DAY 97 — 14:12 (LOCAL)
The Union's mech bay still smelled like morning violence—hot armor, scorched seals, coolant sweating out of hairline cracks. Overhead cranes groaned as panel sections came off in slow, careful lifts. Rook and Rafe had a rigged diagnostic cradle under the Orion and a half-laid line of cable snaking toward the Dire Wolf like a vein.
Moonjaw stood bruised but upright: Dire Wolf, Highlander, Awesome, Marauder, Orion—all of them wearing the kind of damage that didn't look heroic up close. It looked like dents where someone had tried to put you in the ground and failed.
Dack didn't linger.
He walked out of the bay with his suit half unzipped and sweat cooling on his skin, boots thudding on steel. Lyra fell into step beside him without asking, slate in hand, eyes already doing the math of the ship and the money and the next problem.
"She's ready," Lyra said.
Dack nodded once. "Good."
Lyra didn't push. She just keyed the corridor camera feed up on her slate as they walked—Helena in her room, seated, posture straight, hands folded like she was waiting to be called into court.
The door to the secured compartment opened with a soft hydraulic hiss. The lock clicked behind them with the clean finality of a gun being made safe.
Helena Varrik sat at the bolted table, hair pulled back, plain ship clothes, face bare. Without the theatrics—without the coat, without the title—she looked younger than "Mother Lark" had ever sounded. Still sharp. Still controlled.
Her eyes lifted to Dack.
Lyra stayed by the door, camera light blinking in the corner.
Dack sat down across from Helena and didn't waste breath.
"The middle," he said.
Helena's mouth twitched faintly, like she'd expected the word.
"Not the beginning," Dack added. "Not the end. The part where you became what you were."
Helena held his stare for a long beat. Then she nodded once, slow.
"Fine," she said. "You want the machinery."
She took a breath that didn't calm her so much as set her spine in place.
"It started with a lesson," Helena said. "After Ronan moved on to Selena, I learned something important."
Dack didn't move.
Helena's gaze sharpened. "Men like Ronan don't fear anger. They don't even fear hate. They fear systems—things they can't charm or threaten or outfight."
Lyra's stylus began to move on her slate.
Helena continued. "So I stopped trying to be the woman he regretted. I became the problem he couldn't outshoot."
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "How."
Helena leaned back slightly, eyes flicking not away from Dack, but through him—into the part of her life where she'd stopped pretending she could be clean.
"I went looking for the people who bought outcomes," she said. "Not mercenaries. Not pirates. The ones who wore civ clothes, smiled politely, and left a room smelling like debt."
"Featherline," Lyra said quietly.
Helena's eyes slid to Lyra for a second, then back. "Featherline was one face. HRR was another. The name changes based on who needs plausible deniability. The method stays the same."
Dack's fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "And they wanted you."
Helena gave a thin, humorless smile. "They wanted someone who understood both sides of a ledger. Someone who could stand in a room with a pirate and not look disgusted, then stand in a room with a procurement executive and not look impressed."
Her voice went colder. "They wanted someone who could move dirty work without leaving dirty fingerprints."
Dack said, "So you volunteered."
Helena didn't flinch. "I offered them Ronan's schedule."
Silence thickened.
Lyra's stylus stopped for a heartbeat, then resumed.
Helena didn't dress it up. "I didn't walk into their world as a victim. I walked in as a proposal. I said: I can give you an asset. I can give you a machine. I can give you leverage."
Dack stared at her. "And they used you."
"They measured me," Helena corrected. "Then they accepted me."
A breath.
"That was the first lie," Helena said. "I told myself I was controlling the deal. I wasn't. I was just useful enough that they didn't crush me immediately."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "They made you an asset."
Helena nodded once. "Eventually. Not at first. At first, I was a liaison. A fixer. A woman who could walk into ugly places and make men do what they were already inclined to do."
Her mouth tightened. "Then I became the thing they moved."
