One of my favorite HM creations, Mech Marian is a main character in the original story that I was developing.
Maid Marian Fitzrobert (Mech Marian)
Close-up
Background story
Marian Fitzrobert, daughter of war industrialist Lord Robert Fitzwalter and his fourth wife… or was it his eighth? Lady Fontane… Lady Tolliver… Dame Sarah… that barwench from Crow’s Fish and Chips?
Obviously, no one much paid attention to the lass in her formative years. She was a tomboy. Though born into nobility and unimagineable wealth, Marian was not accepted by the other royal children. She went through the motions of court etiquette and the role of a proper lady. When her tutors retired, she would sneak to the Squires’ Quarters.
She would flirt with the lads but was quietly learning the ways of young mecha pilots. One night, she was caught by a Knight while she was trying some combat moves in the Lancer Room. Sir Wentley was impressed. Rather than taking her straight home, he decided to secretly teach her to be a Knight.
The day of her 16th Birthday, May 1st, her father was arrested as a conspirator along with Kai Fox and a few other noblemen. Sir Wentley spirited Marian to the far outpost of Loxlie. He was arrested upon his return to The Kingdom. Prince John had him executed alongside Lord Fitzwalter.
Marian was no safer on Loxlie. Within two years, the colony was under assault by L’Armée des étoiles. Marian volunteered to pilot one of the few mecha available. The King’s Men and the colonists laughed at her. During the siege, the French managed to destroy two of the mechs and assassinate five Knights.
It was a brash, handsome Commander Hood who agreed to allow Marian to work the Lancer Room after she demonstrated considerable piloting skill. The Royals fought bravely, but Loxlie fell. The French ransomed Marian back to The Kingdom not realizing that she was the one responsible for single-handedly destroying four of the ten mechs that they used in the invasion. In fact, Marian was the cause of heavy French losses.
Marian returned to The Kingdom, fully aware that Prince John had executed her father, and more importantly, her mentor Sir Wentley. His Majesty himself could not touch her. She was a heroine of the People. Her father’s vast fortune and immense mecha factories made her the object of every noble’s desire. Marian wanted none of it.
Then she learned of Robin Hood’s fate and the Sheriff of Nottingham’s treachery. With the help of her father’s spies and a major credit transaction, Marian was able to have a Domestic Sentry Mark IX re-programmed on Papillon. That DS-9 unit was able to save Robin from execution in a daring escape.
Marian now lives a double life. In The Kingdom, she is known as “Maid Marian Fitzrobert”, the fabulously rich heiress, populist reformer, and socialite. To Robin Hood and his Merry Men, she is “Mech Marian”, the financier of the Liberation. None of this keeps her from the front lines. She has Lancer Rooms and mechas hidden throughout The Kingdom and beyond the Pale. Marian has even disguised herself as a man just so she can get into tavern brawls.
