As Jarmila Aguilar, formerly a Captain in the 15th Marik Militia, gazed out her hotel window at the distant spaceport terminal, she began to reflect on her time in the Free Worlds League. These would be the last few hours that she would spend on a planet within League space. She had been on one League world or another for the past sixteen years, exiled here by her parents so that she could get a better education then she could have received in the Magistracy. She had not seen a member of her immediate since she had left and now she was headed back to a family that she has nearly forgotten and most certainly does not know.

Leaving the League means leaving a lot of bad memories behind, beginning with death of her husband, Enrique, to the death of her twin brother, Dane during the recently completed Marik Civil War. The death of her husband, who died during training on Oriente, hurt her deeply, especially so soon after the birth of their son, Lucius. Knowing that she would have to raise their son without a father had proved to be a daunting task, but she was succeeding admirably. Shortly after his death, she was transferred out of the 2nd Oriente Hussars and into the 15th Marik Militia.

The next two years were uneventful, as she received her promotion to Captain and took command of Striker Company of the 3rd Battalion. She was relatively happy, raising her son, training her new unit and recovering form the loss of her husband. Then came the Civil War against Janos' brother Anton and her happiness was shattered.

Her unit was sent to Berenson to blunt any offensive in that area made my Anton's forces. Shortly after the 15th Marik Militia's arrival, forces loyal to Anton, the Third Marik Militia landed on Berenson. Things did not go well from the start and the 15th was forced to retreat many times. During one of these retreats, Jarmila and her company were all but destroyed in a rear guard holding action. When she was pulled out of her cockpit, both of her legs and her back were broken. The doctors feared she would never walk again and she was evacuated back to Atreus for surgery and rehabilitation. The 15th eventually won and saved the planet, nearly destroying the Third Marik outright and taking the few survivors as prisoners of war.

On Atreus, she received the worst news that she could possibly receive. Her brother, Dante, who had been with the 3rd Defenders was dead and had been killed by his superior officers for refusing to fight against his own sister or the forces of the rightful ruler of the League. Per orders of Anton Marik, he was executed for treason. For this Jarmila wanted revenge on Anton, but that would go unrequited. The war was over now and Anton was dead at the hands of Jaime Wolf and his Dragoons. With her brother dead, there was only her son left in her life. Wanting to keep young Lucius safe while she recovered from her injuries, Jarmila arranged for her son to be sent to her cousin, Rodrigo Kasatonov, on Shiro III. His family had taken care of her and Dante when they first came to the league. Now it was time for Lucius to go to them. From Shiro III, Lucius would be escorted back to his grandmother on Royal Foxx in the Magistracy of Canopus, where she would return to after her recovery and her enlistment in the FWLM was over.

While recuperating at a military hospital, the Captain-General returned triumphant to Atreus and visited all the wounded in the many hospitals and bestowed his thanks and awards to his loyal troops. When Janos Marik came to her hospital, he came to her bed and bestowed upon her two of the highest awards that any Marik MechWarrior could receive. The first was the Crest of the Eagle, awarded to units, who fight bravely in defense of the League. The second was the Order of the Sabre, which is given individuals who fight courageously above and beyond the call of duty. Her award was even more special as she was among the small handful of non-League citizens who had won this award. Additionally, she was given a brand new Crusader to replace her privately owned Thunderbolt that she lost on Berenson.

It had taken nearly two years for her to recover, rehabilitate and retrain her body, but she had survived it all and was ready to go home. Her service to the FWLM was over, she hired a technician to help her with her new BattleMech and began her journey home. Now she was on Lopez, and had been for the last month waiting for transport to the Periphery and the Magistracy, in particular. If not for a unit of the Oriente Hussars being on planet, she would have been completely bored out of her mind. The Hussars put her and her Crusader through a rigorous regimen while she trained with them. She was glad for the distraction of the past three weeks, but her transport was here and it was time to leave.

Her two 'Mechs, the Crusader and her deceased husband's Wolverine, were loaded on the ship the previous evening along with most of her personal gear and the technician, acting as security guard, she had hired to care for the two machines. She had sent the rest of her gear by hotel shuttle to the spaceport when she checked out. The only thing she kept was her neurohelmet case and her oak walking stick. She decide she was going to walk as there was plenty of time before her scheduled 1600 HRS liftoff. Dressed in her 15th Marik Militia uniform for the last time, she exited the Tarleton Arms and made out for the spaceport on foot. It would not take long, six miles was just a good stretch of the legs and had the added benefit of being the last real exercise she would get before being trapped in space for the next several months. The journey would take past various hotels, restaurants, stand bars, storefronts, office buildings and other structures and should have proved been very boring.

