BattleTech: Shrapnel, Issue #5: BattleTech Magazine, #5

SHRAPNEL #5

THE OFFICIAL BATTLETECH MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

Commander’s Call

From the Editor’s Desk

Ghosts

Lance Scarinci

Voices of the Sphere: What Would Have Been and What Is Now

Chris Hussey

Black Boxes

Daniel Isberner

Piece by Piece

Matt Alexander

CRD-10S Crusader

Johannes Heidler

The Fox Patrol

Bryan Young

Glorious Labor for the Celestial Wisdom: A Capellan Servitor’s Guide to Proper Conduct

Eric Salzman

If Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot… (A Kell Hounds Story)

Michael A. Stackpole

Submachine Guns: Spray and Pray

Craig A. Reed, Jr.

Secrets of the Sphere: Three-Clan Monte

Michael J. Ciaravella

Tales from the Cracked Canopy: Shadows of the Past

Craig A. Reed, Jr.

Planet Digest: Kandersteg

Mike Miller

SM5 Field Commander (Prototype)

Aaron Cahall

An Ice-Cold Dish

Paul Sjardijn

Alekseyevka Academy’s Anti-’Mech Infantry Course

Joel Steverson

Breach

Tom Leveen

Eridani Light Horse short fiction

BattleTech Eras

Subscribe to Shrapnel!

Submission Guidelines

The BattleTech Fiction Series

Credits and Copyright

COMMANDER’S CALL

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

At ease, MechWarriors! Let’s get the good news out of the way first…

Oh, wait, it’s all good news this time around! Firstly, to kick off the second year of Shrapnel, the long-awaited conclusion to Michael Stackpole’s Kell Hounds serial is finally here, and is well worth the wait. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to skip straight to it to see how the Kell brothers fare, but just know there’s plenty of good stuff that comes before it.

Speaking of good stuff, the other major piece of good news: this is our biggest issue yet, and in more ways than one! Not only were we able to fit more stories, articles, and game features between these covers than ever before, but for those of you picking up the print version, you’ll notice that we also made the text slightly bigger for ease of reading, which enlarged this already-big issue to an even greater size. I hope you all like this change.

Do you recognize the scene on the cover of this issue? Yet another wonderful piece by the talented Ken Coleman, this image, titled Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble, breathes life into a specific event documented in the novel Hour of the Wolf and in the forthcoming IlClan sourcebook. If you haven’t read Hour of the Wolf yet, what are you waiting for? It’s a huge book filled with plenty of ’Mech combat during the ultimate battle for Terra that wraps up the Dark Age and catapults us into the new ilClan era.

For short stories in this issue, we kick off with Ghosts, an espionage-filled offering from Lance Scarinci. (Can you guess who the protagonist of this story is?) We also have The Fox Patrol, a follow-up to Bryan Young’s The Secret Fox, which was featured in issue #3, and Craig Reed brings us another Tale from the Cracked Canopy, a long-awaited return to the series he spearheaded in issue #1. And lastly, we have a few more new short-story authors in this issue. Veteran BattleTech contributor Paul Sjardijn shares what happened on Outreach at the dawn of the Word of Blake Jihad in 3067; Matt Alexander shows us the true cost of a mercenary’s survival during the Third Succession War; and in Breach, Tom Leveen gives us a glimpse at a moment of peace threatened by outside forces.

Game-related offerings in this issue include a look at peculiarities plaguing Black Box faxes in the 3150s; an in-depth look at how to survive if you happen to find yourself in the Capellan Confederation’s servitor caste; a conspiracy theory about the true nature of Clan Sea Fox; a selection of submachine guns from all around the Inner Sphere; and a detailed overview of how anti-’Mech infantry operates. Also, we have a technical readout of the CRD-10S, the new Clan-tech Crusader, which holds a special place for me since I drove a CRD-3R in my very first game of BattleTech decades ago. Two other game features that deserve special mentions are a planet digest of the Lyran Commonwealth world of Kandersteg and a technical readout of the SM5, a new Kell Hounds toy; both of these offer tantalizing glimpses of the forthcoming Tamar Rising sourcebook, the first BattleTech sourcebook set in the new ilClan era.

