Chapter Eighty-Three: Hostage Negotiations

Chapter Eighty-Three: Hostage Negotiations

Summer, December 1st, 3017

"What do you mean two Warships just entered the system?" Colonel Fell asked the officer on duty.

"Exactly that sir, and they detached two Overlords, two of those DroST refits we've seen, and two… Honestly sir I have no idea what the last two dropships are, only that they're the biggest military dropships I've ever seen."

"That's two Colossus." A tech walking by said. "They haven't been seen since the fall of the Star League and the Terran Hegemony."

"Fuck me." Colonel Fell said. "Nope, we are not doing this today." He turned and looked at the officer on duty. "Lieutenant, I'm going back to bed, Do not try and wake me up for the next twelve hours because I will more than likely be in a drunken stupor."

"Requesting permission to join you sir?" The poor lieutenant asked. "I think we might all need a stiff one."

"Granted." Fell replied, "In fact, call the senior staff together, I'll buy the drinks tonight."

Summer, December 6th, 3017

"But you can't surrender!" Aldo Lestrade yelled furiously at Colonel Fell, the CO of the Militia on Summer over the communications channel. "I haven't given you any orders to surrender."

"Duke Lestrade," Colonel Fell replied calmly. "I'm not sure what world you are living in, but it doesn't matter if I have an extra two to three regiments of battlemechs on the planet to just drum up, We're up against an Elite Rated Mercenary unit who is using motherfucking Warships as support."

"So, I'm countermanding your orders, and giving the men and women of the militia the chance to save their own lives, if you want to die over this, that's entirely up to you." Fell cut the comms channel off.

"At least I have the hostages." Aldo muttered to himself. "But I've only got a couple of lances here to defend the estate." He turned and looked at the screen on his desk.

"I'll use them to bargain with, I'm sure this mercenary dog that Katrina hired won't be willing to sacrifice his paycheck on the chance that I'll kill them."

"Get me a communications channel to the mercenaries," Lestrade told some of the members of his staff. "I need to start some negotiations."

Summer, December 5th, 3017

"This is Colonel Paterson of the 1st Marksman RCT, we do not wish to make war on the people of Summer." Peterson broadcast on all open channels. "We have been hired by Archon Katrina Steiner to rescue several hostages that Aldo Lestrade has taken." Paterson sighed, "If any member of the militia choses to surrender, we will not be taking your combat vehicles or 'mechs as salvage, we have no need of your equipment, and have no quarrel with you."

"Think they'll bite?" Mathis leaned forward in his seat.

"I'll put down fifty pounds that they surrender outright, and do it against orders." Hull said with that smug grin he always had on his face when he knew he was right.

"That's a suckers bet." Paterson said as he chuckled. "I'll counter bet you, fifty pounds that Duke Lestrade tries to "negotiate" his way out."

"FIfty Bulls that Hull here has someone do a "daring" rescue and pulls off something no one else thought of." Calderon weighed in.

"I'll take that action," Mathis said, and they shook on it. "Anyone else want in?"

"I'll bite," Paterson and Mendoza both chipped in.

"Hull, you get to play bookie this time."

"Yeah yeah." He waved it off. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

December 7th, 3017

"I told you it was a suckers bet." Paterson said as we watched the Summer Militia broadcast a full and total surrender. "Now, do you want me to respond to the idiot or do you want to take over?"

"You're doing fine." I replied, "I'm going to be heading to an LIC branch that Katrina gave me intel on to try and get Melissa and Elsa in our care." I looked Peterson in the eye. "You do good work, and I trust you to see this through."

"I'll make sure we get Nondi and the Kell brothers home safe." Peterson said strongly as he shook my hand. "You make sure those little girls are safe."

"That's the plan." I told him with a smile and a wave. "That's the plan."

December 10th, 3017

"This is the safe house I have the location of." I told Mathis as we pulled up in a Motorcade escorted by some combat vehicles. "I'll go and give the codes, and we'll hopefully be out of here soon."

I got out of the armored SUV, and walked up to the house. I knocked on the door and then waited for a good minute or two.

"Bravo Six Delta Niner Five Alpha." I told him, and the man on the other side of the door waited a second, either consulting his memory or trying to get clarification.

"You're free to come in." He finally said in an extremely thick scottish accent. "They're pleasant little girls, but a bit of a handful aye?"

"Yeah, they can be a little bit of a handful." I agreed as we walked into the livingroom where the two Steiner children were sitting. "What? No greetings for your Uncle Mark?"

"Uncle Mark!" They both said as they ran to me with tears in their eyes. "It was so scary, and we were scared."

"It's okay to be scared." I told the two little girls. "It's what you do when you're scared that matters." I picked them up and went to the entrance. "You did a good job, and I'll tell Katrina what brave little girls you were."

"Even though we were scared?" Melissa asked.

"Especially because you were scared." I called Mathis and a fireteam in to cover the girls as we loaded up into the SUV.