Lyra's eyes lifted. "When did the title start."
Helena's gaze flicked to the camera and back. "The title came when I learned to stop begging for respect and start enforcing it."
Dack didn't blink. "Mother Lark."
Helena's lips pressed into a line. "It wasn't a name. It was… a role."
She spoke more slowly now, careful, like listing parts in a build plan. "There were smaller groups first. Raiders on the edge of Harrow's Wake. Independent thugs. People who didn't have a flag, just hunger."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "You funded them."
"Yes," Helena said. "Not because I liked them. Because they were deniable."
Lyra asked, "What did you give them."
Helena's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Work. Targets. A cut of salvage. Enough ammunition and spare parts to keep them desperate and loyal."
Dack's tone didn't change. "And you got what."
Helena looked him dead in the eye. "I got a network that would kill when asked and disappear when told."
Silence.
Dack leaned back slightly. "Kess."
Helena's jaw tightened. "Kess was later. Kess was when I stopped using nameless raiders and started buying professionals who thought they were criminals."
Lyra's voice stayed clinical. "Explain the transition."
Helena nodded once. "Once Ronan died, the salvage and procurement vultures descended. Everyone wanted something from his wake. Not just the Dire Wolf—his routes, his caches, the contacts he'd built."
Her eyes hardened. "And I realized something else."
Dack's gaze stayed fixed.
Helena's voice went quiet. "Ronan's death didn't feel like enough. Not when he'd died without looking at me one last time."
Dack's mouth tightened.
Helena didn't apologize for it. "So I wanted his name erased. His machine buried. His legacy dismantled piece by piece."
Dack's voice was ice. "That's why you tried to take the Dire Wolf."
Helena nodded. "Yes."
Lyra's stylus scratched again.
Helena continued. "But taking a Clan assault mech isn't like stealing a truck. You can't just send idiots. You send someone who understands how people respond to fear and chaos."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Kess."
Helena leaned forward a fraction. "Kess was a thief with a raider's mask. He could make a strike look like noise. He could make a targeted kill look like random brutality."
Lyra asked, "How did you find him."
Helena's mouth curled. "He found me, in a way. He was sniffing around procurement chains, thinking he could steal from the same trough the big houses drank from."
Her gaze sharpened. "He didn't understand that trough had teeth."
Dack said nothing.
Helena kept going. "I offered him a job: retrieve Ronan's Dire Wolf. Clean the site. Bring the machine to a pickup. He'd get paid enough to buy his own little kingdom."
Dack's eyes went colder. "And he decided to kill me if he got the chance."
Helena's mouth twitched, faint. "Of course he did."
Lyra's expression didn't change. "You expected betrayal."
"I expected humanity," Helena said. "Kess wasn't unique. He was predictable."
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "Then he learned I existed."
Helena's eyes tightened. "He learned you existed."
Silence.
Helena exhaled. "That was my second mistake. I'd believed Ronan's life ended with Ronan. I didn't account for the son who survived him."
Dack's jaw flexed once.
Helena continued, "Kess tried to turn his retrieval into a trap for you. He used raider cover to keep attention low. He wanted you dead, the Dire Wolf taken, and the story to be that the Periphery ate another merc."
Dack's stare stayed fixed. "And I met Taila."
Helena's eyes flicked—brief hesitation. "Yes."
Dack's voice went colder. "You say you didn't plan her." He knew the truth, he just wanted to shake her.
"I didn't," Helena said, and there was something like irritation in it—at the universe, at the messy unpredictability of people. "Taila was a complication created by Kess's methods. Not mine."
Lyra's tone stayed sharp. "But you didn't stop it."
Helena met Lyra's stare for a second. "No."
Then she looked back at Dack. "Because at that point, I was already inside the machine. Stopping it would have meant exposing myself. And I still believed exposure was worse than blood."
Dack didn't argue. He didn't shout. He let that admission hang like a hook.
"Now Sable," he said.
Helena's posture tightened.
