Part 733: Let's Read Close Quarters - Part 1

Let’s Read
BattleTech: Close Quarters

Part 1



The character fighting Cassie on this cover doesn't appear until the next novel

Close Quarters is one of my favorite BattleTech novel trilogies, and one I have difficulty summarizing. So, here’s a quick list of the things I like:
- The Tex-Mex stylings
- Background characters that actually change and grow (or get worse)
- A main character who is a ShadowRunner trapped in a BattleTech novel
- A focus on local rather than interstellar politics (a rarity in BattleTech)
- A quiet exploration of how fucked up the Draconis Combine really is.
I won’t be making fun of this as much as I did Ghost War, Main Event, and etc. but there will be moments—how can there not be, in a novel where one of the main antagonists is an actual Space Ninja? This trilogy is very 90s, and most of the action is something that would be right at home in a Hollywood movie of the era, but the trilogy itself can be surprisingly progressive. Let’s dig right into it, starting the the blurb on the back cover that gets omitted from the Kindle version:


Most everything in this blurb is a lie, although they’re not malicious ones. The entire 17th Recon regiment knows what drives Cassie (most just don’t care), she’s not the only one who suspects Chandrasekhar Kurita might not be offering a safe and quiet gig, and there will be no nightmare confrontations (that happens in the next novel). Likewise the ISF/Yakuza alliance is oversold: everyone in the Draconis Combine jumps when Subhash Indrahar tells them to, even the traitors—and when they don’t, it’s a Big Deal.

These won’t be the only deceptions the novel presents us with, nor are they the biggest. Close Quarters is a novel that is built on deception, and untrustworthy narrators abound. Cassie’s latent paranoia creeps through everywhere, and it’s quite telling that the most earnest and truthful character in the novel is an MI4 “Stealthy Fox,” a literal Davion spy.

The novel begins with a brief two-page prologue, explaining the state of the Inner Sphere in 3056 to people who might be new to the series. An interesting point to note, and quite possibly an editorial oversight, the Federated Commonwealth is described as “destroying itself in a vast Civil War.”

In 3056. The actual FedCom Civil War won’t begin until 3062. It’s interesting to see that it was originally planned to happen far earlier. What’s really happening, at present, is that the Capellan Confederation has been involved in a multiple decades of espionage and terrorism to destabilize the planets in the Sarna March which Hanse took during the 4th Succession Wars.

We also get a paragraph explaining Chandrasekhar Kurita, who is “playing a game of his own.” A game that “Subhash Indrahar believes is treason.” It then tells us that this doesn’t really matter because the story really starts in 3034, in the Capellan Confederation.



Book One: Nightmares

Chapter 1

Kalimantan, Larsha
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
6 May 3034

Larsha is one of the three Capellan worlds closest to the Aurigan Reach, where the HBS BattleTech game will be set. It’s only two jumps from the Taurian Concordat.

Cassiopeia Suthorn is three. Her family is a group of Kuritan expatriates living in the Capellan Confederation. She’s described as a small child with “bare brown arms and legs and big gray eyes.” She has a teddy bear here, described as a worn, yellow, one-eyed veteran. Teddy Bears are a theme in this novel, one I’ll discuss more when it matters more. Her father is voluntarily (in an effort to earn citizenship) serving as an infantry soldier. He’s not a conscript because he’s an officer, a Commander, equivalent to a Captain, which would make him a company commander, responsible for 84 men.

Cassie’s parents are worried because Larsha is being raided. Her father heads off to fight, and three year old Cassie gets to watch a bunch of soldiers dressed like her father get killed by a PPC. Her mother drags her away to hide in a bush, and an Atlas smashes her house.



She’s not killed, of course, the Atlas gets distracted by an attack and takes a shot at something she can’t see, starts her ruined house on fire with a “ruby” medium lasers (Inner Sphere lasers are consistently red and yellow in the fiction, varying a little by manufacturer. Green and blue are usually reserved for the Clans). The chapter ends with little Cassie screaming.


Chapter 2

Kalimantan, Larsha
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
19 July 3047

The Clans haven’t arrived yet, Cassie is sixteen. She’s been conscripted into the sarcastically-named Glorious Redemption Detachment 325. There will be no citizenship for Cassie, penal battalions don’t catch lucky breaks like that, the troopers of Glorious Redemption exist solely to catch bullets. We’re immediately introduced to some of her fellow criminals valiant soldiers of the Capellan Confederation: Pretty Tony, Rat, Pachinko, Tango, and Rusty. They are bravely defending Larsha from attacking mercenaries looting a store and hiding from the battle.

