TRIAL BY FIRE (MW3 Campaign)

[Summoner_BD]

MechWarrior 3®: Trial By Fire
The Story of Connor Sinclair and
the Damocles Commando


Story by:
Loren L. Coleman

<330-1347> Field Commander Charles Antonescue reports. Southern pass held against Smoke Jaguar force. Coordinated resistance on Huntress has been smashed, but there is no indication of Khan Osis’ presence. Surviving clan warriors available for interrogation.
<408-1955> Prince Victor Steiner-Davion to all field commanders. Huntress is ours.
<409-0942> Lieutenant Michael Tonai, DEST, on debrief of prisoners. All evidence indicates that Khan Lincoln Osis has escaped Huntress for Strana Mechty. However, of possible worse consequence are rumors that one Galaxy Commander Corbett is rallying Smoke Jaguar forces at a remote staging area. Flagged for immediate investigation.
<409-2115> Jerrard Cranston reports to Prince Victor. Galaxy Commander Brendon Corbett, the Smoke Jaguar officer who led forces back to Huntress, bypassed the capital for the colony world of Tranquil. From this command post, he has sent out a call that all surviving Smoke Jaguar warriors should rally to his position rather than to Khan Osis on Strana Mechty. Reconstructed records prove that Corbett has received several responses. Our “friend” Trent believes that Tranquil may possess the command and production resources to resurrect Clan Smoke Jaguar.
<410-0801> Prince Victor Steiner-Davion commanding. Unacceptable.
* * *
It was one of the smallest briefing rooms aboard the DropShip Black Hammer. Enough space between the gray-painted metal bulkheads for a small table surrounded by half a dozen chairs, three of the seats currently occupied. A duct in the ceiling blew down tepid air tasting of the tang left by atmosphere scrubbers. It tugged at the trailing edges of the Star League ensign which hung over one wall: the silver eight-pointed “Cameron” star against a black field. The room’s one concession to tactical briefings was the flat-D screen opposite the flag, connected via spiraling cable to the keyboard cradled over the left arm of Lieutenant Connor Sinclair.
Lieutenant Sinclair stood next to his own seat typing one-handed, his gray eyes studying the blank screen with a frown of concentration. The young lance leader kept his dark brown hair cut at the edge of military regulation length. Though his uniform was cut along the original Star League Defense Force lines, he’d added the regimental patch from his old unit, the Davion Heavy Guards. All MechWarriors® assigned to one of the Damocles Commando lances had done the same. In his lance he counted one from the Kestrel Grenadiers and two from the First Aragon Borderers -- warriors he had never served with before.
Finally the screen glowed to life and, against the backdrop of a star-studded spacescape, a world grew to fill the frame. Dark blue oceans covered a majority of the planet’s surface, with two large land masses standing out in brown-green relief.
“Tranquil,” Sinclair named the world. The planet rotated quickly and froze when the smaller continent came under the camera’s eyes. One final flurry of keystrokes and, as the land zoomed in to fill the screen, he set the keyboard into a special wall receptacle designed to hold it. “This is where Galaxy Commander Corbett has decided to reestablish the Smoke Jaguars, if he can.” The young lieutenant swept his gaze over the assembled lance. “We’re here to kick the supports from under him.”
Chapter 1:
The Jaguars Reach

“Asking quite a bit, aren’t they?” Dominic Paine shifted uneasily in his chair. “I don’t know about any of you, but personally I’d feel better about this with a full regiment backing us.”
Sinclair shook his head. “Pacifying Huntress cost the task force too much, and Prince Victor has no idea what he’ll face on Strana Mechty. Remember, they’re trying to shut down the entire war.” He shrugged. “The six Damocles Commando teams are all they can afford to spare.”
“Nothing like feeling expendable,” Dominic said, his light tone exaggerated to the point of sarcasm.
Tessa McCaughnell tugged at the thick braid of red-blonde hair laying over one shoulder, then leaned over to slap Dominic on the arm. “We’re no’ here to take on the lot of them,” she reminded her new lancemate, a Scottish burr coloring her speech. “Just to give Brendon Corbett some sleepless nights until the Prince shows up a-riding the black coach.” She looked toward Keith Andrew and then back to Connor Sinclair for support.
Nodding his appreciation for the backup, the lieutenant forestalled further outbursts with a raised hand. “Also the Clans are known for absorbing the weak. If we make Corbett appear ineffective, Clan Wolf or maybe the Diamond Sharks will finish the job for us.” He offered a tentative smile. “Then we can all go home.”
That pulled answering nods from everyone. Living off WarShips in Clan space was no substitute for the worlds of the Inner Sphere... for home.
He turned back to the flat-D screen. “So here’s our little part in the raiding.” He brushed a hand over the snow-capped mountain range which locked away a hook-shaped peninsular region from the mainland. “This peninsula appears to be the only land really improved by the Smoke Jaguars. Our recon probes found a few minor towns and only one small city. What little they have in production capacity and command assets will be concentrated here. Insertion of our BattleMechs® will be made via drop-pods on our next turn around the planet, a low-orbit pass over the area. The Black Hammer and Eclipse will deploy six lance-size commando teams. We’re Commando One, but don’t let that go to your head. It just means we hit the ground first.”
Sober expressions greeted him. BattleMechs® might be the pinnacle of military technology, walking the battlefields of the 31st century with titanic measure, but the Clans bred talented warriors and had made a few technological advances in their years of isolation away from the Inner Sphere. They owned too many advantages not to take them serious. Dead serious.
“The good news is that we aren’t supposed to see any heavy resistance. The bad news is that we aren’t supposed to see any heavy resistance. We’ll certainly try to keep it to a minimum, and three Mobile Field Base vehicles will drop with us giving the commando good on-site repair and refit capability. We recon this first operations area,” he pointed to the inside edge of the peninsula’s hook, “taking targets of opportunity, and then hit a facility out at the tip of the peninsula which Intelligence believe is a ‘Mech production factory. Once all six teams have completed their objectives, we rendezvous for DropShip pickup.”
Sinclair reached over to the keyboard and hit the power toggle. The image on the screen winked out of existence with a light hum cut off by a popping noise. “Any questions?” No one -- not even Dominic -- raised a hand. “Then let’s get buttoned up.”
Connor nodded a dismissal. These were good warriors, if a bit nervous for their first mission with each other. His job was to hold them together long enough to grow comfortable as a team, to complete the mission and make it home. The lieutenant stepped in the direction of the door, stopped in front of the Star League ensign to stare into the hub of the silver Cameron star. One tine ran off in a long spike to the right, the guiding light of the Star League. “Let’s all remember why we are here,” he said, “and what we represent.” Then he was through the door and heading for the Black Hammer’s ‘Mech bay.
He hoped that reminding them of their higher duty owed the Star League might assuage some of the doubts they must certainly still feel.
He knew that it certainly helped him.
Connor Sinclair’s Bushwacker was already secured into its drop-pod, ready for the imminent deployment. The egg-shaped shell would act as heat shield and extra armor for the penetration of Tranquil’s upper atmosphere. Explosive charges would separate the pod from BattleMech well after the insertion, allowing the large ‘chute to arrest the fall and settle the ‘Mech easily to the ground.
Sinclair squirmed through the access opening and lowered himself on a short chain ladder to the shoulder of the squat titan. Standing just shy of eight meters in height the Bushwacker was shorter than the average ‘Mech, and with its turret-style shoulder joints and widespread arms was actually wider than it was tall. But for a 55 ton machine it was well armed and armored, with an average targeting system profile. Capable of running up to 85 kilometers per hour -- perhaps a touch more if he handled it right -- the Bushwacker would make a good raider.
A technician held a spotlight into the pod, picking out the hatch set over the BattleMech’s cockpit area. Connor dropped down into the cockpit, dogging the hatch behind him with a quick spin of the inside wheel. Off came the slacks and shirt, leaving the lieutenant in knee-length shorts, T-shirt and combat boots -- a MechWarrior’s® true uniform. Pulling his cooling vest from a small locker, he then stored his officer’s uniform in its place. The vest was made from ballistic cloth ribbed with small tubes of ashqua coolant, designed to offset the extreme heat of a BattleMech cockpit. Sinclair pulled it on and settled himself into the Bushwacker’s pilot seat.
A power cord stretched from the right side of the control chair, and Sinclair plugged its end into the mating socket on his cooling vest. The chilling coolant immediately raised gooseflesh on his arms, though he knew he’d be thankful for its touch later. From a pouch to one side of the seat, he pulled self-adhesive monitoring pads which he stuck to upper arms and inner thighs. The trailing leads he gathered in his lap, then grabbed his neurohelmet off a nearby shelf and settled it over his head. Among other things, the neurohelmet would help translate his own sense of balance to the BattleMech’s massive gyro. He plugged the leads into the sockets set into the left side of the helmet. A thicker cable, this one feeding from its housing on his control panel, fastened to the neurohelmet at a large socket set into the throat guard.
Himself prepared, all that remained was to bring the Bushwacker to life.
A series of toggles released the dampening field which had banked the fusion fires of the BattleMech’s reactor. A rumble more felt than heard rose from below and in back of Sinclair, and his cockpit control panel lit up as power flooded the circuits. Heat scale registered in the cool-blue tones of a BattleMech at rest, and all threat indicators remained silent. His Head-Up Display glowed a ghostly, transparent green against the inside of his helmet’s faceshield. Sinclair turned off the HUD, not needing its distraction until ready for combat.
“Security check, Lieutenant Connor Sinclair,” he said, then waited while the computer tore apart his voice and matched it against the secure print buried within its memory.
“Voiceprint match confirmed.” The computer’s voice was soft, almost feminine, but still mechanical in delivery. Connor was not one of those who preferred to alter it for more human characteristics. Some MechWarriors® even used recordings of their wives or girlfriends. A bad habit, in his opinion. BattleMechs® were machines of warfare -- better to not get too attached. “Proceed with security sequence,” the computer prompted him.
Because voiceprints could be faked, MechWarriors® often installed a second layer of security -- a code phrase, which only they would know. “We are united and committed to a bright new future,” Connor said, having chosen a line from Prince Victor’s first Star League address.
“Verified. All functions now at your command.”
An easy switch opened up the secure channel of his lance. “Connor Sinclair on-line and ready for drop. Commando One, report.”
Tessa, Keith, Dominic; one by one they all checked in ready for drop. Sinclair switched over to the Black Hammer’s command frequency. “Commando One ready for drop,” he reported.
The crackle of static and then the voice of the DropShip’s communications officer. “Excellent. Fifteen minutes to drop window. Prepare for gravity changes.”
Fifteen minutes. Connor ate away at the time checking all systems twice and weapons once again for good measure. Both long-range missile systems, one launcher riding over his left shoulder and the other replacing his left arm, checked out fine -- fully loaded and missiles armed. Diagnostics on the centerline large laser and both machine guns read in the green. The Mydron 80 millimeter autocannon on his right arm showed an intermittent fault, so Sinclair cleared the ammunition feed that pulled the depleted uranium slugs up from his right torso and refed the weapon. The fault indication disappeared. It would do for now.
A minor fluctuation of gravity warned Sinclair that the DropShip was maneuvering for insertion. The main thrusters wavered in strength for a moment and then were dampened, losing the artificial gravity brought on by constant thrust. Lateral thrusters rolled the Black Hammer and created pockets of micro-gravity constantly shifting in direction. Used to solid ground beneath his feet, the lance leader rode it out with teeth clenched so tight as to hurt his jaw.
“Commando One, prepare for deployment. Good hunting, Damocles. Counting down from 20… 19…”
The Bushwacker’s computer was fed a signal from the DropShip, and the computer voice overlaid the final few counts with its own pre-drop checklist. Connor listened in to the last few seconds, tensing for the drop. “Shield integrity confirmed. Power curve, optimal. Drop check complete, all systems nominal. Landing coordinates confirmed.”
A solid weight slammed into Sinclair’s back as the pod was rudely ejected from the Black Hammer. He couldn’t breathe and felt certain in that second that his heart had stopped beating as well. The pressure squeezed at his stomach. Then as abruptly as it had begun it was over, the pod, Bushwacker and pilot in freefall. Only a light bucking indicated that the drop-pod was beginning to hit the upper atmosphere.
One of the cockpit auxiliary screens flickered to life as the computer patched it in to sensors mounted on the outside of the shield. It showed dark space interrupted only by the harsh pinpricks of stars as they are seen only from space. The pod rolled on its attitude jets, bringing the Black Hammer into the camera’s eye. The Union-class DropShip was an immense white-gray sphere hanging against that black backdrop, but growing smaller by the second. He saw a blur against one arc of the hull which light have been another drop-pod launching outward.
Everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan.
And that was when it all fell apart.
There was no warning. If Sinclair had blinked, he might have missed it. Even so, he would never be certain if the azure flare was a true memory or supplied by his mind to explain the sudden explosion that burst from the side of the DropShip. A flash of-possible-coherent light and then a silvery spray of melted armor raining out into space, chased by the catastrophic evacuation of atmosphere, equipment and personnel through the rent in the Black Hammer’s side. The DropShip tumbled toward the edge of Sinclair’s screen even as the emergency comm frequency overrode his receiving equipment to chatter a flurry of mixed transmissions into his ear.
“What the hell was that?”
“Can’t get a reading on…”
“…you confirm ‘Mech pod deployment?”
“...day, mayday, we are going… down…”
On screen the DropShip rocked again as if a fragile globe struck by an invisible fist. More debris spilled out as the vessel slid away from Sinclair’s camera angle. Silence reigned for all of three seconds, the lieutenant gripping the arms of his control chair with near-panic strength. Then the comm gear changed over automatically to a new channel, flashing the emergency frequency for the Eclipse.
A new voice whispered in his ear. “My God, we’ve lost the Black Hammer."
Chapter 2:
First Contact
Lieutenant Sinclair, please stand by…
What do you mean that’s all we have? You’re certain? All right, let’s go with it.
Lieutenant Sinclair, this is Corporal Thomas Sorenson, commanding your Mobile Field Base vehicles. We’re in contact with Captain Taylor on the Eclipse, trying to ascertain what has happened. The Eclipse has abandoned its run. Status of the Black Hammer is still uncertain. I have yet to raise your lancemates or any members of Commandos Two and Three, but as of this time we are still go -- the mission clock is running.