As always, we thank you for your continuing support as we move into our second year of Shrapnel! Keep those submissions and fan art pieces ([email protected]) coming in!

Philip A. Lee, Managing Editor

GHOSTS

LANCE SCARINCI

MULE-CLASS DROPSHIP EL JEFE

INBOUND TO TERRA

REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE

3 SEPTEMBER 3090

I don’t know at what point I lost my faith in humanity. Maybe it was the Jihad, maybe the Civil War, maybe earlier. I just know that by the time I saw my son torn to pieces by one of those damn cybernetic Manei Domini monsters, I had so little left to give that I barely wept. By that time, death no longer affected me, not even that of my own flesh. It was just the latest wrong that I couldn’t make right.

Touchdown in fifteen, Major Roth. One of the bridge officers had a hand on my arm, guiding me to a seat. Better strap yourself in. I wasn’t a major, but some ships kept up the old tradition of brevetting guest captains; only one captain aboard ship. I wasn’t a Roth either, but he didn’t need to know that. I nodded my thanks and buckled up. He checked me and smiled approvingly, as if fastening a buckle was that much of a chore and I had exceeded his expectations. He was blond, mid-twenties, and reminded me a bit of my boy. But then I saw Stephen in just about every lad these days.

Stephen had enlisted as soon as he started growing whiskers. He was good enough for the Avalon Hussars, and that made him better than me, which is all a father can ask for. It didn’t make him better than a Wobbie Tau Zombie. Sheer luck had me on the same world, though the Dove would have said it was God’s plan. Some god, making me siphon up what was left of my firstborn and deliver him back to his mother in a box. I couldn’t even cry at the funeral. Not a tear. My wife never forgave me for that, and neither did her new husband, as this little scar on my lip can attest. His scar is a bit bigger, and my wife won’t ever forgive me for that, either.

Steady on course. The girl at the helm flipped a few switches. Touchdown in five…four…three… She was good. I barely felt the bump as our ship hit ferrocrete, and that’s quite a feat for a loaded Mule. She was young, too. God, they were all so young, but that’s what happens when all the veterans are dead. The girl let down her hair from its tight, spacefarer’s bun and shook out a surprisingly long brown mane. I had a daughter once who had hair like that.

Strange the way my mind functions. I can keep perfect track of those around me, and still give audience to my guilt. No one sees the hell raging inside my skull. These people see only Captain Simon Roth of Republic Armed Forces Procurement and don’t question a thing, and that’s exactly why the Dove recruited me. I don’t give them a reason to look under the surface. It takes a special kind of person to spot a ghost. Or a Ghost Knight.

I can see the port authority coming already. Suppose I’d better go meet him. That was Captain Steen, the one member of this crew who looked anything over thirty. She sighed wearily, unstrapping herself from the captain’s chair. Leftenant, you have the bridge. Try not to blow up my ship.

No, she didn’t remind me of my wife. God only ever made one of her, thankfully. I suppose the way things turned out was my own fault. I thought I could have a normal life, with a normal house and normal family, and get up and go to work like a normal man. But I don’t have a normal job, do I? I told my wife I was a safety inspector, which helped explain the long hours and the longer trips, but eventually she cottoned on that something was amiss. That sharp mind was one of the things I loved about her. At first she accused me of living a double life, but when the man she hired to tail me wound up disappearing for a few weeks when he started staking out the MIIO safehouse I led him to, I had to come clean.

At first she was all right with it. No, that’s not true, at first she was in denial, but eventually she had to accept the truth of it, if not the reality. She never could stomach the idea of my job being more important than hers. So I eventually had to leave it behind because it was too dangerous, that there were the children to think of, and how could I be so selfish, running off to play spy while she sat home and worried? So I retired. That lasted all of five months, because now I was a lazy, worthless bum who sat around all day while she slaved away. No matter. The Dove still needed me.

Captain Steen stepped forward to shake my hand. Glad to have had you, Major. You want me to call you a car?

