Once the ‘Boys had cleared the field, Jon moved the master arm back to the ‘off’ position to safety his weapons. Dalton announced they’d be doing a second sweep, per the Colonel’s orders, on the double-time, to hunt for any Heavenly Sword fighters that managed to survive the complete destruction of their religious beliefs in real time. Ossie’ seemed to relax a bit, but Jon knew they didn’t have a lot of time and the easiness in the controls was only the result of his adrenalin wearing off and the corresponding neural input that came with it. He glanced around for a moment. It was now broad daylight under the steadily moving cloud layer and nobody wanted to be spotted by a low flying NPDRE helicopter patrol. Apropos, as far as they, or the Crimson Fists knew, Espia’s singular Marauder still only worked for Cassandra Jeong. However, being seen with the mercenaries they were actively hunting, far away from where they were last believed to be hiding and next to the remains of another hated enemy wasn’t going to be a good look. Still, somehow he could picture Cassandra talking her way out of it.

The elephant in the room, or rather, the Archer in the river was a problem that was yet to be addressed. None of the APCs were heavy enough to pull it and the Shadow Hawk was too light. Jon rotated to get a look at Marit’s precarious position where she had demoted herself to turret. The Von Luckner growled impatiently on the far bank. Being low to the ground, heavy and with its wide tracks, it would have been ideal, but she had made it too far to run a cable out. Jon scratched his chin and drummed his fingers on the command console, looking at the water breaking along the armored hull of the battlemech.

A few minutes passed before the winch mounted under the Marauder’s cockpit began running out cable as the chain ladder dropped from the side. As soon as Jon’s boots hit the ground, he was digging in his shirt pocket for a cigarette which he promptly lit and took a long drag before picking up the hook, throwing it over his shoulder and walking towards the riverbank. Briefly he glanced over at the absolute scene of carnage that was starkly evident under the light of day and was thankful to be upwind of it. Tires burned black under smoldering vehicle wrecks while craters still smoked in the cool morning air. It was a scent he could smell just by the sight of it. Scorched grass, spent cordite, fossil fuels and the cooking remains of the recently deceased were an aroma that he preferred not to endure. The ‘Boys moved quickly in the distance, hands pointing and legs moving with a deliberate pace. Like many times, the scene right after a battle was strangely quiet, even the wind hardly made a sound and he could feel himself being drawn into the unalterable madness of it like a hypnotic spell. He turned his head and kept walking to the edge of the water.

The Archer listed slightly in front of him, still several yards away in deeper water. He took a few more drags on the cigarette, examining the unusable and submerged tow points before flicking the butt in the water. The Shadow Hawk probably would have been helpful, but Jon didn’t particularly feel like dealing with Raven. If he could just get her to lift him up, he figured he could loop the cable over the mech’s back and then one steady pull would probably get her moving again. He knew she was watching, but he gave her a wave anyway.

---

Once the land train had finally come to a halt, Marit took a moment for the fact that they wouldn’t be vaporized to fully settle in, to safe Archie’s weapons and to survey the apocalyptic hellscape they’d created. She would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall in NPDRE HQ as they scrambled to figure out how the Knights got here. Surely they’d know immediately that it was them, right? Who else could’ve done this, a lone Marauder and some… What did the Colonel call them, ‘Rent-a-cops’? No way. If it was just a deluge of bikes and trucks, maybe, but not with the doom noodle lying gutted precariously close to critical infrastructure, possibly sending geiger counters ticking with residual radiation given what sort of people assembled the nuke. Suicide bombers likely didn’t care much about long term health risks. But with that problem solved and cleanup being infantry’s job, she could fully focus on her ‘masterpiece’.

Noticing the Marauder looking at her, she got on the comms. ”Just a hunch, probably best to stay out of the water.” If they ended up like that ancient picture of a huge crane pulling a smaller crane out of a lake, which itself was attached to a tiny crane that was attached to a car, the Colonel would probably have an aneurysm. Maybe Raven’s Shadow Hawk could’ve thrown the cable over, but as the Lance Leader he must’ve been needed elsewhere as Jon took the manual route. Returning the wave via Archie’s hand, she flicked a few switches on to turn on the external speakers left over from the policing, aehm, peacekeeping job, installed for the purpose of yelling at protesters and politely asking them to stop throwing bottles at the cockpit because all they were gonna accomplish with that was littering. ”You passing the cable or coming aboard?” The ‘Mech yelled, the speakers’ volume forgotten at the highest setting since they were last used at the depot, ”Sorry about that.” She added apologetically after lowering it to normal levels.