You are falling off-target. We predict a shallow-water splashdown north of what appears to be a fishing village. We will await you at our designated landing area, near a good refit site. Your optimum route has already been programmed into your navigation computer.
Luck to us all.
* * *
APCs were no match for a BattleMech.
Right hand easy on the Bushwacker’s control stick and his left nudging the throttle, Connor Sinclair turned his back on the burning vehicles and the oily smoke they trailed skyward over the fishing village. The Bushwacker’s left foot sideswiped one building, tearing a gaping hole into the wall and collapsing the covered porch. A flatbed hauler parked in his way was crushed flat beneath the other foot, then he was free of the village and moving into the valley which ran roughly parallel to the coastline. He throttled the ‘Mech into a run, keeping part of his attention on the HUD and the red icon which showed a Firefly closing on his position. A light ‘Mech and an older design, the Firefly’s trio of medium lasers still demanded a modicum of respect. He would smash it from range, and then move on toward rendezvous.
The comm system crackled to life with an abnormally loud burst of static. “Leave it? …hauling explosives…Commander.” A long pause. “Aff…bridge.”
He’d set his system to scan known Clan civilian frequencies, though the receiver was having difficulty pulling in more than a broken signal. Thomas Sorenson had apparently picked it up as well. “Lieutenant, did you receive? Laborer caste frequencies, but something about explosive charges? Watch your step.”
As if to underscore the caution, threat indicators screamed for attention a split-second before the Bushwacker lurched to the left. A flight of missiles had slammed into the BattleMech’s right shoulder, blasting away precious armor but not near enough to upset the massive gyro which balanced the humanoid war machine.
Sinclair hauled the control stick over, tracking his targeting reticle into the corner of his main screen. The Bushwacker twisted at the waist while continuing to run forward. Through the ferroglass canopy, the lieutenant spotted the Firefly as it angled in behind him. The lighter ‘Mech had arced over a low range of nearby hills on jump jets, closing faster than the lieutenant had anticipated to score first with its long-range missiles. Still, a five-pack of LRMs weren’t enough to threaten him, unless he let the Clan warrior into the Bushwacker’s rear arc and at the weaker armor protecting his back.
Drifting his reticle over the Firefly’s outline, the cross hairs turned from red to the bright gold of a hard weapons lock. The targeting system also gave him an audio cue, a soft tone which promised a good missile firing solution. Connor squeezed into the shot, smiling his victory as his large laser burned away armor over the Firefly’s right leg. His twin LRM racks added to the other MechWarrior’s® misery, peppering the head and upper body of the light ‘Mech.
Waiting for his weapons to cycle, Sinclair checked his screens with a practiced glance. A quarter mile further along, the valley ended at the foot of a four-story bluff. A ramp gave access to the upper plateau, and against the skyline above it a second Firefly now moved to engage. The light traffic scattered quickly, caught between a running BattleMech firefight and the second Firefly ready to defend the ramp. Only a tractor-trailer rig remained on the bridge, apparently abandoned. Sinclair guessed that the first Firefly would now circle further afield and avoid him until it could join up with the new arrival.
Except he had forgotten to take into account the Clan practice of single combat.
In their quest for ultimate glory and honor, Clan warriors tended to fight alone, spurning help even as it stood nearby. Although outmassed by 25 tons, the first Firefly was not about to share the kill. He cut back inside the Bushwacker’s firing arc, pouring on the speed in an attempt to close and bring its medium lasers into play.
With the Damocles Commando ‘Mech still at a full run toward the ramp, the Firefly never stood a chance of making it in close. Conner Sinclair’s autocannon cut too low, churning the ground with a hail of 80-millimeter slugs. Cursing silently, the Inner Sphere warrior toggled again for missiles and lasers. The ruby beam of his Bushwacker’s large laser splashed over the Firefly’s left shoulder, stripping it down to titanium skeleton. The first missile flight was picked off by the anti-missile system riding in place of the light ‘Mech’s right arm, but the following quintet slammed into the already-weakened right leg. The knee joint bowed outward, rolling the leg out over the ankle actuator. The Firefly stumbled and went down, right leg snapping off at the knee and forward-thrust torso burying itself lasers-first into the valley’s soft earth.
It wasn’t getting up again.
Now Sinclair was grateful for the cooling vest he wore. Waste heat flooded the Bushwacker’s cockpit as the fusion reactor spiked from the power draw required for the double-salvo of weapons. Heat sinks built into the engine worked almost as quickly to shunt it away, leaving Connor with only a few seconds in labored breathing of the stifling air.
No time to wait, though, as turrets flanking the ramp suddenly popped up and began to snipe at his BattleMech. A stream of light autocannon fire rattled against the Bushwacker’s right side, chewing into armor and raining his protection down to the ground in shards and metal splinters. Easy targets these. Sinclair’s centerline laser silenced them in a matter of seconds as he continued to move against the ramp, intent on putting down the second Firefly hard and fast.
The fireball blossomed at midpoint up the ramp, consuming the parked tractor-trailer rig as it threw a gout of flame skyward. The ramp collapsed, its structural integrity shattered by the force of the explosion. For a moment Sinclair thought the second Firefly might somehow be responsible, but no, not with the light firepower the design carried. Then he recalled the truck and the earlier transmission. Hauling explosives! Damn.
“MFB, this is Sinclair. I’ve lost the ramp!” And the advantage range might have given him as the Firefly opened up with medium lasers and missiles. The Bushwacker stumbled under the onslaught, gyro thrown out of balance, but the lieutenant’s steady hand on the control stick compensating for the rough treatment.
Corporal Sorenson did not exactly sound thrilled. “I’d recommend you find another way then -- and fast, sir.”
“It’s not like I can build another,” he snapped, trading salvos with the Firefly. The Bushwacker’s large laser ate away at the other ‘Mech’s shoulder, while the Firefly’s trio of lasers again spit emerald pulses into the larger machine. Connor’s autocannon missed, again.
“Yes, sir.” Soreneson’s voice was a touch more respectful, though plainly worried. “But there’s an Owens up here prowling around. If it finds us, we’re done.”
The Firefly had stepped up to the edge of the bluff, rising over the retaining wall which had helped bolster the strength of the ramp and now was all that remained of the structure. “Build another?” Connor whispered to himself, drawing a hint from his own words. He dropped his cross hairs down to the retaining wall, scoring a deep cut across its face with large laser and then hammering at it with missiles. The LRMs could not acquire anything approaching a solid lock, but so close they hardly needed it. The explosive warheads dug deep, shattering the bulwark. The wall crumbled in an avalanche of dirt and rock and broken ferrocrete, undercutting the Firefly which fell backward and then tumbled down the slide. Crushed armor plating littered the slope. Sinclair stepped his ‘Mech forward, bringing one foot down on the fallen Firefly’s right side and caving it in. Laser fire and autocannon slugs exploited the hole, working down into the central cavity and smashing the large gyro which all ‘Mechs depended on to keep upright. Carefully, the young MechWarrior® stepped over the stricken Firefly and worked his way up the treacherous slope.
“I don’t know what you did, Lieutenant, but the Owens is heading your way with something to prove.”
“Something to protect, you mean,” Sinclair said as he topped the rise and throttled into an easy walk. His scanners registered the Owens’ approach, but also the large facility built into the cliff facing of a nearby large hill. “Jackpot, Sorenson. If those dishes on top are any clue, we’ve walked into a Clan communications facility, and a rather large one.”
His first flight of missiles was already streaking gray contrails through the air when the Owens’ large laser flayed into his leg to slice away better than a half ton of armor protection. An Inner Sphere OmniMech design no doubt brought home as spoils of war, the pilot had chosen its one hard-hitting long-range configuration. Sinclair opened the throttle, guiding the Bushwacker into a loping pace that angled around a small mound-putting it between him and the charging Owens -- as he let loose with another double-flight and this time added his laser into the barrage.
The Clans built well enough, when it came to protection from the elements and the possibility of light collateral damage. But they rarely hardened auxiliary sites against direct attack. Why should they? Any other Clan wanting to contest the area would batchall, challenging the defender to meet him in open ground with any or all defending forces. The assaulting force would then match the defenders, and the contest would initiate. While Connor Sinclair could appreciate the ritualized methods of the Clans, protecting essential but non-hostile facilities, part of the Inner Sphere’s purpose in attacking Clan Space was to remind them of the devastation total warfare could bring.
On his fifth salvo the main communications dish twisted about on its seating, then wrenched away to fall down the mountainside and smash into one of the main buildings. Ceilings caved and walls crumbled as the dish rolled through and and finally smashed itself to scrap against the ground. Several fires sprang up in the ruins, the deathblow for the facility.
Which left an Owens.
Hidden behind the low hill, Connor Sinclair had a 50-50 chance of deciding which way it would circle around. Of course, it might choose to come over the top, but skylining a light ‘Mech was one step beyond bravado and in throwing distance of suicidal. Then again, this was a Clan warrior. He crouched the Bushwacker as low as its profile would allow, then shifted about to face the hill, one arm pointing off in each direction so that no matter which way it came the Inner Sphere warrior could hope for the first shot.
It swung around on his right. Connor pulled at his autocannon trigger, snapping off what should have been an easy shot. The stream of depleted uranium slugs again sliced low, throwing up a geyser of blasted earth which sprayed the Owens but would do little to deter it. Trying to salvage something of the situation, Sinclair swore fluently as he wrenched the right arm upward. His curse had barely left his lips when the burst cut off prematurely. Fault lights flashed for his attention. It required the briefest glance to see that the weapon registered a feed mechanism fault -- the same problem he’d noted back on the Black Hammer. Only here, in combat, what had been a concern before now spelled out grave danger.
No time to clear the jammed feed, Sinclair swung around to put his backside to the hill before the much faster Owens could circle in behind him and carve into his weak rear armor. The Smoke Jaguar warrior made a stab for it, but was a touch too slow on the throttle. The Owens ended up point-blank with the Bushwacker, toe-to-toe and trading hard-hitting strikes. Gem-colored light flared between the two, the Owens owning the advantage as it brought two medium lasers into play while Sinclair was limited to his centerline large laser and a pair of machine guns. The Bushwacker’s weapons fire sanded armor off the light OmniMech. A sudden jump in the heat profile of the Owens let the lieutenant know that he had slipped past a flaw in the armor to carve away at the heat shield helping to contain the fusion reactor’s output. He smiled in grim satisfaction, hoping to press that advantage.
Then emerald laser fire walked from the Bushwacker’s left shoulder up across its head, splashing over the cockpit’s ferroglass canopy. The cockpit shook with incredible force, throwing Sinclair repeatedly against his five-point harness and the seat back. The restraining straps dug painfully into his chest, and his vision swam with the purplish-haze aftereffect of a laser blinding. Several new alarms rang out, deafening in the close confines of the Bushwacker’s cockpit.
And Connor Sinclair couldn’t see well enough to know what was wrong.
Chapter 3:
Into the Fire
It hurt to breathe, the muscles over his chest and abdomen were bruised where the restraining harness had dug in painfully. Alarms continued to sound their warnings. Sinclair blinked away the ghostly images the laserfire had burned over his eyes, vision clearing as the haze swept back. Only the lightly polarized tint to the canopy and his neurohelmet’s faceplate saved him from more permanent damage, though in combat even a second’s blindness could prove lethal.
The wireframe damage schematic he had pulled to an auxiliary screen showed heavy armor loss all over the Bushwacker. Armor protecting the BattleMech’s left arm was now a memory, the Owens’ emerald pulses finally eating through the last of its protection to cut away at the myomer muscles and shoulder actuator. The arm itself hung useless down the BattleMech’s side. Further damage concentrated primarily along left leg, right torso and the head, promising breaches in those areas soon enough.
If he gave the Smoke Jaguar warrior the chance.
Slapping quickly at the irritating alarms, Sinclair silenced the distractions, then worked throttle and stick to shift the Bushwacker, shuffling the ‘Mech around in a tight circle. The Owens gave chase, but sluggishly. Shimmering steam and sooty black smoke leaked out of several rents in the armor covering the small OmniMech’s upper body. The shielding damage Connor scored earlier had overheated the Owens, robbing it of speed and likely making targeting more difficult. Apparently the Clan pilot had not been able to convert over to the Smoke Jaguar’s better heat sink technology, leaving the Owens vulnerable after rapid-fire laser barrages. It was an advantage. It would be all he needed.
Sinclair smiled grimly, second-guessed the Jaguar warrior and throttled forward into a tight circle outside of the Owens’ now-limited turn radius. Too eager, the Clan pilot had committed himself to chasing the Bushwacker’s rear arc and now overextended himself. Sinclair caught the Owens by the back instead. The centerline large laser lanced a ruby beam through the Omni’s weaker armor, cutting away more engine shielding. If the shudder which trembled the Owens meant anything, he had also nicked the gyro housing as well. His machine guns hammered in afterward, this time smashing all the way through and releasing the inferno harnessed at the heart of every BattleMech.
A golden blaze burst from the Owens’ chest cavity, coring the OmniMech even as fiery tendrils worked through the machine to burst out of shoulder and hip joints. The ‘Mech flew apart as easily as a rag doll shredded at the seams. Armor shrapnel peppered the Bushwacker, which rocked backward in the face of the explosion. A few large pieces of slag that were once actuators and titanium support structure slammed hard into the BattleMech, as if an attempt by the Owens to take the larger machine with it.
Connor rode it out, jostled once more against his five-point harness but otherwise coming through unharmed. The Bushwacker presided over the ruined frame of the Owens and a battlefield of scorched earth littered with smoking debris. No enemy threats showed on the HUD.
The field was clear.
* * *
The trio of MFB vehicles had gathered into a triangular formation down inside a shallow wash. A two-minute walk from where Sinclair had put down the Owens, Thomas Sorenson had chosen a good site. Enough flat area to break out the repair facilities, the lieutenant noted with relief, checking his armor loss and damage to the Bushwacker’s left arm. There was also the autocannon to fix, as he had no intention of losing one of his best weapons in the middle of battle again. The 55 ton BattleMech had certainly looked better. Still, three Clan ‘Mechs down and one comms facility scrapped. Not a bad day, though he was ready to quit while ahead.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant.” Sorenson waved from the ground near one of the MFBs. He had a hand-held radio unit. “Ready to take on the world? I hope so.”