I can manage. Thanks for the ride. And now that I’ve experienced it firsthand, I’ll see about bumping you up a few places for that new galley upgrade. I meant it, too. This wasn’t the damn thirtieth century; no one should have to eat like it was.

A few more platitudes were shared, then I was off. Geneva was cool this time of year, the crisp air a welcome change from that stuffy DropShip. I never liked the taste of recycled air. I took a couple shuttle buses and a car on a circuitous route to the Hotel Duquesne. I didn’t think I was being tailed, but old habits keep you alive.

I took a room, hauled up my luggage, and spent the next half hour stripping off Captain Simon Roth and storing him for later. The padding for his midsection went into one case, his thick glasses into another. The gray washed out of my hair easily enough, and the beard came off. I kept the mustache, though. I’ve always wanted to twist the ends into a handlebar, but that kind of thing sticks out. People remember handlebar mustaches, and no one should be remembering me. Ah, the sacrifices we make.

When I finally saw a new person in the mirror, I wiped down the room, packed everything up, and moved three floors up to the room I’d booked and paid for while inbound on the El Jefe. Marion Standish occupied that room, as far as anyone knew. Now the mustache came off, my hair changed to a graying auburn, and I practiced a limp until I remembered how to do it properly. And I waited.

GENEVA, TERRA

REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE

4 SEPTEMBER 3090

The Dove was no spring chicken when I’d met him some thirty years ago, back when the Clans were the biggest threat the Inner Sphere had ever known. Things change. The old man was even older, but still sharp. Daggers don’t lose their edge with time. Sage wisdom, proverbs deep and bold, often fell from his lips, and some of them even sounded true. God does not judge, he liked to say. Man judges, and sends other men to God in judgment, but God forgives. Free will is an illusion. Sin is an illusion. You cannot go against God. Everything we do, no matter how horrible, fits into his plan. If you are a monster, it is because God made you one. That was his first big lie. It wasn’t God who had made me a monster.

He also told me that good and evil were points of view, which I’ve come to know is only half a lie. Good is subjective, but some deeds are evil no matter what side you’re on. Evil is pure, evil is eternal. When a man lies to cause harm, that is evil; when a man steps aside and allows harm to occur, that is also evil; and when a man uses others to harm innocents, that is the worst form of evil. And that is why I am here.

This visit needed to be a surprise, and to that end I had dug my little friend out of storage. It still worked, thank God. As Star League lostech went, this was one of the apex items: an M-11J personal cloaking device. Rarer than a trustworthy Capellan, the number of remaining M-11J’s could be counted on the digits of one hand, and when those are gone it’ll be forever. We still don’t know how it works, much less how to make new ones. I don’t think even the Word of Blake ever figured it out. I’d gotten this one from the Dove a few years back, and reported it lost on a mission. Gibson was a dangerous place, so it wasn’t unlikely I’d lose things. He took it in stride. Jaime Wolf himself gave that to me, he’d griped on more than one occasion when he wanted me to feel guilty. I never was sure whether I’d gotten away with my little theft, or if he’d just allowed me to.

The M-11J slipped over my skin like a glove. It didn’t make me invisible to the naked eye, but it fooled every known security device. This suit was a smuggler’s dream, and just now I wanted to smuggle some frowned-on items into a very sensitive place. I acquired a paunch stuffing everything in, and the M-11J made it all look natural, like body fat. The beer gut goes back for millennia. One day I hope to grow one naturally, but my wife would probably disapprove.

The seat of the Republic government is a busy place, even without the tourists. Everyone entered through an unobtrusive scanner disguised as a pair of marble pillars, and guards waited on either side to pull anyone out of line if the scanner called them false. If my little M-11J friend had died in its time in storage, I’d find out now. I shuffled through between a group of lower-level employees and a trio of Nova Cats still in awe at being on Mother Terra. The guards never gave me a second look.

The public areas bustled with harried employees and tour groups full of wide-eyed children and gullible fools who bought wholesale into the Republic’s propaganda. One old Outback-looking type waved a miniature Republic flag, a look of beatific stupidity on his pudgy face. He smiled at me, showing off all seven teeth. I grinned back, letting that emotion into my eyes. That’s where it tells. Most people can’t feign emotion, and their hollow smiles betray them. I’ve been faking it every day for over a decade.

