In the weeks following the pirates' expulsion from PI9, the world struggled to breathe again.
The mercenary—Silas, callsign Gaia—had driven the raiders off-world almost single-handedly. But victory didn't erase the scars. Hundreds were dead or missing, either killed in the fighting or taken off-planet as prisoners or slaves. Ammunition depots had been looted. Settlements were half-burned. Several of the planet's governors were dead, leaving only two to shoulder the burden of holding PI9 together.
Meetings followed. Long, tense, exhausting meetings.
Captain Theodore represented what remained of the militia. The two surviving governors argued, worried, hesitated… but in the end, there was no resisting reality.
The planet was too weak to negotiate from strength.
Too damaged.
Too desperate.
So when Silas presented his terms, they accepted them.
PI9 agreed to honor the mercenary contract in full:
• 100,200 C-Bills
• All salvage from the pirate mechs he'd destroyed, except the few the militia wanted to restore
Silas didn't care which chassis they kept—so long as he got his due share. He made that very clear. And despite his young appearance, neither governor thought to argue. Not after seeing what Gaia did to Those pirate lances in a single afternoon. Not after realizing how much worse their losses would have been if he hadn't intervened.
The contract was signed officially three days after the last pirate jump signature vanished from orbit.
PI9 would keep the mechs in the best condition for repair.
Silas would receive the rest—wreckage, armor plating, intact components, weapons mounts, anything of value.
And the C-Bills they scraped together from emergency funds.
Then Silas made one final request.
He wanted land.
A small marked zone north of their main city—an abandoned facility, once industrial, now half-buried in dust and overgrowth. The same place he had awakened in. The same place where he had first seen Gaia waiting for him.
The governors agreed immediately. They assumed he only wanted temporary housing—somewhere to stay until he packed up and left the moment the contract expired.
A mercenary garrisoning their world for even a week or a month would be an incredible boon. They weren't going to question it.
So the land was granted. Signed over. Official.
And Silas wasted no time.
He moved Gaia into the old facility and began disassembling his salvage haul piece by piece. The interior quickly filled with stripped armor plating, gutted reactors, shattered gyro assemblies, piles of replaced cabling, and stacks of weapon housings. Gaia stood in the center like a silent guardian, its armor gleaming faintly under the flickering industrial lights.
Silas rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and knelt beside a ruined Warhammer arm assembly.
Time to work.
Time to rebuild, modify, and prepare for whatever came next.
—-////—
Silas POV
The hiss of a blowtorch lit the workshop in sharp blue-white flashes. Molten metal dripped onto the floor, the smell of burned alloy lingering in the air. I switched tools, letting the new fabricators I built handle the finer cuts while I moved to the next project on the bench.
Three weeks on PI9, and I still hadn't gone through even half the salvage pile.
The base I woke up in—my accidental new home—was finally clean. Organized. Functioning. After making generators, power conduits, and a few improvised systems, the place now hummed with steady energy.
A generator identical to Gaia's sat in one of the reinforced rooms, hooked into old industrial wiring I'd scavenged and replaced. Enough power for the entire compound. Enough privacy to tinker without anyone walking in. Enough juice to fabricate parts I had no business being able to make with 31st-century tech.
Not that it stopped me.
I'd already built an entire suite of support gear—repair drones, precision arms, modular assemblies, spare armor plates, redundant verniers. If Gaia broke a limb tomorrow, I could fix it by sundown. If a reactor line busted, I had a replacement ready.
And when I wasn't buried in scrap?
I patrolled.
Gaia and I would sweep nearby settlements, farmlands, old mining roads—just a presence people could see. Even with pirates gone, fear lived deep in these people. And every time I visited the markets for supplies, they practically shoved discounts at me.
"Hero of PI9" had benefits.
But my mind was on a new problem.
Getting off this world.
In BattleTech, space travel wasn't simple.
To get off-planet, you needed two things:
1. A DropShip.
2. A JumpShip.
And I had neither.
Sure, my tinkering ability was… ridiculous. I'd built an Omni-tool out of scrap for God's sake. I'd engineered machine tools that shouldn't exist in this universe. I'd even started designing particle stabilizers and micro-thrusters using Gaia's principles.
But building an FTL-capable JumpShip?
Not a chance. Not with what I had.
That would need rare alloys, precise manufacturing tolerances, and a hundred specialized materials PI9 simply didn't possess.
So I'd have to wait.
Catch a ride when a merchant JumpShip eventually dropped into the system.
In the meantime… I had options.
I looked over the salvage crates stacked against the far wall—reactor housings, mangled gyros, scorched cockpits, multiple intact myomer bundles. Enough heavy, medium, and missile system debris to build something.
Maybe more than one something.
I could build another mech.
Gaia wasn't lonely or anything—but redundancy was survival. A backup suit, an alternate loadout, or something I could lend or deploy if things went bad.
I'd already begun upgrades.
Gaia now had a backpack booster unit—true space maneuvering capability, genuine orbital-flight potential, and short-burst atmospheric flight. Not just jumps. Not just hops.
Real mobility.
And a shield.
A proper Gundam-style shield. Reinforced. Phase-shift integrated. Heavy enough to block autocannon fire and shrug off missiles. It was mounted to a hardpoint along Gaia's forearm, ready for deployment.
So yeah.
I'd been busy.
Occasionally Captain Theodore visited, usually pretending he was checking on "supply allocation" or "contractual compliance."
But I could see the real reason.
He wanted to make sure his savior hadn't collapsed from overwork—and that Gaia was always combat-ready in case another raid hit.
I respected that. The man had his priorities straight.
I wiped sweat from my forehead, flicked off the blowtorch, and leaned over the workbench.
Time to decide.
What kind of suit should I build next?
A second Gundam?
A support mech?
A stealth frame?
A long-range artillery monster?
A transformation-capable partner unit?
Too many choices.
Too much salvage.
But that was a good problem to have.
Silas: "Alright… let's think. What do I build first?"
—////—-
Theodore POV
GODDAMNIT. One thing after another.
Even after we got a decent haul of those mechs—whatever we could grab from the pirates' wreckage—it's been a nightmare trying to get them operational. I've been elbow-deep in wiring, hydraulics, and jury-rigging whatever industrial cockpits we could find. By some mix of ingenuity and sheer dumb luck, I managed to get at least three of them rolling again.
And that's not counting our two mechs from the depot defense. They're beat to hell, but repairable. Still, they're not pretty.
The real problem? We need pilots. Fresh mechwarriors. And training them isn't going to be easy.
And then there's my daughter. God, my daughter won't stop bugging me. I get it—her mother's dead, and she's scared and angry. Hell, I'm still furious at those pirate bastards myself. Part of me wants to hunt down anyone responsible, even if they're already six feet under.
But she's stubborn. Hardheaded. And she's got more fire in her than I ever had. She ran straight to the one person she thinks might give her a shot at her dreams—Silas. That mercenary. The man who saved our hides.
I can only hope he takes her with him. Because she's not going to sit still on this rock, not after seeing what real mech combat looks like.
I love her. I love her more than anything. But she's bigger than this little world. Bigger than anything I can protect her from. And Silas… he isn't staying. He's waiting for a dropship to arrive, then he's gone.
I haven't asked too many questions about him—not where he came from, not what he really wants. And the governors? They're too busy juggling the mess we've been left with after the pirate assault.
But me? I'm stuck with my daughter, trying to keep her safe while also hoping she gets the chance to grow into something more than this ruined planet can give her.
And now… she wants to follow him.
God help me. I have no idea if this will save her or destroy her.
END