Part 741: Let's Read Close Quarters - Part 9
Chapter 38Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
2 November 3056
Scout Platoon breaks into the hotel where Ninyu Kerai is staying. DEST troopers wear full-body bulletproof gear, but…
… that gear only stops penetration, it doesn’t stop the kinetic energy of an impact very well. So shooting a DEST trooper probably won’t kill one, but you can still break their sternum with a shot to center mass. The worst place to shoot a DEST trooper is the head because their rigid bulletproof faceplate protects better than the ninja pajamas.
Not that anything stops a round from a Zeus Heavy Rifle which Scout Platoon’s sniper team uses to eliminate the guards at the door.
Meanwhile, Colonel Camacho is actually having fun for the first time since Patsy died. He’s decided he’s going to die and for once grief isn’t weighing him down as he’s directing the 17th Recon’s forces. He’s commanding from the rear and hasn’t committed his own `Mech to the fight yet, so when the 9th Ghost Regiment’s flanking company attacks the compound from the river he’s perfectly positioned to intercept. The Ghost force is primarily lights and mediums, and Don Carlos pilots a Timberwolf, but he’s still outnumbered 12:1.
Don Carlos is starting to understand. He’s still committed to dying, but this is a moment of growth and understanding. Just as he raises the Timber Wolf’s PPCs and prepares to engage, his son’s Shadow Hawk leaps in. Gavilan is off in a Scorpion right now, but Don Carlos doesn’t know that. The Ghost company focuses down the Shadow Hawk immediately to try to keep their 12:1 advantage, and Don Carlos, certain he’s just watched his son die, snaps.
The scouts are not having a good time of it. One of them eats it as soon as we cut back to them, and there are still 45+ DEST Ninjas between them and Ninyo Kerai. The scouts clear out a room of them with a White Phosphorous grenade and an honest-to-god suicide bomb of the sort that wouldn’t fly from the theoretical heroes in post 9/11 fiction. They are still on the ground floor at this point but Cassie and a few other scouts use the suicide bombing as a distraction to make their way to the express elevator.
DEST commands eventually think to cut the power, trapping Cassie’s (six or so person) scout team on the 72nd floor. One of them is already bleeding out, and by this point everyone the other 30-odd scouts Cassie left behind on the ground floor are dead. Ninyu has 20 guards with them, not because he thinks he needs them, but because they want to and he can’t be bothered telling 20 ninjas to fuck off every morning. The wounded scout stays in the elevator when the others make for the service ladders, and kills the first bunch of DEST troopers to open the doors with suicide grenades.
Chapter 39
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
2 November 3056
Cassie loses another scout immediately—and this is the crux of Cassie’s failures. She doesn’t lose any fights in this novel, but fighting isn’t what she’s struggling with. Her problem is interpersonal relationships, and the people around her just keep dying. The “Inner Sphere’s best scout,” a woman who’s entire role is predicated on keeping other people alive, is ill-equipped to actually do that. And worse, she doesn’t even care. After talking up how the 9th Ghost Yakuza are treated as Teppodama, bullets to be spent, Cassie is doing precisely the same thing the book has already called out as a genuinely bad thing.
Cassie is not going to grow past this in this novel. She doesn’t get her biggest moment of real character growth until Hearts of Chaos. She is, in this moment, the killing machine Kali fears.
Don Carlos has killed an entire lance by himself by the time the rest of the Caballeros can bright a company in to assist him. Not only is he not dead, but he’s still fighting even though his Timber Wolf has been battered and has lost an arm and is a hair shy of losing a leg.
As a counterpoint to the Ghosts’ failed flanking mission, we cut to Gabby’s successful one. They kill a 9th Ghost urbanmech before the scene cuts back to Don Carlos. The lightest Ghost machines run when reinforcements arrive and the rest get cut down.
This is the novel’s actual Climax. Don Carlos is no longer bottling up his grief and shame, but is letting it out in an actually healthy way. Everything Cassie is involved in is the denouement.
Cassie is down to herself and three other scouts. Two, as one gets killed by a sword as soon as they start up the stairwell. Cassie counters sword-wielding ninjas with a pouch full of ball bearings and throws one over the railing. Victor Milan’s martial arts scenes are very involved, far better than his BattleMech combat, and after a big emotional breakthrough he uses them as a little catharsis. By the time Cassie’s fight with the (two) sword-wielding DEST ninjas ends, she’s down to two friendlies. The DEST troopers have withdrawn to the penthouse to guard Ninyu directly.
Cassie uses the unconscious (not dead) body of a DEST ninja as an Ender’s Game meat shield and rushes into the penthouse while her two surviving scouts hold the door to keep any more ninjas from coming up behind her (they both die).
Chapter 40
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
2 November 3056
Gabby’s flank attack has thrown the Ghosts into an inordinate amount of disorder because at the end of the day they’re still mostly barely-educated criminals. The 17th’s morale has been bolstered by Patsy’s Song, and they sortie out of the compound en masse the moment the Ghosts are distracted chasing rabbits. The Ghosts actually break and withdraw.
Meanwhile, Don Carlos discovers who’s actually piloting Gavilan’s Shadow Hawk: his wife. She dies from her injuries.
Ninyu Kerai is content to watch Cassie murder his DEST ninjas because in addition to being a murderer and a bastard he’s also (at this point in time) a heartless asshole. After killing the last three or four (the book makes it feel like more because they keep standing back up, but there really aren’t many) DEST ninjas present, Cassie presents Chandrasekhar Kurita’s evidence to Ninyu Kerai.
Ninyu draws a gun on her but Cassie gets him in a joint lock and pricks him in the neck with her Kris to encourage compliance. At this point everyone she’s brought along to help her is dead.
Lainie and Kali are about to have a `Mech showdown, but Ninyu Kerai calls off the assault.
Epilogue-Patsy’s Song
Chapter 41
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
2 November 3056
Marquis Redmond Hosoya, the CEO of Tanadi Computers who Chandrasekhar Kurita has framed, fears that the battle being called off means he might have been framed for something. He tries to run away in a private jet and gets killed by an aerospace fighter.
Percy and Cassie meet up again after. Cassie feels genuine remorse for leading him on and wants to apologize. This is the biggest moment of growth Cassie has, and it comes pretty much as an afterthought. The pirate-murdering `Mech-killing Cassie from the start of the book could not and would not have attempted to make amends for hurting someone.
She’s still Cassie though. She’s not joking. Percy decides he still wants to know her, and Cassie realizes she doesn’t mind that idea.
Meanwhile, Lainie has killed her cousin the Oyabun and taken over the local Yakuza. Lainie doesn’t grow much in this novel and she won’t play much of a role in Hearts of Chaos, but she’s one of the primary movers in Black Dragon and most of her backstory is revealed here.
Cassie demands the truth from Uncle Chandy. Chandrasekhar Kurita introduces her to the Clan Jade Falcon merchants he’s been hiding. He framed the CEO of Tanadi, which he openly admits, but maintains he’s not a traitor.
Chandrasekhar then reveals his plot to destroy the Clans once and for all. The warrior-caste fears what the Inner Sphere has to offer.
Uncle Chandy.
Cassie and Kali then go camping because even though it’s implied a few days have passed, it’s still November 2nd and it has been a long day.
And that's it for Close Quarters, the first book in my favorite trilogy. The tale of