8
Desolate Plain
Oregon, Mallory’s World
Draconis March, Federated Suns
23 February 3016
Like an avatar of death, the red-painted Warhammer filled Morgan Kell’s HUD until the BattleMech blocked out all of existence.
Gasping against the overheated air, awash in sweat and fatigue that dragged at muscles until each movement was painful, Morgan slowly closed his eyes, lifted his chin, waiting. Accepting.
I have fought the good fight. My men … my brother … they will survive to fight another day.
A calm settled across him. The exhaustion of the hours-long duel with Yorinaga Kurita—the finest MechWarrior Morgan had ever faced—eased, then disappeared. That calm washed down into Morgan’s soul and even, he fancied, into his bones. A serene sense of gracefully bowing before the inexorable march of the inevitable freed feelings he’d not known since the Periphery. Since …
Ah, Tempest, my love …. how I miss you.
Yet he felt only joy at their time together, not the bittersweet of separation—a price paid in full for the time shared with that brilliant woman.
Even through the hermetically sealed cockpit and the muffling of the neurohelmet, the cacophony of Yorinaga’s alpha strike hammered at Morgan’s consciousness. Despite his calm, a quick inrush of breath held for long moments before he realized—
Huh …? I’m not dead? What the hell? How did Yorinaga miss?!
Almost without thought, his body moved, arms grabbing joysticks and wrenching weapons fire. The Archer’s missile covers opened, and a spread of forty long-range missiles leapt at the Warhammer bearing the steel insignia of the Draconis Combine’s elite Second Sword of Light regiment. Though too close to arm, they battered the enemy BattleMech nevertheless. The missiles momentarily occluded the Warhammer with the dust of impact, giving Morgan time to wrench his kneeling, one-armed ’Mech back to its feet.
Braced and waiting for the approach of death this time, Morgan saw the Warhammer appear from the smoke and once more unleash every weapon at its disposal: searing particle beams, lasers, and missiles reached out to embrace the Archer.
An eerie déjà vu enveloped Morgan until he shook as a leaf on the wind, skin prickling. He gasped for air.
At point-blank range, one of the finest MechWarriors stalking any battlefield missed every single weapon shot. For the second time.
Am I already dead?
St. Marinus House
Zaniah III
Isle of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth
19 November 3018
Morgan shot awake from the nightmare with a bloodcurdling shout, kicking off drenched bedding as though it were the confines of his cockpit from years ago. Blind with panic despite the dim bank of coals in the corner alcove, he strove for calm, drawing on the breathing exercises and calming techniques he was learning through the graceful brothers of St. Marinus House. But to no avail. The images and feelings seared in his mind: a monstrous, out-of-control BattleMech that careened and stomped, tearing at his sanity.
What the hell happened to me that day?
Morgan collapsed back into his bed and curled into a fetal position. He waited for the worst of the attack to pass, enduring the pain, knowing that even if he found the lee, the storm was always just a sleepless night away.
Until I can figure it out, I must remain in exile. Too dangerous. Too dangerous for me, too dangerous for my brother and the Kell Hounds …
Too dangerous ….
Too dangerous ….
Too dangerous ….
The metronome of his racing heart accompanied him back into oblivion.
ARCHER “TEMPEST”
First produced in 2474, the Archer was designed as a long-range fire-support BattleMech that would harass an enemy at range while also causing significant damage in the process. It brought a successful mix of paired Doombud LRM 20s with a bevy of Diverse Optics medium lasers as backup weaponry for close-in work. The Archer was not only a mainstay of the Star League Defense Force, but most of the Successor States produced a variety of variants, building on the impressive original platform.
Arriving on the world of Galatea in 3010 with an inheritance and a dream to build a mercenary command, Morgan and Patrick Kell were originally derided for their naiveté. In the decades since, Morgan has achieved legendary status, not only for creating one of the most formable mercenary commands in the Inner Sphere but also for the infamous showdown between himself and Yorinaga Kurita on Mallory’s World in 3016. The duel gave rise to rumors that Morgan possessed a mystical “phantom ’Mech ability,” making it impossible for Yorinaga to defeat him. These rumors were only fueled further when Morgan stripped the Kell Hounds to a single battalion and retired to a monastery on Zaniah III. Morgan came out of retirement as the Fourth Succession War raged, and he would go on to lead the rebuilt Kell Hounds in some of the most important battles of that war and the Clan Invasion.
Whether Morgan actually possesses a mystical ability is irrelevant in the face of his vast strategic and tactical genius. Paired with his Archer, “Tempest,” he is a force to be reckoned with on and off any battlefield.
Written by Randall Neil Bills