Sinclair walked the Bushwacker into the area framed by the three vehicles, but delayed his shutdown procedure. “What do you mean?”
Sorenson’s report lacked anything in the way of personal feelings -- the way a good intelligence report should be given. “I mean we’re still 'go’ to hit the factory. You and Dominic Paine, and these three MFBs.”
“Dominic made it?” Sinclair asked.
“We heard from him just a few minutes ago. He’s moving to regroup. Also survivors of Damocles Commando Two made contact with the Eclipse. Two MechWarriors® and an MFB support vehicle, trying to complete their mission down at the southern hydroelectric facility.”
If not the best news, it was at least encouraging. Team Two was out the door after his commando. If two of them made it down, then both Tessa and Keith would be out there as well, trying to make rendezvous. But, “No extraction then?”
Even from up in his cockpit, he could make out Sorenson’s head shaking. “Run tape,” he ordered.
Chapter 3:
Into the Fire
(cont...)
A new voice was cut into the conversation, Tinny from recording and rebroadcast, Conner Sinclair still recognized it -- Nathan Taylor, captain of the Eclipse. “We’ve made no determination on the status of DropShip Black Hammer. We assume it is down. Act in accordance with mission specifications until we facilitate your extraction. Taylor, out.”
“That was Captain Taylor’s official response to my request for information -- thought you might like to hear it for yourself. He set his ship down in the mountains north of the peninsula rather than risk facing whatever knocked the Black Hammer from the sky. Commandos Four through Six are trying to break through the mountain passes, and so come down onto the peninsula to rendezvous and pull us all out of here, but they are meeting with resistance. Our extraction is, essentially, an unknown factor at this time. We’re expected to proceed on mission.”
No normal mission would ever go forward after such a catastrophic loss. But then, this was hardly a MechWarrior’s run-of-the-planet mission. And as much as Lieutenant Sinclair recognized the odds stacked against him, he could hardly blame Taylor for not wanting to risk the Eclipse -- their only way off Tranquil -- after what happened to the Black Hammer. Whatever had happened to the Black Hammer.
Sinclair dialed for a confident voice. “If we move fast enough and hit hard enough, we might make the factory complex out at the peninsula’s tip. Commando tactics. That was our mission, and we can still accomplish it.” With half the force originally allotted? He shoved aside the doubts. “Get Dominic on our flank, but have him hold off by a few kilometers. In that captured Clan Shadow Cat of his, he’ll make the perfect flanker -- able to guard our line of advance and hit any approaching force before they realize he’s with us. It will help keep the Clan forces pinned in place while we sweep straight for the factory.”
This time the corporal could not keep his own doubts from showing in his voice or even in his question. “You really think this will work?”
Connor toggled off the comm system, and preceded with his shutdown without answering. It saved him from having to choose between enthusiastic hyperbole and an evasive reply. Besides, Sorenson was smart enough to figure out the truthful answer for himself.
What choice did they have?
* * *
Okay, I’m heading forward. Don’t be late!
Roger that. Good luck, Dominic.
Yeah, sure.
All right, Lieutenant. Dominic Paine has moved ahead to set up his flanking attack against the ‘Mech factory. He will move in as soon as you begin your run, meeting you at the second bridge. From there the two of you can proceed to the island facility.
And we’ve finally made progress on the codes recovered from that destroyed communication’s facility back on the beach. They have allowed us to break part of the Clan encryption system, tapping into some of their radio chatter. The proper codes have been entered into your BattleMech computer, so you will receive a direct feed of Clan intentions from now on. Here’s hoping it helps.
Let’s end this.
“…hurt.... cannot.... Noooo....”
The scream faded to static and then silence as the Thor’s missile ammunition detonated in the over-the-shoulder launcher, tearing a gash through its left side and setting off the main ammunition bin by sympathetic explosion. A red-orange fireball ripped through the interior of the Clan OmniMech, shattering its turret-style waist and amputating both legs. Its left leg flipped up and over the head of Connor Sinclair’s Bushwacker, landing in the river. The right leg was thrown far to one side, into a nearby minefield where it triggered several of the hidden explosive devices. A twisted, misshapen frame of metal landed several meters off to one side, all that remained of a once-powerful war machine. One of the best Clan designs, piloted by a tenacious warrior. Star Commander Freya had dogged their tracks for several kilometers.
“Careless fool!” Though a weak transmission partly obscured by the static, the kind Sinclair had come to recognize as the Smoke Jaguar communications on which his computer could now eavesdrop, there was no hiding the disdain and anger coloring the voice. Unless the lieutenant missed his guess, that would be Star Captain Hasaan Furey who had been referenced in other intercepted transmissions.
Corporal Sorenson’s relief was just as evident. “Nice work, Captain. You were right, we should have sidetracked to take her down earlier today.”
Sinclair’s lungs felt on fire. Gasping in breaths of the cockpit’s scorched air, he choked on the ozone scent of burnt insulation from the monitor which had shorted out. Just as well he was saved any comment, with Dominic Paine interrupting. “This is Gunner, moving in from the west. Where’s my support?”
He was running behind. A glance at the mission clock told the lieutenant just how many precious minutes he’d wasted dealing with the star commander. He had already taken out the site’s powerhouse -- a fairly impressive plant, considering there was only the one ‘Mech factory, a large set of greenhouses and some storage and barracks facilities to supply. But by now he should have been meeting up with Dominic to hit the small offshore island on which the factory was situated. “Where are you, Dominic?”
“Fighting off a Blackhawk-Kurita variant and a Strider just this side of the second bridge.” A brief pause. “Check that. Make it a Blackhawk-KU only now. Damn! That hurt. The better question is, where are you?”
Making up time fast as he could. Running deeper into the small outpost, Connor pulled up short as his HUD painted a threat icon, the computer tagging it with the code for a Puma OmniMech, primary variant. The computer couldn’t always tell OmniMech variants apart, but the twin particle projection cannon made this an easy ID. He didn’t need to glance at his armor schematic to see that one solid salvo from those PPCs would score through any location on his Bushwacker, his weak armor courtesy of Star Commander Freya. According to the HUD, the Puma waited just around the corner of the two-story greenhouse complex.
Sinclair plunged through the glass wall, thinking to try a shortcut.
Star Captain Furey must have had the place wired for sensors. “There is one inside the project,” he said almost at once. “Protect those facilities!”
Easier ordered than accomplished, with a 55 ton BattleMech already loose inside the building and no way to come after it but to smash your way through and engage. The Puma tried to hedge, shattering one wall with a swipe of the arm but not actually entering itself. A mistake, leaving Sinclair the advantage of better cover, the Bushwacker nestled within a screening growth of lush, food-bearing trees and plants. Only one of the PPCs azure whips struck him, the man-made lightning melting armor which runneled from his left torso to puddle among the plants and start several trees afire. The Bushwacker’s autocannon missed wide, smashing to tiny shards another wall of the greenhouse; the feed mechanism fault light flashed a quick warning and then went out again. Large laser and missile racks made up for the treacherously undependable autocannon, scoring deeply into the Puma’s notoriously thin armor protection.
The uneven exchange was enough to convince the Jaguar warrior that he needed some cover, but too late. The light ‘Mech had throttled into a run when Sinclair’s second strike slammed into it. Missiles pockmarked leg and chest, the ruby beam of the large laser cutting in afterward and probing deeply into the center torso. The Puma dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, shaking as if with a palsy. Large chunks of metal shot out the rent in the armor at high velocity, the gyro tearing itself to pieces in catastrophic failure. The Puma tumbled gracelessly through a thick patch of quillar. Connor turned his back on it to smash his way through several support beams and the far outside glass wall. Behind him the greenhouse facility collapsed inward like a broken house of cards.
Furey didn’t require monitors. Wherever he was waiting, the destruction of the greenhouse had to be easily visible. “Stravag!” he cursed over Smoke Jaguar frequencies. “I will crush them myself.”
But where was the local commanding officer? And for that matter, where was Dominic? Running out from between two buildings and over the second bridge, the Bushwacker’s footsteps clanged against the metal decking. The lieutenant saw the broken and smoking form of a destroyed Blackhawk, its cockpit obviously smashed inward by a gauss round. Dominic’s handiwork, sure enough. But no sign of the Shadow Cat.
“This is Gunner. I’m over the last bridge and hitting the factory. There’s an Orion over here!”
Both questions were answered at once. The Orion was an old Inner Sphere design. Not quite on par with a Clan-tech OmniMech, but at 75 tons was only one step shy of an assault ‘Mech and was one of the larger machines he’d seen so far. Certainly the star captain would be piloting it.
And with 30 tons over Dominic’s Shadow Cat, the commando MechWarrior® was definitely outclassed.
Edging the Bushwacker over 85 kph, its maximum speed, Connor ran the squat war machine over the coastal plains and toward the third bridge -- too slow. Slender towers flanked access to the island factory, but the lieutenant paid them little heed as he saw Dominic’s Shadow Cat in a deadly dance around the larger Orion. The latter ‘Mech moved slow but with lethal grace, always on the verge of smashing Dominic’s Omni into scrap. The Shadow Cat packed a deadly punch with its gauss rifle, but then the Orion also massed twice as much armor protection as the smaller machine. Connor pounded his Bushwacker across the bridge -- never fast enough -- then dug his shovel-blade feet into the soft earth of the small island as he raced up into the battlezone.
Too late.
Metal fragments littering the ground winked in the late afternoon sun, testament to the hard-hitting engagement. The Orion’s left leg was all but stripped down to titanium skeleton, and large gouges in chest and right side told of other gauss hits. But even as the Bushwacker’s targeting reticle burned the deep gold of hard lock, drawing a bead with large laser and autocannon, the 75 ton machine struck back with a vengeance.
A flight of twenty long-ranged missiles, launched from impossibly close, scattered a flurry of jagged holes over the Shadow Cat’s right arm and body. Twin medium lasers grouped into Dominic’s left leg, spot-welding the knee joint immobile. Then the Orion’s 80-millimeter autocannon ripped into the previous missile damage, hammering at support struts and knocking the smaller OmniMech back. The onslaught proved too much for the ‘Mech’s gyro, and it toppled backward into one of the auxiliary factory buildings. The wall caved in behind Dominic’s Shadow Cat, and then everything seemed to happen in slow motion as two stories of wood and stone collapsed over the top of him.
Burying the MechWarrior® alive.
Chapter 4:
Forced March
“Dominic, no!”
Connor Sinclair mashed down his triggers, probing out at range with his autocannon and large laser. He heard the remembered voice of his academy instructor, “BattleMechs®, they take a whole great deal of killin’,” and figured the odds were better than fair that Dominic Paine had survived the fall and collapse of the building. A bit banged up and needing help to dig his way out, but alive. He wouldn’t stand a chance, though, if the Orion blasted through the rubble after him. Star Captain Hasaan Furey had to be distracted -- stopped.
Despite the desperation, the lieutenant pessimistically predicted that his autocannon would fail or shoot wide -- no need to ruin a perfectly bad history now. The Mydron-manufactured weapon did not disappoint, the stream of depleted uranium slugs passing off the left arm of the massive Orion. They chewed the corner away from the main factory building and undercut one of the three main smokestacks enough that it started a slow topple. The ruby lance of his laser, however, struck dead-on, sloughing away half-melted armor plates from over the Orion’s blocky chest.
As if a bystander suddenly tapped on the shoulder, the titan’s head first swung around in search of the annoyance and then up came the left arm. The monstrous machine might have been simply pointing directions out to someone, except for the flight of 20 LRMs that suddenly speared out from the cylindrical launcher replacing the left hand. Except for a quartet of missiles that arced too wide, the swarm flew unerringly into the oncoming Bushwacker and robbed it of forward momentum as explosions blossomed in a staggered line leading from right leg up over the body and then down along the left arm. A single missile slammed in near the cockpit, rattling Sinclair but not enough to throw off his own aim. Two small missile flights from his own launchers answered the Orion’s challenge, peppering left leg and arm. The extended-range laser speared directly into the heavy ‘Mech’s undamaged right side, splashing molten armor against its hip and over the short grass that grew over the island. The autocannon misfired but did not jam -- a small favor only considering its lack of performance.
A wave of heat slammed into Sinclair as the fusion reactor spiked, its heat scale reading heavy into the yellow band but dropping fast. Given a few seconds, the young lieutenant could hope to keep up his optimum curve and not suffer the sluggish reaction by overheated myomer muscles or interference in his targeting system. Time was a luxury he did not own, however. He rushed in close on the Orion’s left side, preferring to face off against the heavy LRM system and arm-mounted medium laser than weather the brunt of Hasaan Furey’s full attack, which could include another laser and an autocannon -- his presumably working. Of course, Sinclair had to assume Furey to be an elite warrior, which meant he might be able to coax the Orion around fast enough to bring all weapons to bear regardless.
It turned the fight into a gamble, but against a 20-ton deficit the lieutenant risked his life regardless.
The Orion did try to pivot hard around. Connor Sinclair read it in the exaggerated swing of the angular shoulders and cross-step of right foot in front of left. Then the heavy-class ‘Mech stumbled and nearly fell. From Furey’s narrow recovery and the Orion’s awkward stance, the BattleMech’s hip joint had apparently frozen in a half-extended position -- some combination of Sinclair’s last missile attack and the molten armor splattered by his large laser. It cut into the machine’s movement considerably, able to keep up with the Bushwacker but just barely so. It evened the field, pitting Connor Sinclair against a larger but critically damaged BattleMech piloted by a certainly more experienced MechWarrior®.
At point-blank ranges, an LRM system could rarely achieve a targeting lock, and even then the missiles would have trouble arming in the short flight. As demonstrated before, Furey did not seem to suffer for those drawbacks. The cylindrical arm swung around, flashing out with the sapphire light of a medium laser and a new flight of 20 missiles hammered mercilessly into the Bushwacker’s upper body. Red warning lights strobed on the control panel as one group of missiles breached Sinclair’s left side, tearing into the Bushwacker’s supporting titanium skeleton and blasting away feeding mechanisms for the shoulder-mounted missile rack.
