BattleTech / MechWarrior Fan Fiction ❯ KNIGHT OF THE STAR LEAGUE ❯ The Pulse ( Chapter 1 )

KNIGHT OF THE STAR LEAGUE

 

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except Yoko Hachiman.

 

Notes: I intent to introduce psychic powers in this story along with the use of Robotech-type technology. There is transformable Mechs in Battletech and it is not a too long stretch to imagine psychic piloted transformable Mechas.

 

 

Chap 1: The pulse.

 

 

“I have always wondered how Yoko came into being. I mean, it's obvious that she was a stranger, a foreigner. Even on Luthien, in full kimono, she would have been a “Gaijin”. One night, I asked her point-blank where she came from. She gazed at me with that `Look'. You know the one that seemed to pierce your very soul. She smiled and then she said that she simply “fell into being”. If only I could forget the impression that she was laughing her head off at me…”

 

“Memories from a warrior” 3050 by Ardan Sortek.

 

 

The mountain bike was eating the rough road like an ogre on a feast of babies. The long black-haired girl was laughing as she confronted her skill and endurance against the natural obstacles. She was almost the stereotypical Japanese beauty: Long and shining black hair, deep black eyes, almond eyes, delicate features and pale yellowish skin.

 

Yoko Hachiman was a 16 years old young girl and the only daughter of a modest Samurai family of Tokyo. She was due to enter college next term. She had worked very hard to obtain a bourse and her future career as technician was more and more in her reach. Without any incident and if she maintained her level of work, nothing could stop her to repay the sacrifices of her family for her education. She smiled as she remembered the pride of her father and her mother when she showed them the results of her final test.

 

This pride was the reason of her presence in the wilderness. She had decided to take her vacation in solo by roughing out a little with her bike. Those last days have been marvelous. She had visited farms, prayed in old temples, discovered out of the way hot springs and talked with old and gentle folks.

 

But the best was that she could test herself in the semi-hidden Dojos of the rural Japan. As the last of her bloodline, she had taken on herself to honor her ancestors and taken on the responsibility of her familial Daisho. She was a beginner of course but she could perceive the pleasure of the various Senseis encountered along her travel seeing a young modern girl acknowledging her inheritance.

 

She was accelerating to take a jump over a bump on the road when it happened. Her eyes widened as something deep inside her being screamed “DANGER!” into her mind.

 

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On Terra, original world of all humanity, a `little problem' happened in one of the many stations responsible of sending information across the universe. From the reform by Jerome Blake, the network of Hyper-pulse Generators (HPG) had evolved into a powerful oligarchic society called Comstar. The HPG functioned on the same principle as the FTL ships of the Inner Sphere and enabled almost instant transfer of information at stellar range.

 

Strictly neutral they assured the diffusion of information across the whole Inner Sphere. With time rituals that were only window-dressing for the mass became dogmas. The average acolyte was sure that the HPG and many Black Technology machines couldn't function correctly without the proper incantations.

 

The `little problem' was a surge in the primary circuits of the HPG in Japan. The only Acolyte present was terrified by what was happening and loose precious seconds before warning his superior. While the poor member of Comstar tried to explain what was happening to the Adept, the surge began to wreck the internal program of the Pulse-gun. The large machine pointed itself in the firmament and its capacitors quickly reached maximal charge and then finally overloaded.

 

The Kearny-Fuchida system of Faster-Than-Light technology was based on the opening of a rift between `Normal Space' and `Hyper Space'. The so-called `Hyper Space' was another dimension that was very poorly understood by the scientists and so they ignored that it could be accessed by quite a big number of other dimensions. By a freak circumstance, Terra was in the same `relative' position as the Earth of Yoko and the HPG generator was built exactly where the young girl was.

 

When the HPG overloaded, it had a result that no scientists could have even thought of. On the exterior it was just a nice pyrotechnic effect: A blue halo which burst to the infinity of space. A micro fraction of an instant before, the maelstrom of energy broke through `Normal Space' and then ripped an overture in another foreign `Normal Space' through `Hyper Space'. With the speed of the thought the pulse of energy reached beyond the dimensional boundaries of the Battletech universe and seeped in another one on the same geographical area.

 

The energy caught in its bosom a young girl on a mountain bike. Normally, it wouldn't have any effect, but the young girl wasn't a normal girl. All of humanity had the potential of Psychic powers within its genes. By Fate or Destiny, Yoko Hachiman was one of those which had a more developed psychic sensibility than the average human. The HPG pulse reacted with the latent psychic teenager by encapsulating her within the energy matrix. The polarity inversed by itself and the pulse regained its original dimension bringing within it the young earthling. Yoko Hachiman simply disappeared without any trace as she was jumping an obstacle on a rural road.

 

From its point of origin the uncontrolled energy discharge and its living cargo rode the still overloaded HPG Gun and were emitted into space via `Hyper Space'. They reached an unprecedented distance due to the supplemental energy. The pulse could have hit matter anywhere in the vast space of the Inner Sphere but it hit a planet somewhere in the Periphery along the frontier of the Outworlds Alliance and the energy matrix destabilized, releasing its passenger.

 

From Yoko's perception the travel had been instantaneous. One second she was freaking in fear because of an abrupt sensation of danger and about to hit the road after his jump, the second after she was a few feet above a grassy trail somewhere else, still in terror. The fear and the sudden surprise made her fumbled her landing and she kissed the ground with a nice velocity. She was still stunned on the ground by what happened when it hit her.

 

A massive nausea submerged her with a major case of disorientation and she threw up her lunch on the grass as she felt her brain melting under a headache of nuclear proportion. After managing to recover her wits she looked around her.

