046. Reika's Daily Life Pt2

November 2992, New Oslo

Reika Lee opened up the laundromat. 

Well, she walked into it. As a major employer and business at this point, the laundromat was less a small single block shop. Instead, becoming something that had rented out multiple levels of the Section, specifically multiple vertically linked Blocks within that Section. All connected with freight elevators, meaning that she was able to service exosuits from multiple different groups at the same time. 

The more sensitive materials from the EDF were serviced at the top floor, the dojos in the middle, and the regular civilians on the bottom. 

With the recent contract, the rental agreement to rent yet more blocks was about to go through, allowing her the space to continue her business on an even larger scale. 

The laundromat was open for twenty-four hours a day, Reika ran a constantly rotating schedule of workers, customer service and security. The men and women inside, all of them, working with great vigour to make the most of the new opportunities that were now available to them. 

Making money that they were spending on new food, clothes, entertainment, and more.

Not like the Combine's factories. 

Where the decoration of jade was present on the walls to act as a totem, to guide their thoughts. To prevent stray thoughts when one should be working. All thoughts of entertainment and extracurricular activity discouraged.

In her laundromat, Reika had televisions on the various talk shows from across the Inner Sphere. All the better to learn whatever they could of the world around them. To be educated and informed like Reika.

Like the one that was currently drawing the attention of both her workers, and those of her clients. Themselves sitting inside the open waiting area, so they could see the workers as they cleaned out their exosuits (where was the trust?), was that of Janos Marik giving an interview.

Reika, for her part, simply walked on over and joined them. Her two sons were running around the laundromat, helping where they could. Her daughter Rin was in charge of running the operation during the day. Their mother, Reika, could relax just slightly and converse with the different individuals inside of the reception. To keep the dangerous mercenaries from reacting badly if matters escalated.

"I took a tour of the Free Worlds League, and I am appalled at the degradation the League has come to after the Succession Wars. Of how our industry has collapsed, how worlds are struggling to supply their planetary forces, how people are living on subsistence wages. Often eating what they grow. This is unacceptable to me as First Lord and Captain-General. I vow to do all that I can to change this. To bring the Free Worlds League back to our roots, of free trade capitalism and technological innovation. Was it not the Free Worlds League that invented the Laranth water-purification process? Discovered the Brandt Recoil for jumpship safety? There are heights from which we have fallen... that I firmly believe that we can reach again." Janos Marik, thirty four years old (according to the text on-screen), spoke, his voice strong with conviction. 

Those in the room nodded along. 

"What of the Succession Wars, will you be giving up Resolution 288 and giving power back to the Parliament?" The reporter, off screen asked.

Janos frowned, "so long as the Capellans and Commonwealth stand on our borders, I cannot. Even now, Alessandro Steiner is attempting to invade Kalidasa. And, while we bleed him white, the fact that he feels confident enough to do so is a warning of the sheer stubborn arrogance of my peers." 

The reporter nodded, the screen to the left of Janos lighting up with a 'losses' chart. On it were the dozens of Battlemechs, hundreds of tanks, and tens of thousands of soldiers that had been killed on the Lyran side. A hiss emerged from the crowd, all looking irritated by what they were seeing.

Some looked interested.

For... some reason, Reika wasn't sure why, mercenaries kept coming to her laundromat.

It was baffling on so many different levels, actually. Their patronage was what allowed her to expand to the point where she could get the central dojo contract. 

"I can safely say, that Alessandro's attempt on Kalidasa is actually doing more damage to the Lyran Commonwealth, than it is to the Free Worlds League, unequivocally at that. A mad lord willing to send his men and women to die by the dropship. An example of the horrors of the succession wars that I am to end in my lifetime. We cannot keep going like this. There must be change!" 

The interview continued, but Reika wasn't paying attention anymore, instead looking with her eyebrow raised in the direction of the newest arrivals. 

Local EDF soldiers... but their armour had the telltale signs of combat. Actual combat, not the kind that she got up to in the dojo. There was...

