Part 783: Let's Read: Main Event - Part 25
Let’s Read: Main Event (part 25)Chapter 25
Houston, Borghese
13 June 3055
Days elapsed since book start: 307¼
Mercenaries recruited since book start: 6
Mercenaries recruited off-screen: 1
Things accomplished since book start: 1 (
Protagonists introduced since book start: 8
Protagonists mentioned but not yet introduced: 1
Antagonists introduced since book start: 3
Antagonists defeated since book start: 0
Chapters spent on Northwind: 5
Chapters spent on Solaris: 10
Chapters spent on Outreach: 4
Chapters spent on Borghese: 13
Crenshaw and his supporters force two more of his supporters into the vacant Space Council seats and gain over a 2/3rds majority. As this is space, nobody has any sort of veto power which means they immediately don’t actually do anything except antagonize Zenos Cooke.
We then learn that Rose is still moping like a retarded puppy because McCloud is leaving, and he learns the news while he was preparing a farewell ‘dinner’ for her. Not that he was cooking, mind, he has a civilian to handle the actual cooking. In fact, given his excessively romantic characterization already, I’m sure his idea of ‘preparation’ was: ‘put on one of my three outfits (the least smelly one, women like that right?), potentially shower (I doubt it), and berate the chef for hours because goddamn it I don’t think it takes ten hours to pressure cook an entire cow and what could possibly be taking so long?’
Rather than think anything of it, he has the dinner anyway but is obviously distracted and DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE then suddenly, as desert is served, someone calls them and rather than delegating responsibility Rose immediately jumps up and abandons everyone to answer the goddamned phone.
Smooth.
Oh, and then we learn that the Black Thorns have been eating in full combat gear because they’re still on Yellow Alert.
Also,
Main Event posted:
“You son of a bitch. Youre supposed to protect them.” Without waiting for a reply, she charged around the table. Rose dropped into a crouch and prepared to meet the charge, but it never came. As McCloud neared the front door, it suddenly swung open. Running full throttle, McCloud didn’t have a chance to avoid it. She hit the door at full speed, getting the air knocked out of her lungs and smashing her head into the reinforced wood.
Hawg, his shoulder still braced against the door, looked at Rose and tried to smile. “It seemed like the only thing to do at the time.” The big man peered around the edge fo the door as Rose stepped over to the fallen McCloud, who was gasping for breath, her left eye beginning to swell shut. The wounds looked and sounded bad, but she’d be up in a few minutes.
Rose then has Hawg call a couple of guards to detain McCloud so he can go roll his Charger around on some terrorists or something. Jesus Christ.
Main Event posted:
McCloud was struggling to rise, her remaining good eye focused on Rose’s throat. “Sit on her if you have to, Rose said, “but don’t let her leave.”
WOW.
Incidentally, THIS WILL HAVE NO NEGATIVE REPRECUSSIONS AT ALL. I wish I was joking this time, but I’m not. I feel ill.
Rose then charges his Charger out the front gate, and idly (without much sympathy) worries that he may ‘accidentally’ step on one of the protesters; but they dive for cover and so he avoids a murder charge. Anyway, Ajax is here already and has already murdered two terrorists without any sort of orders or what-have-you. Just boom, Ajax and his Raven show up and slaughters the two people closest to McCloud’s dropship.
Hope they were actually terrorists.
Anyway, the ship attempts to blast off so Rose immediately orders a charge (DropShip exhaust is extremely dangerous and will destroy BattleMechs with contemptible ease, incidentally). They shoot one of the landing struts to keep the Bristol from taking off, but Rose gets shot by a medium laser and falls on his ass and the ship takes off.
After his miserable failure, Rose returns to the barracks only to find that, without Battlemechs to keep the protesters out, they’ve stormed the place and murdered all of the civilians hired to guard the facility. Also, they’ve shot it up with heavy machineguns. Some civilians in a car fire SRMs at Esmeralda and hit her Warhammer in the head (of course), then nearly escape when Rose can’t hit the car at all (he’s a 0 / 2 pilot, remember, and he has pulse lasers. He can only miss if he’s not trying). Fortunately, Ajax, the only member of the Black Thorns who’s semi-capable, hits the car with his SRM-6, killing several angry protesters.
Rose then demands that everyone in the barracks surrender, but it turns out it’s only McCloud and she’s got a Zeus heavy sniper rifle. Now, those not in the know, the Zeus is a 50 caliber sniper rifle that fires specialized ammunition at higher than mach 3. It can barely be carried by people, much less shoulder fired (the recoil would shatter bones, it requires a tripod to use).
McCloud is, of course, treating it like a regular rifle.
Also, she only has one working eye because Rose just beat her up with a door.
Rose beams with pride on seeing her, then she collapses and she’s bleeding oh no it’s a good thing Rose is here to rescue her! He then orders his people to salvage anything that they possibly can because they’re going to go and hide in the woods for a while, since this was clearly an attack supported by the new planetary government and not an isolated incident caused by terrorists and/or protesters angry about the Black Thorns holding their government hostage.
Rose then acknowledges that everything that’s just happened was entirely his fault (which is true). Then, rather than learning from it, he simply vows never to fuck up like this again. Will he succeed? (No).
Oh, and he doesn’t even get out of his `Mech to check on his unconscious and/or dead