Checking once again that the right arm laser had cooled down, Archie started leaning toward the shore to extend his reach as much as possible. Even with the missile racks nearly empty, he was still so top heavy that the other arm couldn’t do much in the way of counterbalance, Marit instead commanding Archie to hold it out to break his fall if he actually toppled over as he reached out with his right hand for Jon to either pass the tow line or climb into the palm. It felt like a proper Mickey Mouse operation and Marit didn’t even want to know how it looked from the outside, but it was the best she could come up with. As she slowly directed Archie’s hand to Jon and the tow line, she couldn’t help but wonder how utterly screwed she would’ve been if she’d been in a Catapult.

---

Jon winced a bit as the external speaker cracked with Marit’s voice. In the corner of his eye he could see several of the ‘Boys immediately take notice and could feel fingers being pointed in their direction. This was about to become a spectacle. Her comic retreat on the volume had set the stage. The Knights might have been in a hurry, but everyone was going to watch how the next several minutes unfolded. It reminded him of being a kid, out in the country, taking dares and making bets on stupid, ludicrous or at the very least, questionable activities. Everybody’s watchin’ Jonboy, don’t fuck up!. He could hear one of the clearest sentiments from his youth echo from the back of his mind. However, this wasn’t shooting a can full of tannerite or jumping a pickup over a railroad crossing, it was towing. If there was one thing he could do as well as hit a target at range, it was dislodge shit with a tow cable.

“You the captain of this vessel?” He said with a small smirk, standing at the water’s edge and looking up at the cockpit. On a flat plane he would have been glancing up sharply, but in the machine’s current predicament, he barely had to tilt his head back. What was surprising was her knowing what to do right off the bat in extending the Archer’s arm out. Several times in the past, he’d had to tediously instruct experienced mechwarriors on exactly what to do with the controls to avoid ripping an arm off or making the situation worse with a misstep. Knowing what to do meant that she was likely smarter than the average pilot or that she had probably got stuck before. The mech groaned on the edge of its balance, straining the myomer and reaching out for him on the limits of its articulation. He wasn’t really concerned with her tipping over, it would have just been a straight drag and pull in that case. They just needed to get the cable over its back and Ossie’ would handle the rest. He waded out a few feet. The water from the mountain was sharply cold and after the heat of the cockpit was damn near shocking. He let out a shuddered breath and shook his head. It wasn’t the worst he ever felt, but was probably up there on the scale. At a minimum, the river bed was still fairly solid under human feet and he reached the mech’s massive hand with the tow cable over shoulder and hefted himself up, letting the line fall behind the wrist as he climbed aboard.

---

”That’s me. Welcome aboard. I’d say something about a knight in shining armor coming to my rescue, but that doesn’t work since you’re an externist, does it?” Ingrid might’ve disagreed had she been there, likely something about ‘The MechWarrior is the knight of a modern battlefield…’ And while the Lyran woman did sort of have a point, in those moments Marit most certainly did not feel ‘knightly’ at all. With Jon in Archie’s hand, she bent the fingers slightly to act as sort of a railing and slowly started straightening up, moving the left hand under the right as a sort of safety net just in case he slipped on the wet metal and fell out the side once she felt confident she wouldn’t topple over, vaguely remembering some diagrams about an object’s center of mass and weight vector. Fortunately her mother drilled her rigorously when it came to arm controls for the purpose of righting a fallen ‘Mech and using the arms to shield other parts of the machine from damage, otherwise they’d be here a while. ”Okay, what now?” She asked, having brought the hand with Jon in it in front of the cockpit to look directly at who she was talking to, even though it only worked one way. She thought he’d just weave the cable between the fingers so it wouldn’t slip out when he pulled on it, but the more experienced MechWarrior probably had a better idea.

It was then, as Archie straightened out and she didn’t have to fully focus on not falling and not accidentally shaking Jon out of the hand with a bad motion, that she noticed the audience. She could’ve been wrong as they were far away, but she was pretty sure she even saw some of the Boys passing something to one of them - vividly picturing a bookkeeper taking money from the betters - and at least one holding binoculars to his eyes. ”You’d think they’d have work to do.” She chuckled through the speakers, fully understanding the human urge to watch someone else’s misfortune, point and laugh.