I went up a floor to get away from the crowds, to an area where I knew there to be a little-used head with private stalls. I stripped off my clothes and stuffed them into the trash. From my artificial gut I removed a custodian’s uniform, a verigraphed name badge, and my pistol. I combed the false color from my hair, peeled the blue contact from my real eye, and readjusted my augmented eye to match, and now I was a dead ringer for that name badge. I looked at it and recalled who Antonin Dashhan was. It wasn’t hard.

No one challenged me, even when I let myself into the restricted areas. People don’t like to look at a janitor, especially one with the hopeless, hangdog expression that comes with realizing your life has failed and all you’re good for is picking up after your betters. It makes people uncomfortable to see that, as it damn well should. The Dove’s office lay behind one of dozens of identical doors, leading to dozens of identical offices. The differences lay underneath, in layers of soundproofing and white noise. He’d have armored the walls if he could do it inconspicuously.

The name on the door wasn’t his, of course, but I knew it as a favorite alias. I let myself in without knocking. There was never a secretary, just him, seated behind an unostentatious desk. The dove motif prevailed in here, taking wing from holoportraits, statuettes, and the pattern of the carpeting. It wasn’t a style choice but some sort of subliminal feng shui, the ancient symbol of peace to put guests at ease. What a joke. He wore a dove pin on his lapel, the only rank insignia to be found. Without it he was just some old man in glasses, well-dressed and smelling of cologne a half-century out of style, and with a perpetually delighted grin, like some beloved old uncle. His trimmed eyebrows never even raised as I shut the door and locked it.

He frowned at my name tag. A bit of a low blow.

Family is a liability, remember? Even long gone, they can be used against you.

Did I say that? I suppose so. Sounds like one of mine.

I couldn’t tell if he was feigning his nonchalance. I’ll bet even he didn’t know. When mastering your emotions is so ingrained that you can suppress the shock of seeing your own dead grandmother saunter into the room, how can you know? Yes, in case you were wondering, he did pull that trick on me during my training. I envied the cool he showed now, with my gun in his face and the intent to use it written all over mine.

He smiled all kindly and grandfatherly, like some benevolent Santa Claus. How could anyone hurt such a sweet old man? How could anyone expect that his heart was as black as his hair was white? Well, sit down. Tell me how Lamon went. It seems to have left you none the worse for wear.

I didn’t sit. I walked around the side of his desk so I could see all of him. My gun never left his face. Yes, none the worse for wear, despite having to extract myself.

And your target?

Have I ever failed to execute a mission?

No. No you haven’t. It’s one of the reasons why⁠—

"You left me there! I punctuated this by grabbing his collar and yanking him out of his fluffy chair. My gun went under his chin. LIC came sniffing. Someone tipped them off. Tell me it wasn’t you. You made me and left me to die!"

Yet I am pleased that you didn’t. Yes, I am. Not only because you are an asset, but because you are the closest thing I have to a friend.

Am I supposed to feel special? Like I’m not one of your pawns? A friend until it’s no longer convenient?

"I never said you were a friend, just close to it. He smiled at his own humor. You have something none of the others have. It’s the reason you’re here."

A grudge?

A conscience.

I dropped him back into his seat. Such roughness wouldn’t be good on his old back, but I didn’t care. It didn’t seem to bother him, the way he just kept going on in that damn grandfatherly tone. You’re not angry about being left out to dry. You’ve been aware of that risk since your first mission. It’s the target you object to, isn’t it?

Explain to me how they were a threat. Use small words.

They weren’t. Not yet. But they could have been in the future. Writing articles critical of our Republic’s annexation of Lyran worlds is only the first step. Divisive words and rabble-rousing follow, and soon the path to anarchy is illuminated and awaiting its first traveler.

And was there any particular threat posed by the children? And don’t give me any nonsense about them growing up to avenge their parents.

He shrugged. It had to be a tragedy to be believable.

I never wanted to kill a man as much as I did at that moment. The deaths didn’t matter, but the injustice burned in my throat. Who approves these things? Stone?