Part 772: Let's Read: Main Event - Part 14

Let’s Read: Main Event (part 14)

Chapter 14
Solaris City, Solaris
9 August 3054

Days elapsed since book start: 109
Mercenaries recruited since book start: 2
Mercenaries recruited off-screen: 1
Things accomplished since book start: 2 (Rose took a nap, Rose got a Shadow Hawk)
Protagonists introduced since book start: 5
Protagonists mentioned but not yet introduced: 1
Antagonists introduced since book start: 1
Antagonists defeated since book start: 0
Chapters Spent on Northwind: 5



Carstairs calls bullshit, and rightly so. Jeremiah’s story sounds like bullshit; but guess what? It’s not over, goddamn it.

Rather than getting this over with, Jeremiah asks Carstairs where Esmeralda is. Carstairs says she’s probably with O’Shea then asks why. Jeremiah plans to steal her and any of the Solaris Mechwarriors willing to join him out from under Carstairs, bankrupting his entire stable. Of course, he doesn’t tell Carstairs that.

Jeremiah starts talking again, about the fight against Clan Wolf. Convinced he’d be the sole survivor of his own idiocy, his surviving lancemates gave Jeremiah a stack of letters to send back to their family and loved ones.

Talking about the fight with Clan Wolf then causes Jeremiah to have a flashback, but the result is: everyone under his command died, leaving Jeremiah feeling guilty angry about his failure as a leader the Clans’ invasion and seeking to atone seize revenge.

At one point in the battle, Rose even leaves one of his soldiers to fight off six Clan ‘Mechs while he duels with two; and he wonders why they all died. This is a supposed tactical genius, Ladies and Gentlemen. Are you depressed yet? Is it any wonder nobody in the Inner Sphere ever accomplished anything in the centuries before Hanse Davion was born?

Before they all die, each of his soldiers asks Jeremiah to live on. For their sakes. It’s supposed to be touching, but comes across as… stupid, honestly. Stupid and ham-fisted. Oh, look, there’s Jeremiah Rose, the Boy Who Lived! Who came out of Tukayyid with only a tiny bit of emotional scarring and with his magical powers of jackassery multiplied a thousand fold.



Then the chapter ends.