Not that Connor would have tried to fire his own LRMs regardless, but with a failing autocannon the damage continued to rob him of any reliable firepower. “Last time pays for all,” he whispered, voice strangely loud in the tight confines of his neurohelmet. His targeting reticle already burning golden, he drifted it down the side of the Orion to settle over the left leg. Opening up with machine guns, the MechWarrior® hammered away armor from the left side and left leg as he watched his heat scale fall down into the shallow end of the yellow band before toggling for his centerline large laser.
The ruby lance sliced deeply, past the remnants of armor protecting the Orion’s left leg. The beam did melt away enough of the slag freezing the other BattleMech’s hip joint that it freed up, but only for a split second as it continued to core deeper. Myomer musculature parted like flesh beneath a scalpel, and the laser ate into the ferrotitanium bones of the Orion’s skeleton. The framework sagged, melted away and then finally telescoped in on itself. The 75 ton machine toppled left, and this time there would be no recovery. The left arm caught against the ground first, adding enough a twisting force to turn the ‘Mech and plant its head cockpit-forward into the earth. The protruding cockpit canopy smashed back, shattering the ferroglass and driving the framework back into the pilot’s command area.
“Freebirrrr-” Furey’s final, static-laced scream of denial and pain, cut short. Sinclair winced, imagining the final seconds of the star captain.
“Star Captain Furey, what is your status?”
A new voice, full of his own authority and not a little anger. Sinclair did not recall hearing it in common chatter earlier. He spent little time trying to actually place it; Dominic still needed help.
No, he didn’t.
The Shadow Cat was rising from the center of the building, shrugging off one wooden wall that had fallen over its shoulder. From Sinclair’s vantage point, the factory building looked hollow-though of course that made no sense. But then he couldn’t argue with the way Dominic Paine simply stood and kicked his way free of some light debris. Wood framework and plywood painted to look like brick or stone or metal. Even the widows were painted on-no glass or actual openings.
“Better be careful around these buildings,” Dominic transmitted. “You’ll want a closer look at them. And at those towers flanking the bridge.”
Before Connor could ask after the MechWarrior’s® comment, the same voice as before interrupted. “Hasaan Furey, this is Star Colonel Ratache Osis! You will respond now!”
“He does not sound happy,” Sorenson said, the MFBs just now crossing the third bridge onto the island. He sounded very satisfied with that idea.
Sinclair looked over the fallen Orion and then to his lancemate’s erect Shadow Cat, a tight smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. So, in fact, was he.
* * *
“Figures, doesn’t it?” Dominic kicked at a support beam, one of several that held up the façade factory wall. “All that work for a decoy site. A Potemkin village.”
For once, Connor Sinclair felt the drain of Dominic’s pessimism. Out of their ‘Mechs while the MFB personnel worked to fix them up-them and the wounded but repairable Orion-the two MechWarriors® and Corporal Sorenson had walked into the open back of the ‘factory’ building resembling a steel plant. Three coal-burning stoves had been rigged up to provide lots of smoke, funneled up into the wooden tower above to give the impression of activity-the manufacture of armor, apparently. Strobe lights set behind the few real windows in the ‘main plant’ simulated the sparking of welders. Only the towers flanking the bridge were real, and even more disturbing.
“Laser towers,” Connor said, shaking his head. “Naval-grade lasers, ready to knock any DropShip from the sky that tried to make a run against this decoy factory.” He exhaled long and hard, glanced to Sorenson. “Now we know what happened to the Black Hammer.”
Dominic looked worried. More so than usual, that was. “This Galaxy Commander Corbett doesn’t play by the usual Clanner rules. No batchall? Striking at a DropShip from ambush rather than the glory of BattleMech combat? Doesn’t this seem like a deviation from standard Smoke Jaguar tactics and philosophy?” He looked around to see if anyone shared his opinion. Connor met his gaze evenly, giving no hints to his thoughts though they mirrored Dominic’s. Sorenson avoided eye contact. “Well, with those towers shut down, maybe we can get off this hell-hole planet now?”
The corporal shifted uneasily, and Connor speared him with an intense gaze. Overall, Sinclair liked Thomas Sorenson. A burly six foot with close-cropped blond hair chiseled features, the man looked more your stereotypical drill sergeant than an intelligence analyst. Conner’s mental image typically saw them as thin, ferret-featured men who only told you what they thought you needed to know. Fortunately, the corporal didn’t hesitate to speak his mind, and quite often had something worthwhile to say. But underlying the corporal’s demonstrated competence, Sinclair sensed a vulnerability. Sorenson was not an intell officer. He was used to taking some direction from a superior, and that superior had been aboard the Black Hammer.
“You’ve already talked to Taylor,” Sinclair guessed. “Haven’t you?”
Sorenson nodded. “And it’s very unlikely we’ll see him anytime soon. I informed him of the laser towers right before joining you two out here.” He held up one hand to forestall Dominic’s outburst. “I am required to report all intelligence to my superior, and in her absence to the operation’s ranking officer.” Dominic nodded reluctantly. “Captain Taylor won’t risk the Eclipse unless we can prove conclusively there are no other towers.”
“What about the rescue company?” Conner asked, bracing himself for the bad news. He trusted Sorenson enough to know that if there was any balancing facts, he would have volunteered them.
“They’re being hit hard. They aren’t advancing fast enough, and now they can’t withdraw either without taking serious losses. We’ll have to take the pressure off them by hitting the second Operations Area ourselves. The real factories are down there.”
That perked up the lieutenant’s interest, though Dominic appeared very unimpressed about taking on a new mission. “Team Two found something?” His mind began to plan the rendezvous. “If we can link up with them, maybe find-”
Sorenson interrupted, his face pale. “Team Two is dead, Sir.”
“Dead?” Dominic barged back into the conversation. “You mean out of commission? Captured?”
Unhappily, the corporal shook his head. “They took out the hydroelectric facility and discovered entrances for two large underground complexes. But Clan troops caught them on the second leg of their operation. Neither of them made it. The report we intercepted is fairly clear on that. No prisoners. As ordered.”
“So now Taylor has only half the reasons to come in here and rescue us.” Dominic shook his head. “Perfect.”
“There are eight missing MechWarriors® out there we might still find,” Sinclair reminded his lancemate. “If Team Two made it out, we know that Keith and Tessa are out there for certain.” The real fear was hidden in Sorenson’s final comment, which Dominic had missed. “Who gave the ‘no prisoners’ order?” Sinclair asked.
“Near as I can tell, it came through this Star Colonel Ratache Osis you heard on comms. The one who sounded most upset by Furey’s defeat. However, from other communication interceptions, I believe those orders originated with Brendon Corbett. It’s inferred. So is the fact that it’s Corbett who is leading the fight against the Eclipse’s rescue company.”
Sinclair nodded his appreciation for the blunt truth. “You’re doing a good job, Thomas. Keep it up.” No reason to blame the messenger for the news, and he wanted it clear that Sorenson should not worry about keeping him informed. “Have you plotted a route down to the peninsula’s southern coast?”
“I’ve located a dry river bed we can use for our initial approach, about five klicks southwest around the headland. It avoids a few military targets, which I think is wise at this point. I’ve already monitored Ratache Osis’ order to increase the strength of local garrison posts.” He paused. “Of course, that means the factories themselves will be very well guarded.”
Dominic smiled thinly at Sinclair. “And it just keeps getting better,” he said. “Every. Single. Minute.”
* * *
Three kilometers along the river bed, they found Tessa McCaughnell. Or what was left of her.
Near as Sinclair could tell, something had burned part of her deployment parachute away. A glancing blow from the naval-grade lasers erected on the island? A mischance run-in with an aerospace fighter patrol? Didn’t matter. Without the ‘chute’s braking effects, Tessa’s Crusader had struck Tranquil not at the mild five kph which her jump jets could have softened into an easy landing, but at better than ten times that. Both legs were partially buried into the earth. The upper leg framework had been telescoped upward into the Crusader’s chest, spearing the fusion reactor and causing catastrophic failure. There wasn’t much left of the BattleMech. One arm, and the mangled head blown a good hundred meters away.
Why hadn’t she ejected? It was a question they would never be able to answer. All the two MechWarriors® could do was bury her remains. No words were spoken over the gravesite.
What was there to say?
Chapter 5:
Method Madness
Lieutenant Sinclair. We intercepted a private channel between Star Colonel Ratache Osis and his aide. Stand by for playback:
…smashed, Drey. The entire facility. Without those greenhouses, we will be hard pressed to feed the incoming forces.
You warned him, placing the decoy site so near our agricultural project.
Aff. I did. But will Brendon Corbett take the blame for this?
Neg, Star Colonel. With Lincoln Osis’ death on Strana Mechty, the Galaxy Commander will be our next Khan. He can do no wrong.
Exactly. I will make these surrats pay. This I promise...
You catch that, Lieutenant? Lincoln Osis, ilKhan of the Clans, died on Strana Mechty. The Star League must be victorious. Now what do you think the chances are that we can expect relief in time to do us any good?
* * *
One hand shoving forward the throttle of his Dire Wolf, the other easy on the main stick, Galaxy Commander Brendon Corbett burst through the thin stand of pine and topped the small rise. The enemy column of freebirth Inner Sphere trash had spread itself along the wide valley, right along the path where he had predicted they would come. He had them by the flank. Tightening up on his triggers, the Galaxy Commander lanced out with his set of four large, extended-range lasers. The sapphire bolts slammed into the side of an Executioner OmniMech leading the line, splattering molten armor to the ground as Brendon Corbett drew first blood in this latest harassing maneuver.
Corbett had hoped to put it down on one salvo, denying the stravag warriors use of such exceptional technology. A few of the enemy MechWarriors® piloted captured Clan OmniMech designs such as the Executioner. They may have dubbed it a Gladiator -- just as they referred to his assault ‘Mech as a Daishi -- lacking knowledge of the proper names, but it was still Clan technology and far above their deserving. Stolen from the Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress without doubt. He clenched his jaw in a mixture of anger and no small amount of shame as the Executioner managed to keep to its feet and return fire with its gauss rifle and paired lasers. Shame, not for the Omni’s strong armor, but that it was in the possession of the Inner Sphere at all. The damage caused when the large nickel-ferrous gauss slug punched into the right leg of his Dire Wolf was nothing compared to the knowledge that the Inner Sphere now controlled the Jaguar homeworld.
Yet he had known it would happen. Forced from the Inner Sphere, chased from the Inner Sphere, the galaxy commander had arrived back in Clan Space to find out that another task force had already landed on Huntress. Right then he saw the death of his Clan, unless someone worked to preserve it. Unless he fought to ensure the Jaguar lived onward. That Huntress fell validated his choice to regroup on Tranquil, to resurrect the Clan even as it entered its death throes.
It did not make the situation any more palatable.
The rest of his star stepped up to flank Corbett: a pair of Timber Wolves, a Cauldron-Born and a Warhawk. Though faster than the Dire Wolf, none of his starmates would ever think of usurping his position in the lead. Behind them an auxiliary star hung back, waiting for their turn should the Smoke Jaguar’s command star fail. Hardly thinkable, except that no Clan warrior had ever thought to be driven from the Inner Sphere Occupation Zone either.
The company of enemy ‘Mechs was already reacting to the threat his star posed. Long-range weaponry flashed gem-colored laser pulses between the two forces and filled the air with fiery tracers that warned of stinging autocannon fire. The silvery blur of another gauss slug shot past his canopy ferroglass, impacting his right shoulder and raining more metal fragments to the ground. Corbett hardly blinked at how close death had visited with the near miss of his cockpit. His next salvo of lasers again sliced into the Executioner’s left side, this time working its way through the armored sleeve of the arm to stab into the barrel of the deadly gauss rifle. Acceleration coils exploded with stunning force, reducing the arm to a metal stub that pocked from the shoulder of the man-shaped Executioner. The galaxy commander slapped at his shutdown override as the OmniMech’s heat scale jumped far into the red band. The Executioner turned and ran for the safety of low hills on the other side of the valley.
Just as the galaxy commander had predicted.
Just as it had in the previous two battles.
“Let them go,” he ordered, hot colas burning in his lungs as he sucked in great braths of the scorching air. He turned his lasers against a smaller Owens which lagged behind the main company as they all followed the Executioner. Two of the sapphire lances scored into the small ‘Mech, coring past armor and into its back, but unfortunately finding no critical equipment. Then his enemy were gone, and his star held the field alone.
With the Inner Sphere forces commanding faster ‘Mechs, the Jaguar leader had little choice but to hunt them this way; harrying their advance toward the peninsula and taking them a small piece at a time. It didn’t matter. In the end he would have them all. They would never make contact with the survivors of the first DropShip, those few ‘Mechs still operating on the peninsula were easy targets for Ratache Osis while Brendon Corbett claimed the greater victory -- and the greater glory -- by smashing this stronger company. Could he make all 12 kills personally? Perhaps that would be the crowning achievement here that would vault him above all others when the Smoke Jaguars finally chose a new Khan. Finally chose him as the new Khan. Strength, that was what mattered. Strength and individual achievement.
It was the way of the Clans.
* * *
Good news, Lieutenant. We’ve made two more contacts. Epona Rhi from Team Three and Keith Andrew, from our own commando.
Epona Rhi is northeast of our position and moving to rendezvous. She was first from Commando Three to drop, but with her survival confidence is now high that we might find others and maybe even the Black Hammer itself.
-Misery loves company. Isn’t that one of Blake’s old sayings?-
Thank you, Dominic. I’m sure we all appreciate the sentiment.
Keith Andrew actually grounded inside Operations Area Three, where the Eclipse’s commandos were all supposed to drop. Currently he’s limited in movement by heavy Clan patrols. The rescue company is working their way in to break him free. They really need us to take some of the pressure off them, Lieutenant. I think Keith is in trouble up there.
