terra before I left to do freelance work on computers." I said. "This is nothing new to me, and in fact is really relaxing when you get down to it."
He followed me to my coop where I was collecting the morning group of eggs. "Don't you have that match against Kerensky later today?" Sheppard asked. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for that?"
"Yeah," I shrugged. "But that's not until this afternoon. I was planning to do a barbeque afterwards."
"With Kerensky?" Jack asked for clarification.
"No," I said. "I'm doing a get together with the senior staff and NCO's."
"And why am I just finding out about this now?" Jack asked. "You know I don't turn down those baby back ribs that you make."
"Well, I kept trying to invite you over the last few weeks, but you were avoiding me after dumping that tray of paperwork into my office and then blocking the door." I gave him a slight glare at the last bit. "I would have done the paperwork without being locked in there you know."
"Yeah, you're not looking for payback are you?" He asked as he followed me into my house.
"If I were, you would never know." I said while putting my fresh eggs away into my refrigerator. "Payback always comes when least expected."
In the Afternoon, Mech training area.
"Are you sure you want to do this in that?" I asked Natasha Kerensky. "I mean, we haven't had time to upgrade your Marauder yet."
"I am confident in my skills as a mech pilot." Kerensky said, giving me a death glare. "Let's see if yours are up to the task."
"Alright then." I said, raising my hands and backing off. "Your funeral." I muttered underneath my breath.
We both climbed into our mechs, and triple checked to make sure that everything was set to "Training" mode.
After I had powered everything up, and safed everything, I moved my Warhammer out of the bay.
"Alright, I will be your referee for this match." Sheppard broadcast from his shiny Cyclops. "I will be running all of the simulated munitions through my computer in order to ensure a fair match."
I moved my Warhammer to the opposite side of the training field, making sure that my mech was tied into Sheppard's systems. I actually moved a little bit further out, Kerensky's Marauder might be a decent heavy mech, and it might outmass me by a solid five tons, but I had more armor, better weapons, and I was a good deal faster. I mean, we hadn't exactly published my Warhammers specs anywhere, and I was going to use that to my advantage.
Natasha Kerensky was angry. She thought she would have the advantage in armor and range, but she had been sniped at with PPC's from well beyond the range hers were effective at. And, to make matters worse, the Colonel was moving far faster than any heavy mech of its weight outside of the clans should. He just kept dodging in and out of range, he would hammer her with PPC's, almost literally skate his mech around, and then duck back out of range.
"Fucking Lostech Bullshit." the words that no clanner had ever said before and would never say again left her lips as she pushed her Marauder forward at flank speed.
She pushed into her range bracket and cackled to herself as she nailed his right arm ERPPC. Reducing it to slag and stalling him for a second as he tried to figure out how she had closed the distance on him.
After wearing eachother out at maximum range, Natasha had had enough. She pushed forward and tried to engage Colonel Hull's Warhammer in melee, only to find that that was where he truly excelled.
After several minutes of dueling at close range, they both were both moving to end the fight when Sheppard called in on the Comms.
"Stop the exercise!" Came over the open comms channel. "We have a priority message from New Avalon for the Colonel."
"Alright, moving to the Messenger now." I said. Shifting my brain out of combat mode and kicking it back into logical thinking mode.
At the barbecue a couple of hours later…
"So, what was so important that our duel had to be interrupted?" Kerensky asked as she loaded up a plate with two bacon cheeseburgers and a lot of fries from the grill and fryer in front of me.
"It's not classified, and we're going to be announcing it to the group later anyway." I shrugged as I flipped a burger and moved a sausage over to the table next to me. "Hanse and Ian Davion have a job for us." I said, "And we have three months to get ready for it."
"What kind of job Colonel?" Packer asked as he helped himself to a couple of sausages and a small stack of ribs.
"Ian wants Tikonov." I said, and closed the grill to let the next set of ribs cook properly.
"Could you say that again?" Major Packer cleaned out his ear with a pinky. "I think I just heard you say that the First Prince wants Tikonov taken."
"You heard right." I said, absently checking the time left on the ribs. "It can be done, and we have the best chance of it now versus any other time."
"And why would that time be now?" Lieutenant Colonel Peterson asked me. He had an inkling of an idea but wasn't one hundred percent sure.
"Mithril will be more devastating now then it will be later on." I said. "If Ian and Hanse buy all of the suits we have to spare and get people trained in them quickly enough, we can use it to overwhelm and surprise the regiments of Infantry on Tikonov." I stopped talking in order to open the grill and take off a rack of ribs. "On top of that, after what we did to the 2nd Mac, MIIO and DMI have some reports that there may be less forces there at this time."
"I see what you mean about the right time." Peterson said, chewing thoughtfully on a hot dog. " but we're gonna be in for one hell of a fight."
"Well, we're the Marksman." Sheppard said with a cocky grin on his face. "The difficult we do immediately…." he trailed off. Repeating a saying that the R&D team had come up with and spread throughout the team. "The impossible just takes a bit longer."
May 25th, 3010.
We were at the jump point with two combined armed regiments, Our fleet of Dropships was being led by the Colossus we had found and despite it being Lostech, we were going to need it if we wanted to carry everything we had with us. Our Mithril clad infantry had been spread throughout the fleet, and we had four companies loaded onto our Sting class dropship/gunships.
In less than a month, we would be heading to Tikonov come what may.