---

Jon chuckled a bit at Marit's comment and peered over the “guardrail” she had created for him as the mech’s hand moved closer to the cockpit. He was making sure the line had run all the way out from Ossie’ and was falling where it wouldn’t snag. He swung the cable out a couple times to test how it would follow him and then glanced back over at his mech once again. Satisfied, and feeling her skeptical glance from behind the cockpit, he pointed up to answer her following question. The next part would be the trickiest, but if she could just move him over the steeper curve of the cockpit, he could ease up the rest of the way by keeping his footing inside the character lines between the armor plates. Once he got up to the laser housing and the antenna, it would be a cakewalk.

Stepping from the fingertip to the sloping armor on the top of Archer was like stepping from the very top of a ladder that was just barely tall enough to a roof that was considerably steeper than it looked from the ground. Once he had carefully located his backside on to the top of the ‘mech he sat for a moment and let a breath out, grumbling something to himself about white-knighting for the Green Knights and hanging decorations on top of the house for the holidays back home. On the plus side, the top of the machine was dry and warm from the heat of the reactor in contrast to the Espian cold that pierced through his wet clothes. He wiped the moisture from the bottom of his boots with one hand and dried them on his shirt a few times before testing whether to inch up backwards or go ahead and try to stand. Caution won out and he worked his way up unglamorously to the laser mounts before he stood up slowly between the lens housing and one of Archie’s broad missile bays letting out another huff of accomplishment.

“Whatever they’re supposed to be doin’, at least a couple of’em are gettin’ ready to lose some money.” Jon replied. There was a detectable smile in his voice triggered from the sound of Marit’s giggling through the speakers. He was fully standing on the top of the shoulder and had a clear view in all directions as he worked the cable around to the machine’s rear torso armor. The Von Luckner rumbled on the opposite bank and he knew the crew were most definitely taking bets while upstream the dam stood tall and untouched. He turned his palm over and glanced at his watch while continuing to work, noting the time. In every other direction there was nothing but open country. He pushed a wad of windblown hair out of his face with a hand wet from the tow cable and shook his head for a moment at the quiet, untouched serenity that still presided over half the valley.

“Go ahead and raise the other missile door.” He said walking behind the antenna, giving it a once-over as he passed by it. “It’ll be easier for me to climb down through there to the other hand.”

---

As Jon started climbing around the top of Archie, Marit sure was glad the ‘Mech could stand upright on its own and only required pilot input when it needed to be told whether or not it was supposed to be stable. She had a feeling that actively trying to hold it as steady as possible would be like trying to breathe normally when a doctor asks you to do so - bloody impossible, even though you were doing it five seconds earlier. Especially since she had no idea where he was and what he was doing since no camera observed the top of the ‘Mech - why would it? ”Hey, just a heads-up: If hostile air shows up, you’ll have just a few seconds to get between the top laser housings and hope.” She cautioned her rescuer as she removed the top lasers from all weapon groups and switched off her comm system for good measure before he made it up to the lasers and antennae.

But for now, her side of the work was done, leaving her free to watch the long range sensors, her eyes occasionally drifting toward the nearest infantrymen. Took some balls to be betting smokes and pocket change like nothing’s happening with a nuke likely assembled with chicken wire and duct tape five meters away from you, on top of everything that was in their job description. Balls or drugs, she wasn’t sure and she never asked. Knowing the answer wasn’t worth the risk of pissing one of them off and getting snapped in half like a twig in the Scrap Yard. ”I suppose I can take some solace in knowing that whichever way this goes, it won’t be the most embarrassing story with me as one of its protagonists, so at least from that point of view it could’ve been worse.” She verbally shrugged, wondering how much the incident would get twisted as campfire stories usually did as they were retold. ”They better give us a cut though.”

”Alright, stand clear of the doors.” She gave him a few seconds before she opened them, raising the left hand for boarding as high as she could while still being able to safely lower it with a person in it. Maneuvering it behind Archie’s back to reach the cable was a strong contender for the hardest part of her side of the operation, taking nearly a minute of small adjustments as not to drop or submerge Jon by accident, absent-mindedly humming a happy tune to help her focus on the task. For the last two meters, she completely relied on Jon’s guidance to get him close enough to reach the cable as she could barely make it out on the compressed 360 degree view in her neurohelmet. ”What next, connect it to the cable up front and get you back to shore?”