As soon as we were loaded up, man Portable SRM's began to fire on our motorcade.

"ISF?" I asked Mathis, who was in the driver seat as per usual.

"ISF." He agreed. "They were probably watching us the whole time waiting for something like this."

"Melissa, Elsa, you're going to want to cover your ears." I told the two girls as I drew out a rifle to use beside the top mounted .50.

"Why Uncle Mark?" Elsa asked.

"Two reasons." I told her as our tires squealed while we drove away from the enemy. "One, it's going to be really loud in here." I stood up in the secondary firing position to throw some fire at the enemies that were chasing us."

"And the second reason?" Melissa asked.

"Uncle Mark is about to say some very nasty words, and he would appreciate it if you didn't hear them or tell Katrina about them."

Same time….

"Lestrade, I'm going to tell you once again, I'm not at liberty to negotiate your noble rights or not." Peterson said for what felt like the fiftieth time, before cutting his mic off and turning to his XO. "What's the status on possible retrieval?"

"We've got the sensors blind now, we're just waiting for night to fall sir." Peterson's XO replied. "Getting people in position takes time, and we just need you to buy us another eight hours or so of it."

"You hate me don't you." Peterson buried his head in his hands. "I hate this kind of thing, no wonder Hull wanted to go play at being a superspy."

"I think you might prefer to be here." The XO replied. "We're getting communications from Hull's group that they have the VIP's, but they are under attack by what they believe is an ISF cell that was waiting for them."

"I'll stick with negotiations." Peterson said and went back to turning his microphone on. "Duke Lestrade sir, I'm going to tell you what we are able to do once again….."

Five Hours later…

"Mother of God, if I have to hear that man speak again in the next hour, I might just drop into his mansion from orbit and shoot him myself." Peterson ranted before looking at his XO. "Please, for the love of all things good tell me that our people are in position."

"They're in position, just give the word and we'll get the jailbreak started."

"Tell them we have a go." Peterson smiled. "I want the casualties kept to a minimum though, I may hate the man, but I want the Duke alive to see trial."

"Jailbreak is a go." Came over the Powered armor company's encrypted communications channels.

"Good to hear it." The CO of the Platoon responded. "I want Fireteam's Shadow and Dagger to take point, our snipers are already covering us as is, now let's do this cleanly."

"Copy that sir." The mottled black and gray painted suits had specialized bulges and other additions in order to break up their form even more than usual with camouflage. They weren't visible on most scanners, and the Mark One eyeball was a little more easily fooled when you had people that were really good at their jobs.

"We're in." Shadow Fireteam reported. "Running a sweep of the cells now."

"Dagger here, readying a breach and clear of the Duke's personal rooms."

A distant pop was heard as a flashang went off in Lestrade's chambers, followed by a Fireteam of PA infantry as they subdued the man responsible for this mess.

"Peterson wants him gagged." The lieutenant ordered. "Says he's sick of hearing the man's voice."

"Dagger copies, making good on the kidnapping now."

"Shadow, what's the status of the VIPs?" the Lieutenant asked. "We can't see anything from our thermals from here."

"Trouble Twins are recovered, apparently Icewoman is held in a different area of the estate." Shadow reported. "Trouble Twins know the general layout, and will be helping direct us there."

"Copy." The Lieutenant said. "Keep your eyes peeled for Drac Infiltrators, they may try and get one last strike in."

"Yes sir, we're keeping our eyes on a swivel."

December 12th, 3017

"Nondi, a pleasure to meet you." I shook the younger woman's hand. "Katrina has told me much about you."

"She's told me quite a bit about you as well." Nondi replied. "I just wish it were under better circumstances."

"Circumstances will be whatever they are," I shrugged. "It's vastly more important to have made the acquaintance or friend in the first place."

"I'll let you use the fancy words." She said as she took a sip of coffee. "I know that you have questions, so ask them."

"I don't have a lot of questions." I told her, "Just one really." I took my own sip of coffee. "What happened?"

"I'm going to assume that you already know the details of the battle in space." She said as I nodded. "Well, by the time we managed to reach Summer as a refuge from said forces it had been made obvious to me that Lestrade was playing his games." She clenched her fist, still visibly angry. "I made contact with a local LIC cell and they gave me intel that showed that Lestrade had leaked the travel plans to the ISF and to the Combine." She took an angry sharp breath. "I was angry; hell, I'm still angry, and so I charged forward, despite protests by both of the Kell brothers to arrest the asshole who tried to have my nieces killed." She visibly took some calming breaths. "I didn't succeed, in hindsight, I should have just taken the Kell Brother's battlemechs and marched through his estate." She shrugged. "But I didn't do that, and now here we are, with mercenary troops having to invade and subjugate one of our own planets because we can't afford to shuffle our troops around right now."

"Well, we did make good time on our way here." I said with a smirk.

"And thank God for that." Nondi muttered. "I don't want to know what Lestrade would have done if you had taken longer."