Battling the Present to Save the Future: prologue.

19 March, 2564


When Mitchell Calderon woke up, it was to see his mother's careworn face.

"Mitchell, thank God."

Mitchell blinked, looking around then surged upright. "The Concordat! Is it okay, is it safe?"

"I—yes, Mitchell, it is." Caterina looked over to the doctor. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"We were jumping back to Taurus…" Mitchell winced. "What happened?"

"Your jumpship spent five days in Jump. Most of the crew was unaffected, but some… Well two died and you've been in a coma for the last week."

"Last week…" Mitchell added up the numbers. "Well, that's an interesting birthday present."

"For me, the greatest," His mother said. "You rest. The doctors rule here, not a lowly protector, and they said I could only stay for a few moments."

"Yes…" Mitchell said. "I am rather tired… Perhaps later tonight." He faked a smile as his mother left.

Our nation has less than a lifetime to live as we knew it. He'd been suspended, seeing the future.

A future of nightmare. The Star League, formed, and the armies of the Inner Sphere unleashed on them, unleashing fusion and biological hell on his countrymen and every other periphery power. Grinding them down. Crushing their economies… And then going on to struggle for dominance, until the First Lord was brought down by an Amaris.

The fool deserved it for trusting him. Nothing good ever came out of the Rim Worlds.

More war, entire worlds burning, until he looked out upon a world, in 3025 where gear seen as primitive in his time was nearly irreplaceable.

And it was real. Mitchell knew it. Pity I can't tell anyone about it, or I'd be quietly locked away.

He snorted. The hell of it was, if he wanted vengeance?

Just letting the First and Second Succession Wars go on would do more to the Inner Sphere than the Inner Sphere had done to Taurus.

But you also saw the children burn, the worlds left to die, the last of the living gasping as the air ran out. A man who would do nothing to avert that would burn in all the fires hell could make for him.

I have to save the Concordat. I have to save the Periphery.

And God help me, I have to Save the Inner Sphere.

Mitchell closed his eyes, one last thought running through his mind. Hell of a 38th birthday present… Just to confirm, I'll have to check. There were names I'd never heard before... Amos Fourlough among them. He'd be in the Hegemony military right now, if he existed at all.

The next morning, when his friends dropped by, they confessed that Mitchell seemed to be filled with a restless energy, as if he couldn't hold still.

It was to be expected of course, what man didn't re-examine his life when confronted with his own mortality?