All the training and experience in the world cannot prepare
you for the completely unexpected. But they can serve to put you in a good position
to take advantage of what comes with it.
When the Royals decided to turn on us and the Lyrans for
whatever reason, I was unprepared, I admit. It wasn’t something I had
considered would happen; after all, they were pretty horrible people, but such
an extreme (and potentially career-limiting) move would be normally be. causa latet, vis est notissima and all
that. However, it was not surprised when I was one of the few that they did not
immediately detain. I had clearly already proven to be useful to them, and
locking me up would be counter to that value.
Asking me to impersonate the ship captain was an… odd move
on their part, true. But then, with Royale away, it is clear that the average
intelligence of the Royals as a whole drops considerably (As their need for my
skills would attest). I used the opportunity to warn Magyari of what had happened;
despite any short-term gain, I had no desire to remain in the Royals employ,
especially not once the other sandal dropped. ut incepit fidelis sic permanent. Besides, banditry is such an
unbecoming profession.
I was not sure how she would handle the situation. I didn’t
know the overall battlefield situation, though the fact that Stanley (She knows
her vices, to my regret) had been sent out suggested that things were not going
well. However, while remote but still audible, the gunfire and explosions told
me that she had sent someone. I should not have been surprised when I encountered
the fugitive MechWarriors of the assault lance, as the four of them do seem to
be inclined to get into trouble.
Oda was in poor shape, having apparently been shot multiple
times while trying to assault the detention facility. Three men with sidearms
against a well-armed, dug-in force was not a good plan, and he seemed to have
paid the price for it. While I was able to stabilise him and remove the bullets
that were the cause of the malady, he will still need many weeks of
recuperation before he is effective. However, I was interrupted on a more professional
basis, as my medical skills were needed to deal with several injured Royals
troopers, victims of the aforesaid attack. My medical training advised me that
one of them was dead, with the likely cause being their bisection with a
vibrokatana.
However, this situation did also present an opportunity to
free ourselves from our captors and liberate at least one of our vessels. I was
able to concoct a little mix that would simulate the outbreak of a most
insidious local disease . primum non
nocere is all well and good, and technically what I was doing was mostly harmless,
after all. Once Kardos and Zhen had introduced it into their food supply, it
was but a matter of moments before the first cases came to my office.
(I would be remiss if I didn’t mention doctor Pato, the
Royal’s so-called chief medical officer. His sheer ineptitude was a part of
what made my freedom so needed to them. His qualification to practice medicine
would be well covered as a case of credo
quia absurdum est!)
Having ‘diagnosed’ the cause of the outbreak, we then
informed the Royals that the biggest single problem would be the detention
centre. After all, a huge pile of sick people in a confined space would be
prime breeding grounds for such disease, and thus it would be necessary for me
to inspect and inoculate them in an effort to nip this in the bud. Having never
once considered timeo Danaos et dona
ferentes, the Royals agreed. And so, myself, Kardos, Georges and Zhen
staged a mass escape with the aid of some explosives they had acquired.
From there, all it took was a mad dash to freedom across the
tarmac, added by Zhen’s ad-hoc anti-Mech tactics. Clearly the man knows his way
around explosives and the best way to use them on an enemy ‘Mech, as the pilot
of a Royal Copper found out to his considerable
detriment. Within moments, we had captured the Trutzburg and were boosting away in order to rendezvous with the
rest of the Irregulars. Freedom is a glorious thing.
Except that we also, in our haste, left Oda behind in my
sickbay. Oh well, velocius quam asparagi
coquantur indeed!
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