* * *

[Summoner_BD]

Autocannon fire hammered into the convoy’s last half-track hauler, the 80-millimeter slugs punching large holes through the drab-gray armor siding and hood to wreck the engine. Connor Sinclair was careful to avoid the fuel tanks and the cloth-covered back of the hauler. He preferred to not risk an explosion in this underground cavern, unsure of the ceiling’s strength as well as being concerned with the reports Sorenson recovered earlier that placed corrosive-chemical storage tanks somewhere down here. It wouldn’t do to have them go up in a sympathetic explosion. Also, and just as important, was taking care with the salvage that raiding the destroyed convoy would bring. The commando’s Mobile Field Base vehicles were moving in from the main entrance and would transfer all usable materials and equipment to their own cargo space. Already through the provisioning provided on the original mission specifications, if the remnants of Team One were to continue operating, they would depend heavily on such raiding techniques.
The dark of the massive cavern was broken by large lighting systems used to flood the underground facilities with an artificial day. Where the lights did not reach, Conner Sinclair relied on the Orion’s thermal imaging. He noticed as the half-track driver bailed out and ran for the protection of a jumble of rocks piled against the cavern wall and let him go. A Clan laborer-caste worker, he was no threat to the mission.
The Puma and the Shadow Cat twin to Dominic’s own OmniMech, however, were.
“Gamma Base, what is your situation?” Ratache Osis again, his voice identifiable even through the breakup caused by intercepted transmission and the meters of rock currently above their heads. Osis was becoming a fixed personality in Clan comms traffic. “Star Commander Isaark, respond! Gamma Base, respond now!”
“The Star Commander is dead. We are heavily engaged, Star Colonel.”
Sinclair swung the Orion around to face the large quarry that the Smoke Jaguars had hollowed into the floor of the massive cavern. The heavy-class ’Mech had been repaired and pressed back into service as his personal ’Mech. It was far better armored and had a working autocannon, which made for a nice change of pace. The Puma ducked behind a set of wood-built barracks which overlooked the quarried basin, likely waiting for his heat levels to drop -- the PPC-equipped ’Mech had been glowing a reddish-orange on thermal scanners.
But that left the Clan-piloted Shadow Cat to face both Dominic and Sinclair. Where a Clan warrior might never interfere in a duel, the Inner Sphere officer knew that such “ideal warfare” had no place on a 31st century battlefield. He added a flurry of autocannon fire and twin medium lasers to Dominic’s gauss rifle, the combined barrage savaging the front armor of the Clan Omni and driving it back against the barracks. One wall was staved in by the Shadow Cat’s shoulder, but it helped the warrior keep to his feet where otherwise he would have fallen.
A burst of static in his ear warned Sinclair of a new Smoke Jaguar transmission. “Delta Point, stay hidden. Wait for it.”
Sounded like more Elementals, the powered-armor infantry troops the Clans had devised. So far the Damocles Commando had run into them just once. An annoyance when alone or in pairs, the battle-armor infantry could be devastating in numbers. “Keep your eye open, Dominic. Watch for Elementals.”
The caution came a second too late. Dominic had walked his Shadow Cat forward to finish off his opponent, stepping within 10 meters of the quarried depression. Rising up from camouflaged holes and mounds of hastily piled ore, they came. Two points -- 10 soldiers wearing their power-assisted armored suits. Half of them launched a coordinated missile salvo at the Orion, which weathered the storm but not without sacrificing more of its precious armor. The rest swarmed Dominic’s Omni, tearing into its armor with their claws and thrusting small lasers into the rents to burn at the internal structure. One fell under the Shadow Cat’s feet and was crushed. The MechWarrior wisely chose to distance himself from the trap before more Elementals fastened to him and dodged aside. The Clan Shadow Cat pursued.
“Enemy has advanced to barracks area,” a Clan warrior warned. The voice tickled at the back of Connor’s memory. The Puma’s pilot! The lieutenant had almost forgotten about the deadly light design in the face of the Elemental swarm. It had backed in behind the barracks building and in a few seconds would be in perfect position to strike out at an unsuspecting Dominic Paine.
Throttling into a fast walk, Connor ignored the Elementals and aimed the massive Orion at the barracks. Wood and iron nails, no matter how well constructed, could never hold up against a determined BattleMech. Especially one with 75 tons to throw around. The wood splintered with rifle-shot echoes that Connor could hear even buttoned up in his cockpit. He kicked and shoved his way through, bulldozing the two-story building, and then stepped out into the blind alley right behind the Puma.
The emerald pulses of his two medium lasers flayed at the weak rear armor of the stoop-shouldered light ’Mech. The short-range missile pack riding his left shoulder hammered three of its charges home, expanding the destruction and leaving the Puma bare to his autocannon. Sinclair toggled for clustering ammunition. The Kali Yama LB 10-X selected its alternate feed system, loading and firing special rounds that fragmented to shower the Puma with hundreds of smaller submunitions. Many of these found the gaps already melted and blasted into the armor, striking deeper to chip away at critical equipment. A grayish-green cloud erupted out the back of the Puma as a heat sink shattered and spewed its precious coolant. Then the Omni shook violently as its gyro was assaulted by the shrapnel, losing its balance and dropping to the ground as if Sinclair had reached in and snapped its spine.
Outside the short alley, two Shadow Cats lurched by, one still bearing three Elementals but both trading vicious punches with their left-arm gauss rifles. The Clan warrior could not have missed the loss of her companion.
She didn’t. “Enemy is advancing. MechWarrior® Travis lost. Star Colonel Osis, please advise!”
Although Sinclair couldn’t see what Ratache Osis could hope to accomplish, over comms with one ’Mech and a double-handful of Elementals to work with, he couldn’t help the sinking sensation that suddenly clawed at his stomach. Something he was missing. A strategy he hadn’t considered.
The desperation that might be driving Ratache Osis.
“All units fall back to the chemical plant. Go!” No doubts colored the star colonel’s order. “Target the storage tanks and flood the chamber with the corrosive waste. No more failures. No more excuses."
“Do not let those surrats out alive!”
Chapter 6: Baiting the Jaguar
"Oh, you’ve got to be--"
"Lieutenant, you have to stop them!" Dominic’s stunned outburst was cut off as Sorenson overrode his transmission from the Mobile Field Base vehicles. "If those tanks blow, we’re finished."
Exactly what Connor Sinclair had thought the instant he heard Ratache Osis’ order. In the confines of this underground complex, rupturing large tanks of corrosive and certainly poisonous gas would ensure no one made it out alive -- warrior or worker. Inner Sphere troops would have almost certainly refused such an order -- besides being borderline inhumane, martyrdom held appeal for so few. Of course, for the Smoke Jaguar warriors, the decision would be easier. The civilian laborer-caste workers would hardly matter in such a decision. As for their own death, they relied on the clan’s eugenics program to carry on their genetic legacy -- more often accomplished after death than before. It was part of their society. All they were required to do was prove themselves, and obeying such a command would certainly weigh heavily in their favor.
But this was still not quite the Clan way. At least, not as Connor had come to understand it. BattleMech combat and glory through victory! This latest tactic showed the same treacherous promise as the laser towers which had knocked the Black Hammer from space. Another order passed down from Galaxy Commander Brendon Corbett? Or was Ratache Osis also slipping down from that "higher ideal" the Clans preferred to vaunt?
"Don’t acknowledge it," Sinclair whispered to his empty cockpit, staring at the Smoke Jaguar Shadow Cat which had pulled back while Dominic busied himself smashing the Elementals from his own ’Mech. He tried angling for a shot, but Dominic stepped into his way and there was no maneuvering in the tight alley space. "Refuse, damn you!"
"Aff, Star Colonel." The voice was heavy with one part resignation but two parts fanaticism. "Acknowledged." The Shadow Cat turned from the quarry and ran for the tunnel which connected this underground chamber to the next.
"No, you don’t," Connor said, more to himself than the phantom presence of the other MechWarrior. He moved his Orion forward, out of the alley, and set his targeting reticle at the next tunnel entrance. He would have one shot. It had to score hard.
Sinclair had forgotten to toggle off the cluster ammunition feed to his autocannon. In the heat of combat, controlling a 75 ton war avatar and trying to keep several enemy targets placed, situational awareness could be strained past the point of remembering each little detail. His LRMs missed, slamming into the cavern wall just short of their target and raining out stone chips and slivers. Following up with fragmenting autocannon submunitions would normally be a mistake, the shrapnel rounds good at sanding away armor but rarely at forcing a breach.
Except that Dominic’s gauss rifle had punched two deep holes into the enemy OmniMech already, and now the fragments worked further into the Shadow Cat’s leg and blocky torso than he would have thought. The ankle joint threw sparks and wispy blue-black smoke as the actuator tore apart, freezing the animation in that joint. The Cat’s thermal image also darkened into the dangerous red band as more shrapnel chipped away at the physical heat shield which surrounded its fusion reactor. It was a sluggish and crippled Shadow Cat which finally limped from the chamber, followed a few seconds later by Dominic’s own Cat and then Sinclair’s Orion.
The passage tightened up at once, barely enough room for a ’Mech to walk and crawling around sharp bends that hid the Clan ’Mech from sight. Connor noticed a single Elemental still clinging to Dominic’s shoulder, tearing away at the armor with the steel claw that replaced its left hand. He targeted it with a single medium laser, careful not to hit his lancemate. The emerald beam sliced into and through the Elemental’s leg, amputating it at the hip. He fell to the tunnel floor, but with the tough resilience Elementals were known and slightly feared for, the armored trooper quickly rose on hands and knee to fire its shoulder-mount missile two-pack. A last act of defiance, since Connor’s second laser shot ended his life a second later, but the Jaguar warrior had still cost the Orion in savaged armor when the missiles slammed into its chest and right leg.
Connor Sinclair made the next cavern only seconds behind Dominic. An extensive, three-story factory complex had been built to cover most of one wall, spreading vertically so as to leave the floor open. Next to it a broad ramp, large enough for BattleMech access, spiraled up toward a hint of daylight -- a secondary entrance to the facility and the commando’s escape route. If they lived to use it.
A pair of immense storage tanks dominated the wall across from the factory. The fleeing Shadow Cat was already targeting the large tanks. An Orion twin to Sinclair’s moved down the ramp to bring its own weapons into play. The lieutenant counted themselves fortunate that at least here the Jaguars had reinforced their construction, taking no chance with an accidental rupturing of the tanks. The Cat was the most dangerous, hammering away with its gauss rifle, the nickel-ferrous slug gouging large holes into the armor siding. The enemy Orion had yet to clear the ramp’s overhang.
"I said to blow those tanks! I want a report to that effect! Gamma Base?"
If the tanks had been blown, doubtful anyone would have time to report. Sinclair chalked it up to Ratache Osis’ attempt to command over a comm system rather than in person. If it wasn’t officially reported, then obviously it hadn’t happened yet. He framed his cross hairs with the outline of the enemy Shadow Cat.
Only to have Dominic ace him for that target. The left arm gauss rifle spat out a silvery blur that punched straight through the thin rear armor of the Jaguar Shadow Cat, smashing aside support structure and shielding for the fusion reactor. The scarlet beam from his two medium lasers followed, coring all the way through and releasing the blossom of golden fire at the ’Mech’s heart.
The Shadow Cat blew apart and Sinclair winced, waiting for the chemical storage tanks to go up in a sympathetic explosion. One of the Cat’s arms flew across the chamber to smash into the Orion just as it cleared the ramp. The impact spoiled the Jaguar warrior’s aim, his first set of missiles flying wide of the targeted storage tanks.
The tanks held, and Sinclair shifted his cross hairs over the remaining enemy to unleash the Orion’s full fury.
His heavy launcher spat out its flight of missiles, most of them drawing a straight line of gray contrail smoke to their target where they erupted in a storm of fire and armor shrapnel. One set of missiles slammed into the Orion’s head, wreathing the cockpit canopy in flame and debris. Others worried the armor over chest and arms. His medium lasers carved deeper into the chest, but failed to penetrate the thick armor protection. The lieutenant had nearly resigned himself to another exchange of weapons fire, and one more chance for the Clan warrior to rupture the tanks. Then his autocannon spoke a throaty roar as it drilled a long burst of depleted-uranium rounds directly into the head behind the damage his missile flight had caused. The ferroglass canopy shattered, and the wide face of the head assembly sagged inward under the onslaught. The BattleMech toppled backward, slamming into the ground, a smashed ruin of its former strength.
"On your right, Lieutenant!" Dominic’s warning announced the arrival of the remaining Elementals, who had lagged behind the charging BattleMechs but were no less motivated in carrying out their final orders from Star Colonel Ratache Osis.
After the two ’Mechs, picking off the five remaining battle-armor troops seemed to present an easy challenge. It was only when one made it close enough to score the tanks with a laser that both Damocles Commando warriors realized the game at which they still played. Fire intensified for a few seconds, and then Dominic was putting down the final Elemental with his paired medium lasers.
"That should be the last of them," Sinclair said with relief. "We’re clear."
And apparently none too soon for Dominic. "Can we get out of here now?" the other MechWarrior asked.
A burst of static heralded another transmission from Osis. "Gamma Base! You will respond." The star colonel was still looking for verification that the commando had been stopped for good.
Dominic’s Shadow Cat pointed lasers and gauss rifle at the ceiling, as if he could target the star colonel wherever his command center might be. "I’d like to respond, all right. Now they’re willing to kill their own civilian workers to get at us? Whatever happened to the old Clan idea of honorable combat?"
Sorenson answered the question with frank seriousness. "When your back is to the wall, Dominic, people do what they can to survive. Corbett is wearing under the strain of a dying Clan. Now Ratache Osis is feeling the pressure from above as well."
"Gamma Base!"
"I could transmit a report to the Eclipse on an open frequency," the corporal offered. "Let him know he’s failed again. Clan officers tend to take that kind of news rather hard."
Connor considered it, just for a moment. In a way it would be satisfying, rubbing his enemy’s nose in the fact that the desperate tactic had not only been of questionable merit, but that it had failed utterly. Then he lined up his first shot against the factory complex. A communications facility, his computer identified it. Obviously empty since no one had told Osis of the failure. "No," the lieutenant said, squeezing into his shot.
"Let him wonder."