After about forty-five minutes she had passed most of the hotels and was entering the shopping district that preceded the warehouse district outside the spaceport perimeter. Jarmila was just walking past the Savoy, the last hotel on the strip, when she noticed a young boy of mixed racial heritage and a middle aged black man leaving the Savoy. Normally, this would have gone unnoticed by her, but these two seemed very agitated and impatient to leave. The reason for this appeared a scat twenty seconds later ran out of the hotel, looking first in her direction, then in the direction the boy and the older man had taken. The boy saw them and took off running.

Jarmila became curious and quickened her pace as the two men took off after the boy. Something was up and she was going to find out what. At that moment, two men jumped out of an alley and grabbed the kid and pulled him into the alley, while one of the ones chasing rendered the old man unconscious with an abrupt application of a blackjack.

Jarmila was sprinting by now had come up behind the two chasemen and catching them very quickly and slightly off guard. She struck the man with the blackjack first with her aluminum helmet case on his left shoulder, then spinning around his left side and judiciously applying her walking and then the case to his face, sending him to the ground unconscious and bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth. Seeing that the second man was drawing a weapon from under his coat, she dropped her case and raised her walking stick in a two handed grip and leapt at the man. She brought the stick down at the juncture where the shoulder and neck merge, hearing the snapping of his collarbone. The man dropped the laser holdout pistol and bellowed a grunt and charged straight at Jarmila. She then spun out the way and applied a disabling blow to the back of his right knee. The man sprawled face first into the pavement and she applied another blow to his head and knocked him out.

Picking up the laser pistol, she preceded to the entry of the alley. She passed the old man, who was still breathing and blood was flowing from a cut on the side of his head. As she peered, cautiously, around the corner, she saw that the two men, both with pisols drawn, had the boy trapped in a corner by a trash dumpster. The man on the left said to the boy, "Your father had our wives and children, now we get our revenge by killing the last of his line." Raising the pistol to the level of boy's eyes, "Here ends the line of Anton Marik."

Before he could squeeze the trigger, Jarmila shot him in his gun hand, forcing him to drop his weapon. His partner turned and was about to fire when Jarmila, with cat-like quickness, fired three shots into the man. Two in the chest and one to the head, execution style. Before she could turn back to the wounded man, the boy had picked up the pistol and had it aimed at him. With tears in his eyes and anger in his voice, he said, "Why do you want to kill me? What have I done? Nothing, just because Anton Marik was my father, I have to pay for his heinous crime. Killing me does not bring your children back, nor does me killing you bring back the father I hardly knew or my dead mother and sister." Wiping away a tear with free hand, "My Uncle Janos has paid your blood money to your commander and has called me to Atreus. This has been over for over two weeks now. Just go back to what is left of your families, there has been too much death in the recent past, but it ends hear and now." As he lowers the pistol the man lunges for the boy, who raises the pistol and shoots the man in the throat, killing him instantly. "He did not have to do that. I did not want him dead," cried out the boy.

Jarmila walked over to the boy and tried to comfort him, "It was either you or him. You were quicker. Self-preservation is the purest instinct of Man, and that is all that there is to it." Wiping a the tears from his eyes "You should never like killing someone and that is a lesson you have learned this day" The boy sniffles, "Is my, Is my grandfather dead?" "No, he will be fine once he wakes up. Now, how can you say that you are Anton Marik's son when he never married? "That much is true. But he and my mother were very much in love and were not allowed to marry, because she was below his social station. My sister and I were his illegitimate children. That did not bother us, because he loved us and we loved him. In the end that was all that mattered. After what my father did to the families of Wolf's Dragoons, we had to run for our lives as their Seventh Kommando chased us around the League. They caught up to us on Shiro III about two months ago. My grandfather managed to escape, but my mother and sister were not so lucky." "Well I can understand their anger", said Jarmila, "for your father had my own brother murdered. I had no chance for revenge, because your father was dead shortly after him. I have no need for revenge with Anton dead, plus I do not make war on children", as they sirens blared in the background.

"I guess this is all over now"

"Yes it is. By the way I am Captain Jarmila Aguilar, formerly of the 15th Marik Militia. And you are?" as she extends her hand.

"My name is Seifer Almasy. Seifer Almasy Marik."

"Pleased to meet you." as she shakes his hand,"now let's go check on your grandfather."

The police and ambulances finally arrived, but not soon enough for two members of the elite Seventh Kommando of Wolf's Dragoons.