Smoke, Mirrors, and Differing Standards of Honor

[dragonofdispair]

hon-or |ˈänər| ( Brit. hon-our)
noun - adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct...
verb - to fulfill and obligation or keep an agreement...
.
Smoke, Mirrors, and Differing Standards of Honor
.

"Freeborn surat -- You have dishonored myself and this unit. I challenge you to defend yourself in a Circle of Equals." At Crystal's clear announcement, a number of nearby people paused in their duties and looked over at the two women, one casually leaning against the massive Longbow, the other having just stomped up and put her hands on her hips. Techs snickered and went back to work, while pilots and tank crewmen watched, a couple of them exchanging bets. One pilot, discretely made his way closer, until the woman leaning against her 'mech met his eyes and signaled him off. Shun was justifiably worried for her -- she wasn't very good at hand to hand combat -- and they'd been partners longer than anyone here knew; he'd want to be on hand in case she needed help. But she needed to handle this alone.

Xiu-lin Mikaeleva -- though no one called her that; she preferred being called Mir, from her call sign of Mirage -- looked at her lieutenant, who had just challenged her to a Trial of Grievance. It was hard not to smile -- she'd been expecting this. Mir had spent some time with the Wolves-In-Exile -- had practically been adopted by them, though she'd never been Bonded to them. That, of course, wasn't in her records, but then very little of her life truly was. Still, recorded or not, she'd lived close enough to them to know what was going through her lieutenant's head right now.

She was more surprised Crystal had waited *this* long, in fact. It had been over a week since the last of the enemy had been dealt with.

Mir reflected on the events of their current contract, that had led up to this. They were currently doing a short stint working for the Word of Blake, and had been sent to repel a force of Draconis dropships. She'd taken one look at the sensor data and decided she flat out did not want those dropships to land unmolested. They didn't have the aerial firepower to blow them out of the sky, but they did have enough to track the ships and extrapolate their landing zone. Mir had ordered the entire area to be sown thick with landmines, and for the turrets they usually set up to protect their temporary bases to be set up to fire on the dropships and anything that unloaded from them. She'd known it wouldn't have taken down the entire Draconis force -- definitely a target rich environment -- but it had softened them up for the mercenaries to take them down with fewer of their own casualties.

Hopefully Shun wouldn't put up as much of a fuss about replacing the landmines as he had originally about buying them...

Crystal had protested the use of the turrets, and the landmines. Mir had logged her complaints, then ordered them to go through with it anyway. Crystal had tried to call a Trial of Refusal -- she wasn't going to participate in such underhanded, dishonorable tactics. Mir had listened calmly, then told her that she didn't have time to deal with soothing Crystal's ego and ordered her back to the temporary base, calling up a reserve pilot in her stead.

On second thought... Mir was more surprised Crystal was bothering with a Trial of Grievance instead of just leaving the Star Dragons. But Mir still wasn't going to cater to a single pilot's ego.

"Refused." She watched flat anger enter the other woman's eyes and continued, "This isn't Clan Star Command," she knew that wasn't the correct term, but used it anyway, "This is a Mercenary Company. I'm not required to disregard viable tactics simply because they aren't zellbrigen."

"The Trial was not negotiable." Crystal's ultimatum, but one she had very little power to back up. Mir was not a Clan warrior, who would have to face the scorn of her peers and superiors for refusing a challenge. There really was only one thing she could threaten and...

... Mir had an ultimatum of her own. "You're not Bonded to me. You're free to sever your contract and leave whenever you wish."

From the flash of surprise that entered, then left, the other woman's eyes, Mir knew she'd scored her hit. All Crystal had as leverage to force her commander into the Trial was threatening to leave, and she was Inner Sphere enough to realize it. But Mir had neatly undermined the threat. She couldn't say she would leave, now, without committing to doing so. Mir could practically see her considering her options.

Crystal had been forced into a mercenary's life. Mir had only casually asked what Clan she was originally from, and how she'd come to be a mercenary, and the only answer she'd gotten was that Crystal hadn't chosen this. She'd never asked further. That didn't mean she hadn't done her *research*. The girl had been taken bondsman by some of the lowest sort of mercenaries out there, barely a step up from pirates, then abandoned. She'd been picked up by a better group -- one who worked primarily in the Occupation Zones, and so used the Clans' rules more often than not, but then the Wobbies had leveled Outreach with most of her Company on the planet and they had dissolved. Mir still didn't know what Clan she was originally from.