* * *
The holographic map stretched from floor to ceiling in Ratache Osis’ planning room, the projector humming a soft contrast to the growls rumbling in the star colonel’s chest and throat. The holo-image currently displayed a two-dimensional colored map of the peninsula, decorated with small pinpricks of white light to represent Smoke Jaguar forces and red flags where reports confirmed enemy troops. Near the base of the peninsula, in the shadow of the Cascade Mountain range which cut the northern stretch off from the main continent, a single shining star showed his position in Durghan City. A dim light moved around further north, tracking intermittent contact with the enemy ’Mech company deployed by the second Inner Sphere DropShip.
That dim light was Galaxy Commander-- and likely future Khan -- Brendon Corbett, relegated to insignificant status by his subordinate as the galaxy commander ignored the greater danger of the small teams loose in the southern reaches. On the inside of the peninsula’s hook, rounding up to the headland where the decoy factory site had been, a red swath told of the damage already done. Now on the southern coast a mirror image of that destruction was unfolding, heading arrow-straight at the Smoke Jaguar’s hidden mining venture and the real OmniMech production site. Other flags showed a few sporadic contacts along the peninsula’s eastern coast, but nothing so important as the threat to the OmniMech factory.
Galaxy Commander Corbett did not realize the true scope of the damage already done to the Smoke Jaguar’s very limited resources. Osis only hinted at it in his reports. Tell Brendon Corbett outright that he, a member Lincoln Osis’ sibko, could not handle a few rogue freebirth? Neg! The galaxy commander could not appreciate the difficulty in tracking down a few determined warriors who fade away as fast as they hit. It took time to shift forces around. And the Inner Sphere vermin struck only when at the advantage. In the star colonel’s opinion, Brendon Corbett had taken a far easier -- and therefore less glorious -- task for himself in standing against the company pushing through the Cascades.
An area on his map began to flash as technicians updated it from news feeding in from the southern reaches. Battle had been joined near the underground OmniMech factory. This time his forces stood prepared. Ratache Osis had managed to shift an entire front-line star into the enemy’s path, manned by a set of his best warriors in that region. He did not expect the battle to last long.
He was right.
After only 10 minutes, the area flashed a dark amber and then on to red. A new red flag positioned itself at the administrative building for the factory and mine complex. The Smoke Jaguar star colonel snarled his rage in a fair approximation of the Clan’s namesake. He was at his desk in three quick strides, knocking aside his noteputer as he stabbed at his built-in communications console. The trembling technician who fielded his request made two wrong connections before establishing both an audio and visual link with the factory. Ratache Osis filed a mental note to have the tech replaced even as Star Commander Drevin-- the officer in charge of the factory’s defense -- made his report. The technician was mercifully forgotten as a new rage gripped the star colonel.
"The entire star? Lost? Incompetent surrats! I am surrounded by the dregs of the iron wombs. I should have you all wiping the noses of sibko brats, not commanding BattleMechs."
Drevin quailed, but then rebounded. "We will hold them, Star Colonel."
"You will destroy them, or your legacy dies with you. Is that clear, Star Commander? Use your charges and seal the mountain. If you have to bring it down on top of you, those vermin will not escape. Quiaff!?"
"Aff, Star Colonel. Aff!"
Ratache Osis disconnected with another violent stab at the console. With more thoughtful motion, he sent orders through his noteputer to ready his personal ’Mech and alert his star that they would be taking to the field at once.
"They might destroy the factory," he admitted to himself in the security of his planning room. "Aff, they might. If they do, it proves them dangerous to the point that even Galaxy Commander Corbett will have to take notice. The warrior who brings them down will be positioned for great things as the Clan reforms here on Tranquil." Command of a galaxy? The position of saKhan? What might not be within reach? He stood and strode from the room with deliberate energy.
"I will be that warrior," he vowed.
Chapter 7:
Superior Firepower
Thanks to our raid up above, we have a good set of diagrams on this underground facility. And it is their ’Mech production site, Lieutenant. From what I’ve been able to sift through, it may be their only one on Tranquil. It is also lightly defended. The Jaguars counted too much on the facility staying hidden.
The front entrance has been intentionally collapsed, a crude but effective shield against a raid, while the Jaguars finish some new OmniMechs. Epona Rhi is on station at the entrance, and she thinks she might be able to blast her way through but no promises. Since we’re running out of time, I’ve found you another way. You are actually coming in through the back with a bit of applied engineering magic.
Stand by for data feed.
* * *
Under the concentrated firepower of Connor Sinclair’s Orion and Dominic’s salvaged Puma, the 70-ton Thor hadn’t a chance. The first azure whip from Dominic’s paired particle projection cannon drew a molten scar across its turret-style waist. The Orion hammered in afterward, missiles shredding the final remnants of armor on the enemy’s left leg and driving through the rent over the left side to open up the OmniMech’s skeleton. Sinclair’s autocannon chewed deeper, tearing open the ammunition bin for the Thor’s SRM system and smashing both delicate warheads and propellant chambers.
Something gave way, and the entire collection of better than 100 missiles detonated with armor-shredding force. The explosion tore out the entire left side of the Omni, critically damaging the heat shield and severing control of the left arm as the fireball blossomed. The Thor’s main weapon, the left-arm gauss rifle, dropped down to hang impotently against the Omni’s side. Only the cellular ammunition storage system prevented the ’Mech’s death, channeling the explosion out front and back vents rather than allow it to eat further into the torso. Small consolation, as the tremendous force argued physics onto its side and spun the Thor into a wild, staggering step that finally toppled the war machine toward its left side.
And straight into Dominic’s second PPC.
The man-made lightning arced and crackled, drawing a snaking path from the Puma’s large particle weapon to the Thor’s head. The stream of hellish energies slammed through armor and ferroglass to turn the cockpit into an instant crematorium. What might have been a recoverable fall turned into a graceless plunge into death, the state-of-the-art OmniMech now reduced to so many tons of parts and scrap metal.
Two MFBs rolled into the immense cavern, the third having been lost above ground when a star of five Jaguar OmniMechs surprised the commando. Dominic lost his Shadow Cat toward the end of that battle, the OmniMech blown to scrap but the commando’s warrior ejecting safely. If the Clan warriors had worked together instead of as five separate warriors, they might have finished off the lieutenant as well.
Panting due to the escalated heat levels in his cockpit, Sinclair surveyed the mining site --the twisted and smoking ruins of the equipment that had fallen under collateral damage from the ’Mech battle. Three Clan ’Mechs littered the gravel-strewn ground as well. Their threat ended, Connor disregarded them and looked instead at the wrecked conveyer system -- what Sorenson had promised they could use to gain access to the back of the factory complex. The cavern holding the factory complex couldn’t be more than a few hundred meters away. But through the seamless rock wall, it might as well have been a few thousand.
As if sensing his name in the lieutenant’s thoughts, the analyst spoke over the comms system. "We’ve picked up a weak signal from Epona Rhi. She has dug partway into the factory complex and will try to rendezvous as we press forward. Her last Mobile Field Base vehicle will guide me back around while you head in through the steel plant."
"Good to know," Connor said. "But how do we get in there if the conveyer system is smashed?" The structure normally ran six meters over the ground in a long bridge from steel plant ore extractor to a ramp cut from the stone wall at the actual excavation site. Sorenson had planned to have the two ’Mechs walk up the ramp and onto the belt system, follow it over into the extractor, and blast through an interior wall that would allow them to exit out the other side of the steel plant. A sound plan, except that now the middle of their bridge was missing. And BattleMechs were not known for their climbing ability.
A spike in the background static of transmission warned of an intercepted Smoke Jaguar communication. "It is too quiet. What are they doing? All posts check in!" Though the clarity suffered, Connor placed it as Star Commander Drevin, the on-site officer. Sorenson had intercepted a few transmissions between this Drevin and Ratache Osis. Drevin was desperate. Desperate men were dangerous. Desperate Clan warriors, Sinclair had learned, were doubly so.
"I can’t raise Epona," the corporal called out over the common frequency. Too much rock in between." One of the MFBs began a tight three-point turn to head back the way it had come in. "We need to get around the side of this mountain quickly, or we’ll lose her."
Connor shook his head. He couldn’t have Sorenson panicking now. "Calm down, Corporal. Stop that MFB." He waited as his order was carried out. "Now think, Thomas. You got us this far. Your first plans have been upset, so come up with something new. We’re 200 meters or so from our target. Figure it out." There had to be another way. Just because Connor couldn’t see it, no reason Sorenson shouldn’t be able to. The man was an analyst. "It’s what you do best. Do it."
Dominic paced his Puma in a tight square. Working off nervous energy no doubt while the intelligence analyst tried to puzzle out a new way through. Sinclair waited with muscles beginning to cramp with the tension. He was gambling again, and this time every second lost placed Epona Rhi that much further from any support. Finally, "Can’t be done, Lieutenant. I’m sorry. No way you can blast through, and your ’Mechs are not made to climb like that. You need an elevator or a ramp. A ramp!"
Connor allowed himself a tight smile. Sorenson might just as well have yelled "Victory!"
"You aren’t 200 meters from your target, sir. You’re six meters. We need to get you onto that conveyer bridge and into the first extractor chamber." Data scrolled over one of Sinclair’s several auxiliary screens. "Target the following supports beneath the conveyer bridge."
He didn’t see what that gained them, blowing the rest of the bridge, but the corporal hadn’t let him down yet. Sinclair selected for lasers only -- no sense wasting precious ammunition and if they made it through, there would be no time for a refit and resupply. Epona was counting on them being there.
The emerald beams lashed out, slagging through first one heavy support, then another. The bridge twisted and, even through the cockpit armor, he heard the groan of stressed metal -- but it did not collapse. The third and fourth support fell away, thick metal girders no match for ’Mech weaponry. Then the conveyer system collapsed. Its outer structure fell flat to the ground, but where the conveyer still maintained integrity it held up one end into an improvised ramp. A brute-force job of it, but the lieutenant wouldn’t complain if it worked. Connor was first up the slope, praying for it to hold beneath the Orion’s 75 tons. It did. He smashed his way through the preliminary crusher and into the extraction chamber.
"The south wall," Sorenson reminded him. "Burn through."
Lasers again scored out, but where the girders had parted relatively easily, here the metal resisted. Reddish-orange splatters of molten steel dripped slowly to the floor of the extractor. This was the best industrial grade alloy, meant to last years of regular scoring and pounding. It wouldn’t give up easily.
Static flared. "They are coming. No one touches their commander! He is mine." Drevin again. But no way he had figured out their plan yet -- he was referring to Epona, as if she would be leading in the combined force. She was almost through the Jaguar’s barricade and with no support nearby!
Connor gave up on the lasers, raising his arms against the weakened metal and ramming piston-like blows against it. It cracked and bowed, but refused to give. Dominic held his place behind the Orion, unable to move up to help. Finally the lieutenant leaned his leviathan machine back and then simply charged forward, throttling into a run in the tight confines and lowering one angular shoulder into the damage already wrought against the wall. It held for a very long second, then parted with a shriek of tearing metal. The Orion stumbled through. Connor Sinclair found himself in a tight passage meant more for exoskeleton-assisted laborers, but serviceable for ’Mechs if barely so.
With no time for finesse, the lieutenant gave the Orion as much throttle as he dared. Once the passage twisted back on itself, and whenever he brushed the unforgiving wall he left behind more of his protective armor. The first indication of battle was a backflash of ruby light into the passage, coming from around the next bend.
The second was Epona’s call for help. "Blake’s Blood!" she yelled, her cultured accent softening the centuries-old curse only slightly. "I’m dancing with an Annihilator up here! Anyone about to cut in?"
The other side of the bend the passage widened quickly into a large antechamber that opened up onto the factory complex proper. Roughly pentagonal in shape, the complex boasted a level of sophisticated design not yet seen on Tranquil and never to be found in the Inner Sphere. As with the previous underground site, the Smoke Jaguars had designed it to keep the floor as open as possible. The factory buildings had been built up the wall rather than outward, turning the entire cavern into one large metal-walled chamber. A strange tower in the middle of that chamber glowed with large power conduits and ran heavy cable to three automated ’Mech construction bays that occupied different corners of the facility. Nearly complete were three new OmniMechs, nestled back in their cradles as machines continued to work on them.
Already complete was the monstrous Annihilator and the two ’Mechs flanking it, a second Thor and an Owens.
One hundred tons and 12 meters tall, the Annihilator looked every gram of an assault ’Mech. The head was formed up like a thick comb over a bullet-shaped body that rested on massive legs. The arms spoke of lethal intent, ending in two large-bore autocannon barrels each. It was not a design that promoted a call for a reasonable solution. It was one that argued for unconditional surrender. Though not an OmniMech, it was still a Clan-technology machine and so followed their design theory in that it sacrificed mobility for hard-hitting firepower. And at the moment that firepower was turned against Epona Rhi.
In her time on Tranquil, the MechWarrior had salvaged and returned to service a Clan-design Shadow Cat similar to the one Dominic had lost, except that this one had been configured for two extended-range large lasers and a six-pack short-range missile system. Now her ruby beams speared out, but not at the Annihilator. She ignored the titan and the damage it visited on her, targeting instead one of the smaller ‘Mechs: the 70-ton Thor. Her tactics had thrown the floor into confusion as the Thor ran around trying to avoid her rather than fire on the ’Mech which Star Commander Drevin had chosen for his current target. In the much faster Shadow Cat, Epona sprinted around the large chamber, making herself a very hard target as she continued to punish the Thor and chase it in any direction that took her away from the Annihilator -- delaying tactics as she waited for help.
Which had just arrived. Sinclair’s first flight of missiles bracketed the Annihilator’s back, blasting away armor but unable to penetrate. Though the back was weaker than other locations, the assault ’Mech could withstand a few solid hits before opening itself up to debilitating internal damage. The Orion’s autocannon peeled away protection from the other’s right leg and his lasers concentrated their emerald energy into the left arm, unfortunately spreading the damage rather than taking advantage of the already savaged rear armor.