 

`Where on Earth I am now?'

 

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Notes: A revised chapter. Better than the first draft.

 

The little annotation at the beginning came from many sources in various books. I have always found fascinating those little vignettes that showed a glimpse of the universe.

 

I read quite a few fan fictions about Battletech but none take into account the various sources of their imagery of the Battlemechs. I didn't want a crossover but I wanted to introduce all that contributed to create the Battletech Universe.

 

Name: Yoko Hachiman. Affiliation: periphery. Age: 16 years (75 points). Height: 1m55. Weight: 55 kg. Hair: black. Eyes: black.

 

History: Yoko Hachiman is born an only child in a modest samurai family of Tokyo. Her father worked as a specialized technician in an electronic factory and her mother stayed at home. Although not rich, they managed to give her a good education. Always capable to take of herself even in the wilderness, Yoko strives to repay her parents for their sacrifices and honor her ancestors by taking the familial Daisho as the last heir in her bloodline. She managed to obtain a bourse for her future career of technician discovering that she has a natural aptitude with machinery. Strangely she obtained this bourse because of her amazing work in mythology but beggars can't be difficult. During her early adolescence she caught the attention of the heir of an industrial empire and discovered her amazing talent in aircraft by flying his personal airplane during a date. Very bright student, she didn't neglect the social aspect of her education by entering a multitude of school-clubs and approaching the street life of her neighborhood with caution. She is now ready to enter college and decide to take a vacation in the wilderness in solo as a gift for herself. She disappeared without a trace.

 

Attributes (50 points): value/mod/max.

Strength: 4/0/8 (fair). Body: 5/0/8 (good). Dexterity: 7/-1/8 (remarkable).

Reflexes: 5/0/8 (good). Intelligence: 6/0/8 (advanced). Willpower: 6/0/8 (advanced).

Charisma: 6/0/9 (advanced). Edge: 8/-1/9 (excellent). Social Standing: 3/+1/9 (middle class).

Initiative: 5 + 2d10. Walk: 9 m. Run/evade/disengage: 19 m. Sprint: 38 m. Fatigue: 6.

Base target number: walking/standing (6), run/evade/sprinting/disengage (11), surprised (5).

 

Initial Traits: poverty (-1 point, 100 C-bills), natural aptitude/technician (1 point, +4 to link attributes for skill advancement) and contact (1 point, lost because of the circumstances).

 

Traits (25 points) : allergy (-1 point, to any milk-based products, violently ill and nauseous), poorly equipped (-1 point, you comes from early 21° century earth), ambidextrous (+2 points, can use both hand equally, no off hand penalty), attractive (+1 point, -1 to -2 TN modifier in any CHA-related action checks), animal empathy (+1 point, affinity with animals, bonus -2 with all actions checks about animals ), brave (+1 point, TN reduced by 2 with shock and fear), fast learner (+3 points, +2 bonus to link attributes for skills), fit (+3 points, +2 modifier with any skill roll with the body-reflexes-strength link attributes), G-tolerance (+1 point, -2 TN modifier in high gravity), good hearing (+1 point, -1 TN modifier all hearing-based perception checks), good vision (+1 point, -2 TN modifier all vision-based perception checks), natural aptitude/piloting (+1 point, +4 to link attributes for skill advancement), night vision (+1 point, reduce TN modifiers by half with darkness), pain resistance (+2 points, not stunned by grazing wounds and reduce the total TN modifier for all wounds by 1), poison resistance (+1 point, resistant to poison, alcohol and intoxicants, -2 TN modifier to knockout checks, AV 2 versus incapacitating poisons and AV 1 versus lethal poisons), proud heritage (+1 point, samurai family, only in Draconis Combine, -1 bonus in some situations), sixth sense (+4 points, -3 TN perception check to detect surprise, gut feeling), special item (+1 point, Daisho familial with katana and wakizashi) and toughness (+2 points, the wound value of all wounds is reduced by 1).

 

Initial Skills : scrounge (bonus : +1), survival (bonus : +0), career/technician (bonus : +0), interest/bushido (bonus : +1), technician/ICE (bonus : +1), first aid (bonus : +0), academic/mythology (bonus : +0), computers/operation (bonus : +0), street-wise/periphery bonus : +0), acting (bonus : +0), art/painting (bonus : +0), language/Japanese (native, bonus : +3), language/English (secondary, bonus : +2), language/Chinese Mandarin (bonus : +0), martial art/aikido (bonus : +0), piloting/aircraft (bonus : +1), blades (bonus : +0).

 

Equipment : her familial Daisho (1,2 kg), a medical kit (250 g), a basic field kit (backpack with one tent, a sleeping bag, a mattress, a lighter, an electric lamp, an emergency blanket, a knife, a canteen and two days of food, 5 kg), a cellular phone (do not function, no net-phone), some clothes (1 coat, 1 dress, some underwear, interior footwear, 1 pants, 1 running suit, 2 shirts, 1 short, 2 skirts and 1 sweatshirt), a personal music set (a walk-man, she will have a problem later with the battery), a bicycle (cross-country type), some print media (2 science-fiction novels), a leather vest (1.2 kg) and a pair of hiking leather boots (0.8 kg).

Money: 10 C-bills.

Armor:

Type A: leather vest. AV (M/B/E/X): 1/1/0/1.

Type C: leather boots. AV (M/B/E/X): 1/1/0/1.

Weapons: AP/Damage Type Range Shots Weight Notes

Katana: 1/2d6 melee none none 1 kg -1 TN.

Wakizachi: 1/1d6 melee none none 200 g -1 TN.