---

Climbing down through the open missile bay was much easier than the careful ascent on the other side. The Archer’s designers were considerate enough to include some footholds for the technicians to be able to move around when the machine was in the field. It wasn’t much though and Jon still stepped down carefully through the steep angle. Falling would be bad enough, but there was a decent chance of hitting the side of the mech on the way down and being knocked out or breaking a bone before even hitting the water. He glanced at one of the warheads nestled comfortably in its tube briefly while Marit expressed her apparent concern about what others might think of the whole incident. He gave a snort of amusement, himself being long past caring what anyone thought about much of anything. “I doubt they’ll give up much,” He said, referring to the ‘Boys potential winnings and stepping down to the waiting forearm. “but they might for you.” He continued across the machine’s hands back to where he had started.

The tow hook fastened to the cable with a satisfying clack and Jon proceeded to pull out the remaining slack he had given himself to work with. “Yep, that’s it.” He replied and firmly gave one final tug on the line. His mind obliged him of the work with the mandatory male pronouncement issued when fastening down or towing anything securely: That’s not goin’ anywhere.. He mouthed the words, but didn’t say them out loud as he inspected the loop they had made. Archie looked set to be the anchor in a tug-of-war match with the cable looped over one shoulder like a giant sling. Once he started reeling in the rest of the line, everything would tighten down nicely and the pull would come from her waist. His eyes followed the cable back to the base of his machine. There wasn’t much left. “Good thing you didn’t beach this much farther back,” He said and stooped down for a moment, glancing at the water, then back over his shoulder at the mirrored glass of her cockpit housing. There was a teasing and matching serious note in his tone, like she had hung two wheels off the side of a cliff.

---

”How so?” She asked for clarification regarding the kickbacks, not expecting to get anything, only having said it as a joke. Not like anyone she knew would share, herself included. Who ever heard of a mercenary giving money to anyone who wasn’t under their employ or of their own blood anyway? But with the cable finally in place, she rocked Archie side to side to properly settle it before putting strain on it. Last thing she wanted to do was put a crown on this by getting some antenna or camera sheared off by the tow line. ”What, you can’t swim either?” She picked up on and matched Jon’s tone as he commented on the fortunate position of her bogging down. ”But it’s nice to know I’ve mastered the art of failing successfully. It’s a learning experience, what I’m here for after all.” That was a capital lie if she ever told one, none of this was what she came to the Green Knights for, but what was that saying old people sometimes quoted? ‘Improvise, adapt, overcome.’?

Having gotten the all-clear from Jon, she first transferred him back to the right hand and then started the careful process of leaning and stretching the war machine to get him back to dry land, now with the added challenge of not tangling up the tow line. At least the second time around she knew what worked and what wouldn’t from grabbing him initially, somewhat speeding up the process. ”So about pulling: Full throttle when you start and shift weight off the lifting foot?” She asked, her tone making it immediately obvious it was a guess pretty much based on pulling a stuck boot out of the mud. Her first and only previous ‘Mech was a 55 tonner, not counting the clapped-out, stripped down Locust the Sons had converted into a training ‘Mech for teaching the very basics, which didn’t offer a lot of opportunities to get stuck like that over a year-long - well, short - stint, and neither did the two years on Espia spent almost exclusively around built-up areas. Falling down was an immediately obvious hazard for a BattleMech, but given that the weight and ground pressure of even a Heavy ‘Mech like the Archer was comparable to that of many ground vehicles and the ‘Mech had more ways of freeing itself, she never gave towing much thought.

---

Jon stopped by the footpad to towel off the best he could before getting back in the cockpit. RTB with a wet ass wasn’t at the top of his list for the day, but neither was active nuclear weapons on the field. He stood under the idling hum of one of the mech’s giant turbines and let the air vent over him while looking back at Marit and then at the cable, lying in the tall fieldgrass leading out to the water, ready as ever. He patted down his wet clothes quickly, but he could feel the sense of urgency growing in the air and even over the loud hum of the Marauder’s engine, he thought he could hear Sergeant Dalton barking orders. The pace of the infantry likewise picked up tempo by quite a few steps. It was time to go. He chunked the pack in the small locker behind the mech’s ankle and headed up the chain ladder.