Blood in the joints, dried. Whatever happened, they had to get close in with the enemy instead of attempting to engage at range, which told her that they had been fighting in melee. 

Something that happened all too often, the reasons being... unofficial, but the gossip spread out enough that she could tell what had happened. Specifically, ISF cells or insurgents trying to create a general uprising against the King.

In other words, complete fools. 

The solution, from what recordings had been made of the raids when they happened, was simple enough. The Armsman, relying on their internal insulation, would wait on each side of a Block. At the end of the hallway, or as far away as it could get, there was a Large Laser on wheels with a battery. 

Said laser would fire, melting through the door after a dozen shots, before the Armsman clad EDF and Militia troops rushed in to subdue those inside. Walking through the molten doors as they did so, in some lucky cases, the cooked bodies of the unknowing traitors left intact. 

Other times they had used the time it took to melt the door and foreknowledge of the attack to get into their own Armsman suits and fought back. Likely the case in this situation, from the looks of it. The battle in the thirty metre hexes descending into a ferocious melee, blades and fists flying as ranged weapons proved less than useful.

Waving them over, Reika pointed her finger at the ceiling.

"EDF service stations are on the next floor up. They can handle the mess in the hard to reach places." She said simply, the EDF troopers, still fully clad with helmets firmly attached to their collars, gave a nod. The entire neck portion moving forward as it did so, the seal that kept the internal environment isolated also requiring quite the connection to keep pressurised. 

As they jerkily turned and staggered over to the freight elevator, Reika made a discrete call on her comm-bud to the military servicing floor. 

"Troopers inbound from lower floor. Recent combat, possibly shock. Be prepared for vomit and bodily fluids." 

An answering acknowledgement from a Rasalhague veteran Mechwarrior, was returned. Having left the Rasalhague Regulars because of the sheer intensity of the ISF scrutiny, he was now enjoying his retirement in the Kingdom. He had fought on the front against the Commonwealth and was an experienced hand in dealing with the newly initiated.

Similar events had happened with... distressing regularity. The constant attempts by the Internal Security Force to infiltrate Rasalhague had resulted in many youths killing their first man far too early. That they had to do so in hand to hand combat, with sword and axe... it did damage to the minds of the teenagers. 

She had watched the recorded footage of the Armsman in battle. The way that the blades would enter the few weak points around the joints, into the armpit, the groin, the neck. The way the other Armsman would desperately try to claw at the wound. The armour that was meant to protect them, instead serving to prevent them from reaching in and stopping the bleeding. The way they put up a hand as if to beg for mercy, before, finally being ended with a knife to the throat or into the chest cavity from above. The silence because their speakers had not been activated, those inside may be desperately screaming and yet nothing would breach the environmental seal.

Then the videos of the 'allied' side had played. How the whimpers as the blades had entered their flesh filled the ears of their comrades, regardless of distance. Courtesy of the communications devices on their ears. Of how the whimpers turned into begging for mercy, for anyone to help them, and finally a gurgled silence as they were mercifully ended.

For one to kill a foe, knowing that was what was happening behind their silence? Or worse, to hear a comrade going through that experience? It was no shock at all these EDF soldiers had been so shaky as they entered. 

Reika shook her head and turned back to the mercenaries, many having understanding looks on their faces. They gave her a nod before turning their gazes back to the screen.

On the screen above, the talk show had been changed to that of a movie. An adaptation of a theatre show, which, for some reason, was showing up in the Commonwealth. Lies and Whispers, a story of how Jeanette Marik had been brainwashed by Comstar, turning on her brother, Charles Marik, the Captain General. Betraying the Free Worlds League as she did so at the desire of Toyama, Primus of Comstar, to turn the FWL into a subordinate state.

It was reputed to be based on a true story, the movie advertising that its producer had died mysteriously, his house burning down. Or how Comstar had forbidden its showing after just four years. 