Mir and Shun had been lucky. Arc Royal may have been the most Clan-friendly set of hiring halls in the Sphere since Outreach had been destroyed, but it still had it's places that a lone Clanner would find himself in a lot of trouble. Crystal had been new to the world, and wandered into the wrong bar, and been forced to hit some overconfident drunkard over the head with a barstool. Shun had called her over to their table before the punk's friends could work up the courage to take her on. The two of them had been able to hire her on the spot, for little more than the price of a beer. Granted, she got paid just as much as any other member of the unit, but Crystal was a good pilot -- a better pilot than Mir, Shun, and Spencer all were, combined -- and if they'd picked her out of the hiring halls, they would have had to pay her like three pilots.

Honestly she was the best pilot among them, and Mir would be sad to see her go, if she decided to leave. But Mir took care of her people. They'd entrusted their lives to her strategic and tactical ability, and if Crystal couldn't deal with all that entailed, then... well, Mir had a few connections, and might be able to get her a solo job with an employer who wouldn't treat her as Clan scum, but she wouldn't be Mir's responsibility anymore.

Finally, Crystal came to her decision. "I can not leave. This is my home."

Mir kept control over her expression and body language, despite wanting to crow in triumph. That, or something like it, had been exactly the answer she'd been hoping for. Clan mentality -- the Star Dragons had taken her in and treated her well; she'd considered herself adopted, not just hired. But if she was going to stay, this was soemething she'd have to accept, even if she never truly understood. "This is a Mercenary Company," she didn't say 'not a Clan', but it was implied. "One which I, not you, am in command of. I will not throw away lives and material to soothe your honor. If that is something you can't accept, then you are a liability to this unit."

The silence stretched. Crystal still glared at Mir defiantly, but she'd already given ground in this confrontation and Mir knew she only had to wait before the other woman gave in completely.

Finally Crystal seemed to deflate. "I do not understand."

Mir knew Crystal thought she was insane, for the ease in which she adapted the unit's strategies and tactics to the enemy. Earlier in the year, they'd been paid to answer a Wolf raid against a farming planet, and Mir had engaged in a proper batchall with them and carried it out to the agreed upon letter. But then she'd turned around and ordered this in response to the Draconis raid, even having the landmines on hand "just in case we might need them". And honestly, the fact that Crystal generally thought she was insane didn't bother her. The Wolves (in Exile) had thought she was insane. They were probably all right. One couldn't live Mir's life and come out the other side with sanity intact.

But, honestly, if they were right, then it wasn't an uncommon insanity in the Inner Sphere. Shun understood. So did the rest of her command lance. They all had, from one source or another, the same training Mir did. Crystal didn't.

Crystal knew the Clans. Crystal knew mercenaries, even.

The sort of tactical flexibility and ruthlessness that was taught as a matter of course to SpecForces operatives... not so much.

Of course none of the other mercs in the Star Dragons knew that little detail, and Mir was going to keep it that way, so she, not unkindly, only answered, "I know," She gestured around them, to the mechs, tanks, VTOLs and other equipment being fussed about in the temporary hanger. "It comes down to the fact that we are paid to do something. Our paychecks, our honor... our very survival as mercenaries, depend on doing that job, preferably without dying in the process. We can't afford to keep to your Clan's rules. Your lives and your livelihoods are my responsibility, and I have to remember that with every decision I make."

Our honor is in our contract. Mine is in safeguarding your lives. Few mercenaries truly saw it that way (writing off their comrades' lives in terms of acceptable losses, and feeling only private grief), but Mir was not, in fact a mercenary.

Crystal didn't see it that way, Mir could immediately see. But that was alright. If she stayed here, she would eventually -- she was learning. And honestly she was the only one of the entire Company, other than Mir and her partners, who had the skills to lead this group if something happened to them. She'd like to think that the Star Dragons wouldn't disperse once they were gone, and had to prepare them for that eventuality.

Crystal turned and marched away, back to where her own mech was parked, with a thoughtful look on her face. No one bothered her. Not that anyone but Mir and Shun ever really bothered her. No one else dared. For his part, Shun came forward and leaned against the Longbow next to Mir. He made no indication that the contact was welcome, but Mir leaned sideways to lean on him anyway. He asked her in quiet chinese what had happened, and Mir explained just as quietly. He needed to know anything that would disrupt the smooth operation of the Star Dragons, not just as her tactical commander, but as Mir's partner.

And eventually, she and her lance-mates, would leave the Star Dragons. It was inevitable as the formation and death of stars. One day the MIM was going to recall Xiang Centrella and her partners, and Mir would leave the Company, and Crystal, to fend for themselves.