T. Finnegan, Junker

[TFinnegan]

Some time later...
...high above the orbital plane, Tau-23

Finnegan chewed his cheek and continued to glare out of the Wake's main viewport from below a heavily furrowed brow.
The tiny outpost glinted in the light of approaching CSVs. Six of them had just disembarked from the Wake's cargo bay, loaded with hull panels, structural components, and electronics.
EVA teams huddled around strobing green and blue welding torches, looking alien in thier pressure suits as stacks of panels spun slowly behind them in the ether.
This supply dump and listening post would be complete by tomorrow, and he would head back for a load of munitions and ordnance to fill it.

It wasn't the work that troubled Finn, nor the fact that he'd abruptly, and without explanation, resigned from Congress.
It wasn't the Gallic Royal insignia stamped onto every crate in his hold, nor the sneers of superiority aimed at him by many of the Gallic Junkers and docksmen with whom he associated of late.
Not even the fact that this was the sixth such depot he had helped build and supply, many of which hung deep in dangerous Kusari space.

No. These discomforts are part and parcel of a scoundrel's life. They did not irk him.
What kept him awake at all hours, stalking the bridge and scowling into the inky black was that nearly every jump put them inexorably closer to Inverness.
All of this, this 'greasing the wheels of war', was for Inverness and her peoples. His peoples.

Tim Finnegan was, as were the over two-hundred Gordonnachs in direct blood line before him, Coileach an Taobh Tuath.
Cock o' the North - Clan Chief of the House Gordon.
As overseer and de-facto leader of the Junkers of Invergordon, Tim's fathers had bargained hard for thier soveriegnity, and won it. As such, Inverness was the only non-patrolled space in Bretonia.

Now, through this grisly work for the Junkers of Gallia, Tim was paying his own dues to Lady Inverness.
He was buying her people's freedom from the coming brutal conflict which swelled and boiled in the Gallic skies behind him.
-Or so he was promised.

Robert Murphy stood behind his captain, and coughed into his fist.
"Aye Murph, lad?" asked Finn, gruffly.
"Cap'm." answered the Molly pilot of the Wake, his XO and friend. "Gunner Kelley's up in th' bloody comms array... sez e's got summin' wha' ye oughter put yer eyes 'pon, e' says."
Murphy indicated a winking amber light on the bridge comms panel with a sweep of his arm.
"E' sez it's comin' from tha' bloody Gall-Junk's Salvager there." He pointed with his chin out the viewport.
The familiar profile of a Junker Salvager stood on the far side of the depot, winking in the arclight.

Finnegan's eyebrow arched, his scowl becoming a sneer.
He unclasped his hands from behind his back, and turned to the panel.
He watched the scrambled data being shunted to him from the tower array, as it resolved itself into what was clearly a piggyback message, buried in the background chatter of the Gallic Junker's comms.

Finnegan stared daggers at the words on the screen, his fingers whitely trying to claw into the comm panel's side.
His other hand gripped tightly his antique family kiltpin.

BYDAND is a Gaelic term, usually rendered as 'steadfast', 'enduring', or 'abiding'.
It is the 'present tense, continuous' of a verb which does not have a good English translation, but is similar to the United States Marine Corps' Sempre Fidelis in that it implies being (and remaining) completely prepared and waiting to be called upon.

(Click the kiltpin for more on the Clan Gordon Highlanders, of which I am a real-life blood member)

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