"Sable wasn't a thief," Helena said. "Sable was… a cleaner. A man who understood how to remove problems in ways that didn't leave evidence."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "Black Knight."
Helena nodded once. "Yes."
Lyra's stylus paused, then resumed. "Why him."
Helena's eyes hardened. "Because Kess failed."
Dack's stare didn't move.
Helena continued. "When Kess died and the Dire Wolf stayed with you, I felt the ground shift under me. Not emotionally—operationally. People who'd accepted me as useful started questioning whether I was becoming a liability."
Lyra's voice was quiet. "So you escalated."
Helena nodded. "I gave them Sable. I gave them a promise: I will fix this."
Dack's tone didn't change. "And you wanted me captured."
Helena's eyes held his. "At first I wanted you dead. Then I wanted you alive."
Dack's face didn't change, but the air in the room got colder.
Helena didn't soften her words. "Dead would have ended the problem. Alive would have ended… something else."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "Your pride."
Helena's mouth twitched. "Yes."
Dack's voice was blunt. "You wanted to watch it."
Helena's gaze stayed on him. "I wanted the last thing Ronan left to understand what it felt like to be erased."
Silence.
Lyra's stylus stopped again. She didn't look up. She just wrote.
Dack leaned back, still controlled. "So you built a guard."
Helena nodded once. "By then, I wasn't just paying raiders. I was moving procurement. I was keeping certain routes quiet. I was delivering salvage and information to people who thought I belonged to them."
Her voice turned sharp. "They don't reward you with freedom. They reward you with a leash that looks expensive."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Your personal guard."
Helena's mouth tightened. "They were mine in the way a knife is yours when someone puts it in your hand and tells you which throat to cut."
Lyra asked, "And the Atlas."
Helena's eyes flicked away for the first time, then back, jaw set. "The Atlas was never mine."
Dack didn't blink. "Explain."
Helena's voice went colder. "Procurement wanted a symbol. They wanted me to be intimidating enough that raiders obeyed and contractors didn't get ideas. They put me in an Atlas because it made people listen."
Lyra's voice stayed clinical. "A cage that walked."
Helena nodded once. "Exactly."
Dack's tone stayed flat. "That's why it didn't have your colors."
Helena's mouth tightened. "It wasn't allowed to."
The admission landed clean—no drama, just the ugly truth: even "Mother Lark" had been painted in someone else's paint.
Dack stared at her. "So when you stepped onto that pad—when Sable showed up with raiders—"
Helena cut in, voice sharper. "That wasn't a random raid."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "It was you."
Helena nodded once. "It was the last attempt to take you cleanly."
Lyra's stylus moved faster.
Helena's gaze stayed locked to Dack. "Sable used raider cover because it let him approach without broadcasting who he was. His hired lances wore cheap paint and ugly tactics because it made locals assume it was just another pirate mess."
Dack's voice was ice. "Until he spoke."
Helena nodded. "Until he spoke."
Silence tightened.
Helena continued. "And when you started winning—when you and your people didn't fold—when Sable's trap started collapsing—"
Dack's gaze didn't move. "You stepped in."
Helena's mouth pressed thin. "Yes."
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "Why the batchall."
Helena's eyes sharpened, and for the first time her composure wasn't only control—it was something like sincerity, thin and dangerous.
"Because Sable wanted to kill you," Helena said. "And I wanted you captured."
Lyra's eyebrows lifted slightly.
Helena didn't look at Lyra. "Sable is not loyal. He is effective. He would have killed you and called it done."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "You stopped him."
Helena nodded once. "I made it a batchall because Clan words carry weight with Clan ears—and because even Inner Sphere killers hesitate when something sounds like 'honor' in front of witnesses."
Lyra's voice was quiet. "So you used honor as a leash."
Helena's mouth twitched. "Everyone uses something."
Dack's stare stayed cold. "And the terms."