The laundromat owner and fervent gossiper had seen the movie enough times in this very reception/waiting room to be able to recite it by heart. That it was so widespread in the Commonwealth was honestly quite strange indeed. Why were they watching a Free Worlds League movie, she wondered?

Deciding instead to walk over to the biggest and burliest of the mercenaries. One who had needed a custom Armsman to even get inside. One with an enormous hydraulic fist on his arms. For smashing, he had said.

Always wearing their suits inside, the mercenaries used them as billboards, advertising their services and their name. Some even had a pricing list attached to a flag on their backs, like the peasant-soldiers in the Japan of old. 

That it was hydraulically and myomer assisted meant the entire system let you run without feeling exhaustion... or so the marketing said.

It didn't.

The banner men had the smelliest of the suits because of just how much they sweated while inside. 

"Ymir! Why are you still here? I thought you said you were planning to go take a job somewhere else. More sunny." She greeted, the bald man peeking over at her and shaking his head. 

"I was planning to, it's not like we can do much. Everything is forted up tighter than a Sun Zhang Academy Cadre. Not like we infantry can do much besides defensive contracts."

She raised her eyebrow. "Don't you want a safe job?" 

"Hah, if we wanted safe jobs, we would have joined the militia. We're mercenaries because we want to fight, to get some loot, some glory, maybe make ourselves immortal with deeds of legend. Just sitting around collecting a stipend isn't how I wanted to go." 

Reika thought that was exactly how she wanted to go, but didn't say anything out loud. 

"Anyway, we were thinking of taking the Eggers Mercenary Hostel on their offer to train us for zero-g combat. They say combat is going to be in space now, we were planning to upskill, get in on the ground floor you know. Ymir's Y-naughts. Like, you know, the Argonauts, but in space... and Ymir." 

Reika did not, in fact, know what the Argonauts were, but nodded her head regardless. 

"Then we heard something on the grapevine, Takeshi is moving troops to the border... the most hotheaded troops, the ones that can't sit still and accept things have changed... and if he's doing that... well, there's something big that's about to happen, and we're going to be waiting just in case. Maybe bag us a mech, huh?" Ymir grinned widely, showing an incredible amount of self-confidence for someone who had never actually been in a battle before. 

But Reika, showing her business-woman skills, didn't question whether it would be a good idea to try and fight a mech in their Armsman exosuits. He continued regardless, mercenaries loved to brag she had found.

"We've pooled our cash together and got ourselves a lance of Smialies. Just waiting for the Coordinator to make a move. Emergency defence contracts will pay out great, won't it?" Ymir had his teeth bared, the mercenaries around him were also grinning widely. Anticipation evident in their eyes.

"The stipend is enough for us to survive on, you know. So, we can just train in the Hostel Hexes, and wait until we're needed. From what we've been hearing... this is going to be the last, big hurrah. Takashi wants his hot-headed idiot commanders killed of... but if they're all dead, doesn't that mean we can counter-attack? An emergency defence contract, and a planetary invasion contract? It's going to be the biggest payday for all of us!" 

This time it wasn't Ymir who spoke, but one of the other mercenary commanders. His grin was wide, teeth visible. 

"Like the King says, we need to take the opportunities he's providing us and find success. The mother of all opportunities is about to arrive and we need to take it with both hands." 

Nodding faintly, Reika patted them on their shoulders before standing up.

"How do you know Takashi wants his hot-headed commanders to die? Who has been talking to you?" She asked, dusting her pants.

"That's just how it goes right? You can't deal with them, you send them to die. It's the Combine way. As for who talked," his eyes turned shifty, "we can't say." 

Reika wasn't sure about that, before finally deciding to ask what was on her mind.

"Why are you here? I don't know why all of you mercenaries are coming to my Laundromat of all places." 

A grin spread across all their faces.

"It's Mr Lee's Laundromat!"

"Pardon? Mister Lee?"

All paused, hand to chest as if to prepare themselves... and then...

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... the A-Team." All of those present chorused.