If the weapons barrage hadn’t been enough to prove him a threat, that the Orion was nearly of a height with the Annihilator would call attention to Sinclair as the commando’s leader. No Smoke Jaguar officer worth his heritage would refuse the call to battle. As the threatening ’Mech turned to face him, the lieutenant could not help the shudder which shook him for a second. His Orion was not a match for the Annihilator, and everyone in the complex knew it. Especially the Jaguar MechWarrior, who raised both arms to level a quartet of autocannon Sinclair’s direction. Against the slower moving Orion, there would be little chance for Star Commander Drevin to miss. The spark of tracers flared in the cavern, drawing four lines of destruction to the Orion where the heavy-caliber slugs tore across its chest and both arms. The 75 ton ’Mech shook under the onslaught much as Connor had trembled the moment before. It stumbled backward, the commando leader fighting to keep the BattleMech upright by strength of will as much as by his piloting -- failing.
And the Annihilator juggernaut lumbered forward with slow but deliberate strides.
Chapter 8:
Sundered
Stumbling backward in the Orion, trying to regain control of the battered ’Mech as well as some measure of initiative in this battle, a lesson from his academy days flashed back to Connor Sinclair. The topic had been "Situational Awareness." "It’s a MechWarrior’s lifeline," the lecturer had promised, speaking in shotgun sentences as if every word counted. "Some are born with it. It can be learned, true. But it can also be learned wrong. And that can kill you."
Situational awareness covered a wide range of factors. More than just knowing the lay of the battlefield, holding it in your head like some oversized chessboard on which the pieces moved, though that was part of it. When Connor gambled against the pull of gravity and shifted his Orion to the right, it was because he knew that the rough rock wall of the cavern was there. The BattleMech slammed hard against it, and he heard the distant crunch of shattered armor as the plates over his back were crushed. It was better, however, than toppling to the ground -- likely never to rise again with the Annihilator bearing down on him.
The pieces themselves were also a major consideration. The advancing assault ’Mech. The Owens only now moving in from the other side of the tower. Dominic’s Puma -- from the icon flashing across his HUD, it had cleared the antechamber to come up on the Orion’s left. Epona Rhi’s Shadow Cat chasing the Thor, the Smoke Jaguar warrior running his Omni in between the Orion and Annihilator, stopping to twist back and track her advance. With his commander switching targets to the Orion, it left him free to finally answer her attacks.
Though he’d never fought at her side before, Sinclair simply trusted that Epona wouldn’t be there to face the Thor’s assault. A slight gamble, yes, but in his mind the picture came together in such perfect form he could imagine no other result. As much as anything, situational awareness was coordinating all the factors and understanding how they related to each other. Predicting the decisions of your own lancemates as well as the enemy. Recognizing that one moment when the opposition was most vulnerable, such as turning their back and disregarding a former target. The Clans taught their warriors to prefer single combat above the normal chaos of a battlefield. Their warriors chose a target and attempted to bring it down to the exclusion of all else. In Connor’s opinion, they had learned wrong.
And it would kill them.
"With me, Dominic." Connor barely had time for the order before tightening up on his triggers. Firing, not at the Annihilator which was presenting 10 tons of fresh armor toward him, but at the Thor already wounded by Epona’s earlier assaults. His autocannon spat out a hard stream of destruction, tearing into the 70-ton ’Mech’s left arm and cutting it off just below the shoulder. The Thor’s primary weapon was lost with the arm dropping away to smash against the cavern’s rocky floor. A split-second behind him, Dominic punched two PPC blasts into and through the Omni’s right side. The blue-white lightning melted away a large portion of engine shielding and destroyed the control equipment of the right arm, which sagged into uselessness. As good as dead, the Thor suffered one final barrage as one of Sinclair’s short-range missiles and both medium lasers struck at its right leg -- already savaged by Epona, the limb had less to give than the salvo demanded. The leg bowed outward at the ruined knee joint, then snapped off as the Thor fell over onto its side, not to rise again.
Epona had already recognized her own advantage, splitting off from her pursuit of the Thor and slipping in behind the Annihilator which had spurned her for the larger Orion -- obviously considering her an inferior target. Determined to chastise the Jaguar warrior for his presumption, she cut loose with both large lasers and a flight from the SRM launcher. Ruby energy flared at the assault BattleMech’s back. One of the energy weapons drifted low, cutting into the hip instead, but the other punched through to cut at the vital equipment at the Annihilator’s core. Molten shielding ran down to the floor, and then high-velocity metal spat out the rent as the gyro began tearing itself into pieces. Three missiles smashing into the ruined socket sped its demise, and the Annihilator collapsed first to its knees and then slowly -- almost gracefully -- to the floor.
At once, the assault machine attempted to get its arms beneath it, to fight on despite the ruined gyro. The Jaguar warrior was not giving up. Dominic had already split off to challenge the Owens; Connor advanced with Epona to pour more firepower into the downed assault ’Mech. It could not be allowed to regain its feet or even a position from which it might fire a pair of its large-bore autocannon. Gem-colored laser light flared, carving at the fallen ’Mech as the commando warriors struck again and again. When the Owens fell under Dominic’s PPCs a moment later, the fight suddenly seemed to flee the Annihilator which collapsed over its arms and lay silent. Connor noticed the large hole burned through the back of its head, one of Epona’s large lasers finally ending the star commander’s struggle.
The three Damocles Commando BattleMechs held the floor and the factory.
"Not bad work, Epona." Dominic walked his Puma over to face the Shadow Cat, presumably so he could wave through his own cockpit canopy. "We could have used you topside when that star of Omnis hit us. Well, better late than never," he said, forgetting -- conveniently, in Connor’s opinion -- that here it has been Epona who had arrived first.
"Late?" Sinclair could hear the adrenaline rush in her voice, shaking that usually soft accent. "Paine, do you have any idea what it took to get here at all? Bloody mission cock-up, scattering us all over the peninsula."
Diplomatically, Dominic retreated. "Sorry, Rhi. I’m glad you made the party. Though all things being equal, I’d rather be seeing the Black Hammer."
Epona Rhi calmed, coming back into her own self-assured voice. "Every indication, including Jaguar comm intercepts I picked up, point toward its complete loss. Except for Keith Andrew, and he’s still stuck up north, we’re all that’s left."
Connor sighed to himself, then dropped his jaw down low enough to engage the contacts and open a channel. "So much for the cavalry," he transmitted. Not for the first time of late, Dominic’s view of the world was beginning to look the more clear. And with each addition to his motley force, the signs of the strain mounted on them worsened rather than improved.
Epona’s Shadow Cat shifted on mechanically taloned feet to face the larger Orion. "It gets better. Keith ran into some heavy laser towers in the northern stretch of Operations Area Three--"
"We’re acquainted with those," Dominic interrupted.
"Well, these can target ground forces as well as low-orbit ships. So don’t expect much in the way of support until those are taken out." She paused for a second, to let that news sink in, then, "In fact, play it safe, and don’t expect much at all."
* * *
Extremely good salvage, everyone. Can’t ask for much better than a Clan factory.
--We might ask for a working DropShip.--
I’m working on that, Dominic. In the meantime, Epona’s earlier scouting has pointed out several good routes leading into the next Operations Area. With Osis certainly closing on our position, we will do better on the move. Every step takes us that much closer to the Eclipse.
--You know, I don’t remember signing on for the walking tour of Tranquil. But am I happy to be here? You bet I am.--
* * *
Everyone, listen to this. It’s a piece of intercepted comms between Smoke Jaguar officers, brought in by Epona Rhi. I’ve cleaned it up a bit:
… does not matter. He requires constant resupply, chasing those freebirth through the Cascade Ranges.
Ratache Osis ordered the DropShip kept ready for his own use.
You would like to argue that with Galaxy Commander Corbett, quiaff?
Neg. Just be prepared for the return of Star Colonel Osis to Durghan. He will be displeased, unless he has managed to destroy those surrats by then…
All right, did you hear that? Here:
…ordered the DropShip kept ready…
It’s out there, boys and girl. Our ticket back to the Eclipse. I found it. Now you have to convince them to give us a ride. Either that or we rely on the rescue team finally making it through.
How ’bout it, Lieutenant?
* * *
Scattered remains of an enemy Shadow Cat and an Annihilator littered the ground, some smoking pieces still hot enough to register red on thermal imaging. The Mad Cat, all that remained of the first unit, struggled with a gimped leg. Still unstable on its feet following the ammunition explosion that had ripped one side off the 75 ton OmniMech, the Mad Cat withdrew to temporary safety behind the fortified outpost, seeking a brief respite and leaving the Damocles Commando to contend with the trap sprung by the advancing team of four fresh Smoke Jaguar OmniMechs.
Another Mad Cat led forward a Shadow Cat, Thor and Vulture. This second unit had moved down from the northwest to bottle the commando on the coastal plains, pushing the Inner Sphere force back into an area framed by mountains on two sides and ocean on the third. Behind them the ground opened up, except that Sorenson had already registered an intermittent contact which was likely a new ’Mech moving in to close off any easy escape. The corporal held their Mobile Field Base vehicles a quarter-kilometer back, crawling forward slowly and delaying their arrival. With the addition of Epona Rhi’s single surviving MFB, the commando fielded a trio of the crucially important vehicles again -- a number that would diminish quickly if the Omnis turned any weapons their way.
Sinclair had already exchanged long-range fire with the lead Mad Cat, his salvaged Thor coming off the worse end: able to match a single large laser only against a devastating combination of heavy missile flights and laser fire. The lieutenant’s ears still rang with the explosions that had rocked the side of the cockpit from the pair of missiles slamming into the Thor’s head. The matchup appeared hopeless, unless the enemy closed for hard-hitting combat where Sinclair might hope to bring his left-arm autocannon into play. The heavy caliber weapon had a limited range, but would rip into the toughest ’Mech with ferocious results. In a series of single combats, with his lancemates holding back the flanking units, the commando might hope to blast through and escape.
A hope mercilessly shot down as his computer picked up new Smoke Jaguar comms traffic. "You will issue a challenge, quiaff Star Commander?"
"Neg, Stefen. No quarter offered. Full attack."
"Give ground! Give ground!" Connor ordered, knowing his people could not stand up to the kind of barrage the new unit could deliver. The armor protecting Epona’s Shadow Cat was now more memory than reality, and his own looked none too good as well. Thick gray smoke roiled out of a rent in the chest of Dominic’s Puma, its skyrocketing heat levels having caused one of his heat sinks to rupture. That the commando’s MechWarriors gave as good as they received didn’t help. Overwhelming force was simply that.
"No mercy!" the star commander ordered her people, stepping her Mad Cat to the fore and probing at the Thor with her lasers. Her flanking ’Mechs each picked one of the other commando warriors, the Vulture joining the Shadow Cat against Dominic’s Puma, striking out with full salvos. From behind the fortifications it had retreated behind earlier, the first Mad Cat stepped out to pin the Epona in a blistering crossfire.
Epona’s Shadow Cat weathered a flight of 12 missiles that pockmarked the remnants of her left side armor before a Thor’s gauss slug smashed into her torso. A laser flayed the last of the armor away from right leg. "Engine’s hot," she transmitted, warning that she’d lost shielding. "Lost the scout probe as well."
"Burst another heat sink," Dominic said. Almost as critical as Epona’s damage, the double-PPC configuration of his Puma pulling massive heat spikes from the reactor. However, the two of them together still managed to bring down the crippled Mad Cat, cutting its gimped leg out from beneath it and taking off its right arm as well.
"New contact," Sorenson called out. "We have a Sunder coming in from the west on a full run."
Connor Sinclair had been angling for partial cover behind one of the access ramps to the battle-weathered outpost. With Sorenson’s transmission, he cut back inside and raced forward to put himself between the advancing Smoke Jaguar line and his people. The Sunder was a 90-ton Inner Sphere-designed OmniMech -- brought back as spoils of war no doubt and another uncharacteristic move for these desperate Jaguars. It had approached in the blind spot of a rocky outcropping, just as the first four ’Mechs. With the assault machine completing a full star of five Omnis, there was little hope of escape. The lieutenant would sell himself as dearly as possible, buying time for his two warriors and Sorenson’s MFBs to retreat toward the ocean shore and the dubious safety of the coastal foothills.
The maneuver worked in Sinclair’s favor, briefly, as he ran the Thor beneath the arcing flight of a new set of missiles from the star commander’s Mad Cat. Against lasers the lieutenant was not so lucky. Both cut deeply, one nearly severing his right arm and the other splashing the last of his right side armor to the ground in a molten puddle. He struck back with his own laser, the green-gem light scoring the Mad Cat’s left shoulder as it turned away from him and onto a facing at-odds with its previous line of advance. The maneuver made no sense to Sinclair, though even his situational awareness was beginning to stretch at its limits in this chaotic firefight. He mentally flailed for what he might be missing, readying himself to give the order which would send his lancemates fleeing for the coast.
Epona Rhi beat out her lance commander and Sorenson both. "Hey… HEY! Isn’t that Sunder one of ours?!"
The Sunder’s particle projection cannon arced out an azure whip of man-made lightning, slicing it horizontally across the bulbous torso of the Mad Cat. A gauss slug blurred between the two war machines, punching in right behind the molten scar to smash the supports for one of the star commander’s shoulder-mounted missile launchers. The box-like structure wrenched away from the Omni, protesting with a shriek of stressed metal, and crashed to the ground. Its load of missiles detonated on impact, throwing the mangled weapon back into the air and spinning off to one side. Unbalanced by the impact of the Sunder’s heavy weaponry and the loss of better than nine tons of armor and armament, the heavy-class ’Mech stumbled and fell, landing hard against it right side but immediately working to right itself.
"You readin’ me?" The transmission sounded distant, broken and cloaked by more static than the intercepted Smoke Jaguar comms, but there. "Hello, Damocles Commando! Looks like you could use some help." The damaged comm system notwithstanding, Connor thought he could almost recognize that voice.
Again, Epona had no difficulty. "Allen Mattila! Master of understatement."
A warrior from her original commando, Team Three. Sinclair remembered meeting him once aboard the Black Hammer -- a large, dark-skinned man from New Syrtis, with that confident attitude common to so many assault ’Mech pilots. Deservedly common, he decided now as the trio of Clan Omnis pulled up short on their advance, suddenly defensive. The Sunder’s arrival obviously had them worried, and rightly so. Owning the only assault ’Mech on the field tipped the scales back toward even, and the lieutenant was not about to pass up an advantage when it quite literally walked up and presented itself. Sinclair opened a channel. "Hit them hard, Damocles Commando!