Helena's eyes locked on his. "If I won, you powered down and let my people take you. All of you. If you won, my guard powered down and let you take me."
Dack said nothing.
Helena continued, voice low. "I expected to win."
Dack's mouth tightened slightly. "And you lost."
Helena's eyes didn't flinch. "Yes."
Dack leaned forward a fraction. "Sable tried to kill me anyway."
Helena's jaw clenched. "Because he's a dog that bites when it's hungry."
Lyra's stylus paused. "And you ordered everyone to stop."
Helena's gaze hardened. "Because I had given my word."
A beat.
"And because," Helena added, quieter, "if I let him break the terms in front of my guard, I become weak. And weak assets don't last."
Dack sat back, absorbing it.
Then he asked the part that mattered now.
"Why did you survive," he said. "Why didn't your handlers kill you the moment you got captured."
Helena's face went still.
Then she gave him the ugliest truth yet.
"Because they thought they could get me back," she said. "Because they thought you were still small enough to be corrected."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "And when that failed."
Helena's voice turned flat. "Sanitize."
Dack's tone stayed blunt. "They were going to kill you."
Helena nodded once. "Yes."
"And you knew," Dack said.
Helena held his stare. "I suspected."
Dack leaned back slightly. "So when you called that batchall, you weren't only trying to take me."
Helena didn't answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Lyra spoke, calm but sharp. "You were trying to win before the machine decided you were disposable."
Helena's mouth tightened. "Yes."
Silence settled.
Dack stared at her for a long moment, then spoke, blunt and final. "That's the middle."
Helena nodded once, throat working. "Yes."
Dack didn't soften. "You still haven't told me what you know about Selena's disappearance."
Helena's face tightened at her sister's name. "That's the end," she said quietly. "That's the part that's still moving."
Lyra's voice was cool. "Next, then."
Helena's eyes flicked to Lyra. "You're not going to kill me."
Lyra didn't blink. "Not if you stay useful."
Helena's gaze returned to Dack. "And you?"
Dack's answer was simple. "You help me find Selena. You help me burn Featherline. You get to keep breathing while you do it."
Helena swallowed once.
Then, because she couldn't help herself, she said the one thing that slipped out like it wasn't planned.
"You're like him," Helena murmured.
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Don't."
Helena's mouth tightened. "Not the cheating. Not the cruelty."
A pause.
"The steadiness," she said. "The way you look at a problem like it's already dead, you just haven't picked the angle yet."
Dack held her gaze.
He didn't give her comfort.
But he didn't explode either.
"Back in the room," he said.
Helena stood, controlled.
Lyra opened the door. Cameras watched. Locks waited.
Helena paused at the threshold, and for the first time, her voice sounded almost human.
"I didn't plan to end up here," she said quietly. "I planned to end you."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "Plans change."
Helena nodded once, then stepped through.
The door sealed. The lock clicked. The cameras blinked.
Helena was contained again—no longer a myth in an Atlas, just a woman with blood on her hands and a chain of names in her head.
Dack turned and walked back toward the mech bay.
He didn't say anything to Lyra until they reached the threshold where the heat and smell of machines hit again.
Then he spoke, low.
"Pull every mention of Featherline out of that ledger core," Dack said. "Every route. Every alias. Every handler signature."
Lyra nodded. "Already doing it."
Dack's gaze drifted to the Dire Wolf, waiting under work lights like an old beast refusing to die.
"And Lyra," he added.
"Yeah?"
"If Selena's alive," Dack said, "Featherline didn't just take my mother."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "They took leverage."
Dack nodded once. "And I'm done being leverage."
He climbed the ladder into the Dire Wolf's cockpit later, the way he always did when he needed a hard place to think. The instruments glowed. The air smelled like warm metal.
He let one private line surface—just to keep the pace straight.
Day ninety-seven.
Then he pushed it back down and started planning what came next, because now he understood the shape of the machine that had built Helena…
…and the shape of the knife he'd need to cut it open.