For her part, Reika just shook her head, said her goodbyes and prepared to move on. As illuminating as that was (not very), she had other matters she needed to deal with. 

There were others that she needed to talk to, customer service in other words. That, and she wanted to think about the fact that she might need to take up arms... the training... had been preparing her for a hypothetical invasion. But to actually need to do so in the defence of her home? It was not something she could simply say yes to. That and the mercenaries thought her laundromat was a secret mercenary hide-out?

What?

+_+

December 2992, New Oslo

Reika made her way to the supermarket. Eggers Agriculture Provisions, it was called. The place where one would be able to access the different types of food provisions from Eggers Agriculture. Whether that be the Free Worlds Agrifarm crops grown here on Rasalhague, or strains that had been developed to handle the interim period of soil depletion, there were food stuffs from across Rasalhague in these enormous stores. 

Made possible by the number of jumpships that Reika could see in the skies above (with a telescope), leaving their slips practically every day. Spreading themselves around the Kingdom, sending supplies out and in. 

As she made her way into the store, her helpers stepping off the tram to join her, Reika's eyes couldn't help but be drawn upwards at the motivational posters that were spread across the various cradles. The walls marked with the dull grey-white of rockcrete, but niches and sconces added physical definition. 

The paintings and art installations were all local, the community deciding to decorate their areas. To make it as enjoyable as possible to experience their community when travelling through.

The motivational posters tended to be based around their King. Again, local design, but unique to the area. Taking clippings of his words and posting them with various images or illustrations of King Eggers. 

The one she was looking at now had him in psychedelic fluorescent colours, the words "Be your best" in bold underneath, his right arm pointing at the viewer, the left half bent towards himself, fist clenched. 

Reika just shook her head.

A little too much in her opinion, nothing like her own, more subdued and elegant Section's designs. 

As they made their way inside, the three moved with purpose. The protein-sausages were always cheap, as were the protein minces. No meat, of course, but Reika had never had enough real meat to actually taste the difference. It not being exactly... possible to try any actual red meat, all they had on New Oslo was fish and grains.

What the Combine had made available.

Still, protein-minces, greens, and the Agrifarm grains. Large quantities of it, as well as various miso flavourings, sauerkrauts, and pickles. As the boss, she had a responsibility to feed her workers, after all. A large meal for lunch, full of carbohydrates (a new word for her!), protein, and vitamins. All provided for by grains, not!meat, and the pickles. 

With their selections made, Reika provided a copy of what she wanted to the registrar. The woman making a note for it to be shipped to the Laundromat, instead of forcing the three of them to carry over a ton of food by themselves. 

The internal rail lines made it all possible, of course. Travelling to and from different Sections or even Hexes was something they all could do without worry, something the more restrictive Combine had forbidden them from doing. Why travel when you had work to do? Or so was the answer.

As they headed back, however... all stopped as the lights flashed red five times.

They had been drilled in what that meant.

A confirmed-hostile fleet had jumped into system.

+_+

November 2992, New Oslo

For the last two weeks, life... had continued on in a strange semi-awake malaise. 

All knew that there was a fleet of dropships that were inbound. Themselves packed to the metaphorical gills with unknown forces. Their ASF wings had been contending with the defence fleets in orbit over New Oslo. Nesodden, New Oslo's only moon, had been sallying out fighters to force the inbound force away. Over 50 jumpships, representing a truly horrific scale of force. 

When one jumpship's worth of dropships could conquer a planet, sending 50 represented an invasion from someone that respected you. Or, the Combine part of Reika would say. 

The Rasalhague Kingdom part of Reika told her that they were all going to die, most of them likely dying before they could even breach the atmosphere of New Oslo. 

After seeing the Wargames in June, and seeing the truly enormous scale of the second Wargames that was scheduled for December... the question became whether or not there were enough hostile forces for everyone to get a shot off. 

At least, that was what the mercenaries in the Laundromat told her. The buildup of mercenaries for the second wargame of 2992 had gone unnoticed, given how they just... disappeared into the Cradles when they landed. It wasn't until they were given emergency contracts that bodies started appearing out of the rockcrete. 