Cassie disdains the lottery because she doesn’t expect any of them will live long enough to use the money they’re taking, and this is where we bump into our first 90s-ism. Nobody can say “ass” in these novels, they usually substitute “fanny,” which is funny as hell. It’s casually mentioned that inflation is running rampant in the Capellan Confederation, and that the local H-Bill is virtually worthless.



Gweilo doesn’t translate to “round-eyed devils,” it’s Cantonese for “ghost man.” Its usage as a slur is probably something Zaodai would be better-equipped to discuss, but this scene is one of many that influenced my views on the egalitarian nature of the Inner Sphere. Us vs. Them is still a thing, but for most of the successor states it’s nearly always based on national borders rather than on ethnicity.

Their squad leader is convinced the BattleMechs will just hit the `Mech base and then fuck off (because that’s usually what happens), but he’s wrong. A Wolverine walks throw town, and after spending several moments trying to decide whether it’s friend or foe one of the uneducated conscripts remembers that the Confederation doesn’t make Wolverines.

Cassie’s been eating fruit in this scene (because eating while other people are talking makes her look more like an asshole), and tosses it away half-eaten. We learn that Cassie has been studying martial arts, specifically [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencak_Silat]Pencak Silat[/url] which the trilogy will constantly refer to as Pentjak Silat. Cassie immediately contemplates committing suicide with the 1,200 year old Kris, “Blood Drinker,” which her Guru gave her. She does not want to be killed by a BattleMech.

A pack of regular Maskirovka Guardsmen burst into the store the penal troopers are hiding in. One of them slaps Cassie across the store, she’s not particularly big or strong. Cassie has a PTSD flashback on the spot, her mother had turned to prostitution after her father’s death and Cassie herself was raped when she was still extremely young. The book doesn’t shy from portraying Rape as a horrible thing that cripples its victims emotionally, but it’s prevalence as an easy source of pathos is one of the trilogy’s more unfortunate 90s-isms. Cassie stabs her rapist at the young age of 12, three years after his first (and apparently only) successful attempt, and when her mother chastises her for it, leaves to go live on the streets. Which is what lead to her eventual conscription to Glorious Redemption.

The Maskirovka Guards try to play some Russian Maskirovka Roulette with the penal troopers, but the Wolverine comes back, interrupting before things turn deadly.



Chapter 3

Kalimantan, Larsha
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
19 July 3047

Cassie’s fear of BattleMechs far outweighs her fear of the Maskirovka, Cassie picks up her rifle and threatens the Maskirovka guardsmen with it, ordering them to get out into the street. When they laugh at her she shoots the leader through his unarmored thigh. The guards comply, dragging their leader with them, and get promptly mowed down by the Wolverine’s machine gun. Her squad yell at her since the Mask has their names and etc, but at this point Cassie has thoroughly broken as an individual and begun her long trek down the road of psychopathy.



Her new resolve is immediately put to the test, there’s a Stinger on the roof a few blocks away, standing on a building. The troopers regret that the building didn’t collapse, since it’s a bank. The Stinger looks right at them—and past, and Cassie realizes that as dangerous as they are, `Mechs are absolutely terrible at identifying threats that aren’t other combat vehicles. Cassie watches a while longer, and notices the Wolverine is shooting Lasha’s above-ground power lines rather than just walking straight into them.

She cuts a power line with a fire axe, then finds a wooden mop handle with a metal connector on the end and fuses it to the end of the power cable. She lures the Wolverine closer by shooting it once or twice, and the Wolverine follows her through the building she’d been hiding in. Cassie manages to not electrocute herself to death spot-welding the Wolverine’s knee with the power line and mop handle, causing it to fall over. The rest of its lance shows up, just in time to save Cassie from being murdered by the Mechwarrior she just dispossessed: Bobby “Navajo Wolf” Bagay.

Cassie surrenders to Lt. SG Patsy Comacho, of the 17th Recon Regiment. Patsy is the real main character of this story.

Kidding, Patsy dies off-camera fighting the Smoke Jaguars between Ch3 and Ch4.