“Time to get this show on the road, Hollywood”

Dalton’s voice came through Jon’s helmet speakers on a tight beam almost as soon as he had put it on. His lips twisted a little in smug amusement that he’d gained yet another nickname. “Copy that, Buckshot.” Jon replied. He shook the stick with one hand gently and watched the cable react to the slight movement while tightening his belts back down with his other hand. He reopened the direct line back to Marit: “Once you feel the pull, give it steady throttle, we want to keep some tension in the line, if it slacks out then you might fall forward and then I’m just gonna have to drag you. It’s not a good look.”

The Marauder fidgeted a bit, almost cognisant of the work it was presently engaged, but agreeably assumed its characteristic posture with a readiness in the reverse-jointed legs. Jon rotated the torso, lifting the cable slightly from the ground and very gingerly tread in place, watching it tighten through the side glass as he reversed the throttle just enough for a step that pulled it up out of the water; tight and just on the edge of his 75 tons. He could see the cable cinch down at the loop they made and he carefully straightened the machine’s position when he could feel her weight through the helmet like it was on the edge of his heels. Recovering a mech wasn’t like recovering a vehicle, particularly one with wheels that could be angled and turned to assist. A battlemech’s articulation often didn’t leave a lot of margin for creativity, particularly the bigger ones and it was very easy to cause a fall. The Archer was at least a humanoid type, which made things simpler. Walkers like the Marauder or Catapult were a colossal pain in the ass. “Get ready.”

Ossie’ eased back onto its haunches at first, pulling without taking a step. The footpads sank and gripped firmly into the dry land beneath them and the heat built up rapidly like a car holding a high idle. Once Jon could feel the full weight of the other mech in the controls, he lightly reversed on the throttle using only his fingertips until he heard the turbines ramp into high rpm behind him. He didn’t think it would take much to dislodge her, but he’d been surprised before.

---

With Jon back shoreside and mounting up, she switched the speakers off and went about preparing for the pull, positioning Archie’s right arm under the cable to prevent it from slacking and stepping on it once she got moving. On his question, Marit used the left hand to signal a thumb up to confirm she was ready to go, waiting to feel the pull. The first attempt turned out to be a damp squib as she missed her mark, too late on the throttle and not achieving much except having Bitching Betty yell at her about myomer strain again. The second attempt was a lot better, the mud finally releasing the BattleMech from its grasp and Archie scrambled out of the river, Marit not daring to stop until a dozen paces from the water on what looked like solid enough ground, and even then shifting Archie’s weight from one foot to the other to settle him and taking two more steps to make sure she was clear while the tow line was still in place in case the muddy ground wasn’t done being annoying.

”My hero. You’re drinking on me tonight.” She said on the direct line after making sure the speakers had been switched off, matching Jon’s earlier semi-serious, teasing tone. Not like there’d be much to drink at a junkyard or like Jon didn’t have the appearance of an impartial corporate contractor to keep up elsewhere. To complete the spectacle, Marit turned Archie toward the few remaining spectators and briefly aimed down, leaning Archie’s torso forward and effectively making him bow like an actor at the end of a performance. With a little bit of BattleMech yoga to extract the most out of the limited articulation of the arm, she managed to twist it in such a way that allowed her to access the tow hook with some help from open missile doors but without any inputs from the pilot. ”I’ll get the line, going off comms for a minute.” She noted before undoing the seat straps, disconnecting the cooling vest hoses and taking off her helmet. Digging out a pair of work gloves and a pry bar from a storage compartment, she clambered out of Archie’s top hatch, immediately shuddering at the change of air temperature. Slow and steady she reached the hook, working the cable loose with the pry bar to allow her to disconnect the loop before grabbing a firm hold of something with both hands and looking down at the war machine’s feet, wincing at the sight of a thick coating of mud going halfway up the ankle joint. Retracing her steps back to the hatch, she swept the worst of the salty rain off herself before making a hasty retreat to the dry and warmth of Archie’s cockpit. ”Looks like 45 minutes of work with a long-handle brush and a firehose down there. Right, let’s go be useful, shall we?“ She noted once she got back into the cockpit, switching to the lance-wide channel. ”Okay, I’m moving again. If I get any bright ideas like that again, kick me.”