Now, it wasn't so strange to see Atlas' patrolling in the Mech-passage of the Section. One on either side of the internal maglev network. The Battlemechs serving as a concentration of force in these tight quarters. Where their ability to mount a dozen weapons meant that Automachines trying to break through could be ground down in short order. 

On the other hand, the squad patrols, ten exosuits each as they jogged through the Section was one of great interest for Reika. So many bodies meant many more were seeking to get themselves washed and cleaned.

Her own waiting area reaching packed capacity as mercenaries and EDF troops gossiped about what was going to happen. The movement of the EDF, Eggers Shipping, the Wolverines, King Eggers himself. Nothing was sacred.

So many, in fact, that Reika had purchased four Blocks opposite her laundromat to open a restaurant. Where they could eat, relax, drink, after they received their clean armours.

Everything had been designed to appeal to the Germanic heritage, while also incorporating the heritage of Rasalhague for the newly found patriotism of her people.

Having found a book on Finnish foods, Reika had decided it would be a good idea to work for the betterment of everyone in the Block. Which meant, naturally, that they were going to stock Finnish, German, and traditional Combine foods. 

Such as pickled herring, gravlax, sausages, schnitzels, rice, pickled, katsu, and curry. 

Wooden furniture, with 'Oktoberfest' flags (what was Oktoberfest?), women serving in wooden shoes, white, green, and red dresses, and lots and lots of beer and sake. 

In Reika's opinion, it was the ideal German, Icelandic, and Finnish place to eat and drink!

"Mother, I don't think these are meant to go together...", Rin her wayward daughter complained, pointing at the women clad in Armsman armour with Oktoberfest skirts delivered beer to the patrons. 

Reika for her part glared at Rin.

"Of course they go together! This book, says that is how it is meant to happen!" Jabbing her finger imperiously at the 'Dummies Guide to German Culture', Reika made a pointed sound of disapproval at her daughter. 

Just because they were training to be an archaeologist, she thinks she knows German culture better than the book?

Hah!

Rin let out a sigh, letting Reika know that she had won the argument. The restaurant was only open for a week, but there were already returning customers. 

Of course, she knew what she was doing. 

Her sons were off with the Militia, training, just in case the Cradle was breached. 

They wouldn't be fighting on the front, but likely running ammunition to the front and helping carry the wounded to medical stations in the rear. Too young to actually take up arms according to the decree of their King. 18 and older, older even, than the age of conscription in the Commonwealth proper.

Another week and the enemy, identified as Combine, were going to make planet fall. 

One more week before this was over.

+_+

December, New Oslo

Reika hummed a tune. One that she had heard from her mother, who had heard it from her own mother and her mother before her. A song that, in simple terms, was that of their history, of their people.

One that carried itself through the age of spaceflight, into the present. 

A history of her people. 

Holding Rin in her arms, both in their Armsman exosuits as the battle raged outside. 

Her sons had volunteered to run ammunition through the Section. 

Reika and Rin for their part were in the Laundromat, serving those who came to get their suits serviced. Which, in other words, meant that the two of them, and her workers, were washing out the suits of those who had been killed. Cleaning the viscera off those who had been involved in the heaviest fighting and needed to be cleaned. Lest they slip on the lakes of blood underneath their feet.

"It's like peeling lobsters," muttered one of the mercenaries as they 'shucked' a man out of his suit. Ymir she recognised, there wasn't anyone else near his size in the area. Or had those absurd extra hydraulic 'fists' on his outer arms. As he deftly unlocked the suit, peeling it off the corpse inside and then handing the suit off to one of her subordinates, itself off to the cleaning station.

The body meanwhile had gone into a body bag. 

One with the man's name... and an image of a tree on the chest. Even in death, they would contribute to the Kingdom. Their bodies serving as fertiliser for new life. One that would, from the words of Anni Virtanen, would allow their bodies to grow a new tree. One that worked to fertilise the soil of Rasalhague for future generations.

