The small brig of the Bastion was meant to hold rowdy crew members until they sobered up or decided to appologise to one another. It was certainly not built to hold the seemingly superhuman clanner. Even so she reclined on the bunk as Walter entered. He had insisted on keeping her as a prisoner for now, with two armed guards at all times. He waved the guards away, who at first seemed unsure as to leave him alone with the Clanner but were ultimately chased away by a scowl from the MechWarrior. Cera sat up from the bunk and looked over at Walter with a grin on her face.<br/><br/>"Greetings, Bondholder. What brings you to my humble abode?"<br/><br/>Walter felt another sting go through his head, but he held his compossure.<br/><br/>"You meant to do this, didn't you? To take away what I hold dearest..."<br/><br/>The woman raised a brow before her grin disappeared, replaced by a confused slack jaw.<br/><br/>"I meant to kill you, if that is what you mean..."<br/><br/>"No, not that. You took it away from me."<br/><br/>Her face was further contorted in confusion. "You might want to explain this to me, it seems there is some sort of cultural confusion going on here."<br/><br/>"Very well. Listen closely..."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Perkins stood at the navigator's control panel as Erich approached. He had asked for the massive MechWarrior to come. There were some issues that needed straighting out and since Walter was out of it, Erich was the closest he came to the rest of the caste. He turned slowly and smiled, his one hand on the navigator's shoulder and the other hoding a hand computer which screen was filled with notes.<br/><br/>"Erich Oststein. How nice to see you. I can't remember the last time we had a little heart to heart..."<br/><br/>He let go of the navigator and tried to think of something smart to say. But words failed him for once. Erich wasn't very fond of him to begin with, so perhaps it was better to hold one's mouth for once. He motioned over to another table, some part away from the crew.<br/><br/>"Sorry that I abruptly ended the debrief without praising your little friends. As I said, some things have eclipsed my usually sharp sense of compilation and back-patting. I have some important things to inform and ask you about. Foremost the situation with Walter..."<br/><br/>He sat down at the table and pressed a button, a coffee machine rising up from the table. It roared for a moment and the smell of freshly grounded beans filled the space around the table.<br/><br/>"As you most certainly know, he took a rather full beating this morning. The doc was frankly surprised he was even alive. Unfortunately the incident has had a rather unfortunate side effect. The explosion resulting from the SRMs within the cockpit ripped the connector to Walter's neuro-helmet which resulted in an energy backlash. He complained about ghost images and the doc tried to hook him up to the simulator, which caused him severe pain and not even a register in the hardware. To put it bluntly..."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"You were severed?"<br/><br/>Walter raised a brow at the woman. She said it as if it was a disease. "Severed?"<br/><br/>"Yeah, that's what we call it. Pretty much one in a million. Not something that we aim to do, in other words. I'm sorry for your loss, Commander."<br/><br/>He had nothing to say to that. Sorry for your loss. It summed it up pretty well. What life would he live without piloting. 'You can command just as well, Walter, from behind the comms.' Perkins said. 'Who knows, it might blow over...'<br/><br/>"Does it ever come back?"<br/><br/>She sat down again and put her hands behind her neck with a heavy sigh.<br/><br/>"Not that I know of. Most end up solahma, too old. Not the most worthy of fates. Perhaps you do it differently in the Inner Sphere."<br/><br/>Walter turned around and walked away. He had seen enough commanders being shoved behind desks, crippled and defeated, stacked away out of sight, out of mind. The other wouldn't want to be commanded from behind a desk. They needed to be lead from the front. '<em>Like a piece of spaghetti!</em>' as Bones would have said it. '<em>A military unit can only be lead from the front!</em>' The guards returned to their posts as he passed them.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"So you understand why he was so... sour. While I wouldn't want to shove Walter to the side..." Perkins pushed the filled cup over to Erich before taking his own between his cybernetic hands. "...as Old Bones always said, a military unit and a noodle can only be lead from the front. And now with the coming expansion of the company, we need frontline commanders. Especially if these Ghost Bears can actually invade the Inner Sphere. We'll be up over our necks in contracts. While I do believe Walter has the head to pilot the company from above, I need someone who can do so at the front as well."<br/><br/>He sipped his coffee and put the cup down again. He tapped the screen of the hand-comp and pushed it over to Erich.<br/><br/>"I have saved a lot of assets coming from private enterprises not tied to the company. I have sacrificed a lot to take this venture to its current point and if it falls apart because Walter just seeded a whole lot of bullshit in our ranks, I shall hold you all accountable. I have too much invested to have all of you fuck it up because you can't keep your differences apart. Look at that screen and tell me this, Erich: am I wrong?"<br/><br/>The screen displayed among other things a picture of a JumpShip, a roster of names, some sketches of an insignia of a skull and cross-bones chewing a cigar with the words "Ol' Guts'n'Bones" on a banner around it. Underneath it all was numbers. Financial numbers so vast and expqanding that it seemed impossible so much money could every be flaunted. Yet there it was, listings in the hundred-billions of C-bills. Perkins smiled, that smug smile which was filled with so much over-confidence that it was sickening.<br/><br/>"Am I wrong, Erich? Have I not invested so much money on this that I would be ready to kill every single one of you to save this company? I would be sad to do so, however. I'd rather have someone who can take command and unify this unit, make it stronger than ever."<br/><br/>He sipped his coffee, eyeing the huge man over the edge of the cup. There was a brutal honesty in his eyes.<br/><br/>"Don't you agree?"