They would be planted in the empty areas between the Cradles in the future, the resulting forests being, in other words, memorials for those that has passed. 

More and more bodies were coming in, the battle becoming increasingly brutal. The Ronin, the unsullied ones serving to fight to the death. They were here to die with honour, unable to handle the new changing Combine. Their own regiments letting them leave, those unable to adapt, to learn, to change.

Here to die in one last charge. 

Reika thought, with quiet vehemence, they should do their dying somewhere else. 

The frozen masks of desperation, the agony written all over their bodies. Clawed fingers, trying to reach inside their suits, to pinch their arteries close, to keep their organs inside their skin. 

Rin had not been able to handle it after seeing a boy, not even older than herself, peeled out of a Combine Armsman. Sleeker, less armoured for more speed than the Kingdom Armsman. Stupid, speed didn't matter when you were inside the tunnels. It just meant that they were easier to break open, that there would be more young, agonised, faces passing through her laundromat.

Reika had her own breakdown a few days earlier, unwilling to allow her children to see it. Seeing those of the same age as her sons, dozens of them being processed through her laundromat.

Why were they doing it here!? 

"We've got a few hundred more of these to process. Good thing that your laundromat is so big, Ms Lee. Saved us the trouble of trying to get this sorted out all the way over at the EDF depot." Ymir said, zipping up the body bag before pulling out another corpse. Its chest plate shattered, as if something had smashed repeatedly into it from a distance.

"Yeah, looks like the hammer-fist worked out. Remember this one from yesterday. Cracked him right open. Must have been panicking when he couldn't move, and I was just smashing him open like a lobster. Ouch." 

The voice of the mercenary leader was casual, almost brutal. 

"How can you be so calm about this?" Rin asked, her sobs subsiding.

"Eh, you either learn to deal with it, or you have a breakdown. When you've got 20 guys in a maintenance tunnel that's wide enough for one person... it's down to the knives. Hundreds of them are dying down there, they've managed one breach, and they're pouring everything they can in. We're doing the same. That's a lot of bodies, all broadcasting their last moments when they die. If you can't handle it, you would have been medically withdrawn a while ago." Ymir shrugged. 

Reika couldn't tell if he was being honest or if this was bravado, his shaking hands hidden inside of the exosuit. 

It was part of the new language they were learning. Where everyone was required to wear one for their own safety, being able to look another in the face, or eyes, or even their body language as the second half of a conversation was no longer possible. 

They had to learn to communicate through words alone, even the intonation being muffled slightly by the suit.

"Let me tell you, your expansion was a really good idea. You're going to get a lot of business in the next few days, let me tell you!" The exosuit clad mercenary, his voice jovial. "You're going to get a lot of new business over the next few days! The EDF are really impressed with your setup here!" He repeated himself, words wavering slightly. He wasn't as unaffected as he made himself out to be.

Reika really wished she had chosen to do something else as a business. Eyes tracking the mound of body bags, the unmarked, brown ones for the Combine. The black ones for those of Rasalhague. The constant movement of small trams as suits were taken out for repair and servicing, before being pressed into battle with new recruits. 

She couldn't help shuddering. 

This was, according to the different mercenaries... a small battle. 

It was only going to get worse in future wars, where the numbers involved would reach at least 100 times more. 

Why had they chosen this Hex of all the places to attack? Even here, one section away, she couldn't hear the fighting. Couldn't even feel the vibrations of battle, so well armoured they were. 

Why were they doing this when they had no chance at all of success?

They must have known, yet had done it anyway. 

How many children would be dying in the tight corridors and tunnels of the Blocks under her feet? How many parents would never see their children again? 

Reika shook her head, war was such a waste. The words heretical to the Combine upbringing in her. Yet, she was Rasalhagian now, and could say with certainty.

War did nothing but waste lives. 

Or, in the words of their King, waste the potential greatness in all of them.