"Here’s our chance."
Chapter 9:
Deadly Embrace
Another battle and Sinclair would have finished off the downed star commander first. Here, hard-pressed by the forces still standing, it was better to target the most dangerous threat. None of the three remaining Omnis made the same mistake Star Commander Drevin had in the factory complex, turning their back directly against an enemy. Instead they throttled into reverse, angling back and to the left in hopes of putting distance between themselves and their enemies, keeping all hostile forces in front of them. Good tactics in most situations, except for one small fact of the Thor’s design.
It could jump.
Sinclair cut in the leg-mounted jump jets which pulled plasma from the fusion reactor, channeling it into special vents that provided enough vertical lift to rocket the Thor into an arc 10 stories high if needs be and up to 150 meters along the ground. The OmniMech rose on fiery jets, twisting around at the apex of its arc to power into a controlled decent that brought it to earth directly at the backs of the Clan line. Caught between the Sunder’s heavy firepower and Connor’s primed heavy autocannon, the Smoke Jaguar line fell apart as each warrior worried about saving himself first. The ground-bound Vulture stuck it out, chancing its weak rear armor against Sinclair rather than the demonstrated effectiveness of the Sunder. The Shadow Cat and enemy Thor both took to the air on flaming jets, attempting to rocket out of the danger. The Thor jumped forward, trying to clear the other side of Dominic and Epona. The Shadow Cat rocketed back, going for distance.
In the end, it wouldn’t matter. They had been given a situation with no winning answer.
The autocannon’s throaty roar could be heard even in the shielded confines of the cockpit. Connor Sinclair held into the trigger for an exceptionally long burst, risking the slim chance of a weapon jam against eviscerating the enemy ’Mech. The depleted-uranium slugs raked jagged furrows across the back of the Vulture, starting at its left hip and ending just short of the right shoulder. Armor parted like eggshells smashed by a hammer, raining metal shards to the ground as the furious assault chewed deeply into the interior. Golden fire belched out in a tremendous gout as the reactor’s physical shielding simply ceased to exist. The Vulture exploded, its backwash of furious energies melting another half ton of armor from the front of Sinclair’s Thor and driving it back a few paces.
Its companion Shadow Cat fared little better, though it did have time for one final volley. The dual large lasers cut with ruby knives, one of them worrying Sinclair’s short-range missile launcher into a ruined, half-melted mass and the other finishing the star commander’s earlier work by cutting free his right arm at the elbow joint. The Thor lurched to the left, keeping its balance as Sinclair’s neurohelmet fed the lieutenant’s own sense of balance down into the gyro. A light touch on the control stick corrected the final tremor to the machine’s stance.
Then the Sunder’s PPC reached down the range to tear through armor and cripple the Shadow Cat’s gyro. While the Jaguar ’Mech staggered about, the MechWarrior inside had all of a second to stare back into the wide bore of a gauss rifle before the nickel-ferrous slug tore through the head and into the cockpit, smashing it in. It dropped next to the smoking ruins of Sinclair’s victim, out of the fight but definitely salvageable.
"Bloody hell!"
Alerted by her yell, Connor had time to twist the Thor around to see the canopy on Epona’s Shadow Cat blow away. Her command chair rocketed up into the air on a short jet of flame, leaving behind her doomed ’Mech. The enemy Thor had not quite cleared the commando’s reach, and so had faced off against the two lighter machines. It had managed to put a gauss slug directly through Epona’s missile ammunition bin and on into the fusion reactor. The explosion that ripped her OmniMech to pieces followed right on the heels of her safe ejection. The ejected seat deployed a light parafoil at its apex, gliding Epona away from the battlefield for a safe landing.
"Don’t worry, Lieutenant. We’ve got her." From the back, one of the MFBs powered ahead of the others to make pickup.
She wouldn’t be the only one, unless that Thor was brought down quickly. It slammed another of its crippling gauss slugs into Dominic’s Puma, crushing a hip joint and freezing the right leg immobile. An earlier round had already ruined one of the Puma’s PPCs, halving his effective weaponry. Recognizing a lancemate in trouble, Allen Mattila turned his Sunder to offer assistance. And as much as Connor also felt the desire to protect his warrior, there was still the Smoke Jaguar officer to worry about.
Or not. The final Mad Cat was having trouble regaining its feet. Quite possibly the fall had thrown the 75 ton Omni’s gyro out of alignment. Needing the Mad Cat to remain down but not about to rely on the star commander’s willingness to surrender, Sinclair dropped his cross hairs over its back and selected his heavy-bore autocannon. Then the thought of salvage stayed his hand and, instead of coring out the critical components of the Mad Cat, he dropped the reticle further down to fall across the Omni’s legs. His first burst shredded armor from one leg and rocked the Mad Cat back to a prone position. His next amputated the limb across the titanium femur, making it unlikely to ever rise again.
Then the canopy blew away as the star commander ejected herself along a horizontal path. The command chair slammed hard into the ground, tumbling along with rocket-assisted force as it left gouges and smears of blood against the earth.
"Such a waste," Sinclair said, careful not to transmit. Had the star commander’s shame been too much? Or did she believe that the commando would adopt Corbett’s "no prisoners" policy?
Not that it mattered anymore. And if the pilot of the enemy Thor had a preference, it was taken from him when Allen’s hard-hitting barrage drove the Omni to its knees and then Dominic’s remaining PPC burned into the head to core through to the backside. The cockpit became in an instant a ready-made crematorium, and the warrior inside reduced to ash and perhaps a few pieces of charred one.
Looking over the battlefield ruins, the eight ’Mech corpses littering the ground, Connor Sinclair shook his head over the waste of valuable technology and the inestimable value of each fallen warrior. Better the Smoke Jaguars than his own people, of course, but still he read the warning left him on the scarred landscape. The Clan had been within a moment of victory if not for Allen Mattila’s arrival, and their one vulnerability was always a lack of concerted effort. But in the collection of warriors forced under his command by the situation, Sinclair could see where the same problem could develop. Each warrior had their previous loyalties to old units and companions, and every one of them was feeling the strain of the situation now. The commando had its breaking point, certainly. Thankfully, they had not found it yet.
But who knew what the next battle would bring.
* * *
Well, we know what happened to the Black Hammer. The news isn’t good.
--Now doesn’t that figure?--
I’ll let him tell you his story. Go ahead, Allen:
…I was last out of the Black Hammer -- Shawna and Carlos failed to launch by drop-pod. My ’Mech grounded very near where the DropShip finally crashed. No other survivors. Man, it was a mess. I got shot up by a patrol my first trip. Long-range comms, trashed. No support vehicles. No way to make ammo reloads even. Been playin’ hide and seek ever since, waitin’ for someone to come lookin’. Today I caught your broadcasts, weak but there, so I hurried over to give ya a hand. Glad that I did, too, or none of us might have made it outta this mess…
Thanks, Allen. Lieutenant, the Smoke Jaguars have certainly stripped the Black Hammer for themselves, but they can’t have gotten far. Keith Andrew picked up news of a convoy heading out from Durghan City. To pick up the salvage, or a good percentage of it, is my guess. It will be an easy run to stop that convoy and claim the salvage for ourselves. Then we’ll be in good shape for hitting the city and making rendezvous with Keith.
The spaceport is just north of the city, hopefully complete with a functional DropShip.
* * *
Connor walked the ruined passageways of the Black Hammer. The DropShip laying on her side like some titan’s discarded toy, he was forced to use bulkheads for a floor and at times had to lift himself up into the next passage by means of light fixtures and pipes. In several places, he detoured through maintenance crawlspaces, the main passage smashed and impassable. His footsteps echoed hollowly, and the walls when he touched them felt cold. Dead.
He found the space he sought, the one for which he had pulled his lance out of their path to Durghan. His commando’s original briefing room. Perhaps it hadn’t been in their best interest to detour so far out to see the ship for themselves. The possibility of salvage left by the Jaguars had been remote at best. And in fact, the brief battle waged against the patrol which had staked out the crashed vessel had cost them more than any salvage taken from their ruined ’Mechs.
But more than equipment salvage had drawn him back to the Black Hammer. Sinclair had come for one thing in specific. A talisman? No, the MechWarrior shook his head to the unvoiced question. Not exactly. A rallying point for his warriors, who were tired and fraying. A symbol.
A reminder.
The planning table remained bolted to the floor, now actually a wall. The chairs were piled in a tangle. Sinclair pulled them apart, setting them outside the door as he worked his way down to the wall that had held the Star League ensign. It was still there, rumpled and creased but intact. The silver Cameron star, its one tine spearing to the right, set against a black field. The colors under with the task force -- the Damocles Command -- fought.
Sinclair cut it free with the knife he’d brought along, then folded the ensign carefully and shoved it inside his cooling vest.
"Let’s all remember why we are here," he asked of the empty room.
* * *
According to communication intercepts, Ratache Osis is leading a force somewhere to the south. But he apparently has our measure, and he’s been handed an ultimatum. Keith Andrew intercepted this and passed it along:
…These freebirth may get to Durghan City, Galaxy Commander, but they will die there. I promise.
They will die there, Ratache Osis, or I will have you in a Circle of Equals. Contain them. Destroy them. Or I will see your Blood Heritage dishonored and your DNA removed from our breeding cycles. Is. That. Clear?
Aff, Galaxy Commander! Sir? Galaxy Commander Corbett?…
Count on Osis to dog our tracks all the way in, Lieutenant. If you want to avoid him, I recommend fast action.
* * *
Durghan City was not large. Hardly more than a good-sized town, really. Certainly no replacement for Lootera back on Huntress, but here on Tranquil it was what the Smoke Jaguars had to work with as a new capital. Hastily erected prefab barracks, built to house the expected influx of warriors as the Clan continued to regroup on Tranquil, doubled the number of buildings. Warehouses had been converted to crude ’Mech bays, and everywhere the various Clan castes worked to improve what they could.
When the Damocles Commando struck, Connor Sinclair noticed at once the strains on Durghan. Administrative and logistics functions demanded by the military had so overburdened local resources that clear lines of communication no longer existed. Having the top two commanders currently absent from the city only compounded the problem; the number of junior warriors looking for direction matched only by ambitious officers ready to claim the mantle of leadership. The cacophony of conflicting reports and orders quickly escalated to the point where Sinclair ordered the MFBs to filter out all but the most critical intercepted communications.
The commando escorted forward their trio of MFBs, heading into the city’s southwest edge. Behind them they left a pair of smashed Vultures, whose pilots had thought themselves up to the task of taking on two 180 tons combined weight in BattleMechs. Further back an Annihilator and a Puma were little more than burning hulks. Dominic’s Thor limped along with a ruined leg actuator, but so far his was the only major damage.
In the cockpit of his salvaged Mad Cat, Connor Sinclair felt the tremors of light autocannon fire slamming into the shoulder of his OmniMech. His scanners screamed their warnings a split second later, then painted a set of threat icons over his head-up display. A trio of Bulldog armored vehicles, patrolling the outskirts of Durghan. The lieutenant weighed the delay in time with the necessity of clearing the field behind them. "Allen, you and Dominic deal with the tanks, then circle around to meet us on the north side of Durghan. Epona, with me." Splitting their forces was a calculated risk, but time was beginning to weigh against them. With Corbett and Osis away, the defense of Durghan was lighter than it should be. Patrols were being called in, however, and Sinclair had no intention of being here when they arrived.
The two commando ’Mechs speared into the city proper, Epona’s Shadow Cat pacing along at Sinclair’s best speed of 85 kph. They were after Galaxy Commander Corbett’s command and control building, located in the southwest reaches of Durghan. Though the Smoke Jaguar’s possessed a well-fortified base outside the city, the cramped conditions had forced several critical components to be relocated to an auxiliary site. It was a target they couldn’t pass up and in easy reach along their path to the spaceport.
At the second intersection, Connor’s HUD painted a Puma off to his right. It was quickly lost as he passed by and was again shielded by buildings, but the 300 meter range was too close. At the next intersection he turned left, and the following one back to the right. Two more intersections straight through, and the Mad Cat’s computer identified a building at the end of this block as his target. The Puma might have paced them to the north, but it wasn’t about to catch the two MechWarriors before they hammered Corbett’s command facility to rubble. Connor nodded his satisfaction.
It was a sense of contentment that quickly fled as an Annihilator stepped into the next intersection, its torso already twisted about to give it a line of sight down the street on which Sinclair approached. Behind it, just out of the intersection, his computers tagged an Avatar waiting to follow in the larger ’Mech’s shadow. It would have to wait its turn.
Four autocannons suddenly filled the street with fragmenting, mid-caliber rounds. The deadly storm sanded armor away from the Mad Cat’s every surface. Several rounds rang off the cockpit, throwing a violent shake to the entire ’Mech and threatening to unbalance it. Past the intersection and too late to dodge away himself, Connor quickly thought to his lancemate’s survival. "Break right, Epona!" Still fighting for control, Connor noted with an instant’s relief the Shadow Cat’s icon splitting away from his own on the HUD. It headed north, toward the rendezvous with Allen and Dominic, out of immediate danger.
The Mad Cat ran forward, directly into the Annihilator’s embrace.
Chapter 10:
Cityscape Challenge
Having faced up such a monstrous BattleMech a few times already, the Annihilator no longer held any special terror for Connor except in what it could do to his Mad Cat if given a chance. The 75 ton Omni could not withstand such abuse for long, and with Epona safely away, the lance leader was determined to not give the assault ’Mech a second chance to finish him. Framed on both sides by tall buildings, cut off ahead and not about to slow down for a turn back to the rear, Sinclair braced himself as he continued forward in a race against the cycling time of the Annihilator’s weapons.
The lethal autocannons were thrusting forward again in anticipation of a new barrage when Sinclair turned his Mad Cat into the large building on his right. Hands tight on control stick and throttle, the lieutenant powered his way into the wall. The ’Mech bucked hard, shaking him violently against the restraining harness and almost rebounded into the street where the Annihilator would certainly have destroyed it. Slowly it seemed, the Mad Cat chewed its way inward, smashing through two stories of floors, walls, desks, computer consoles and communication stations. Crushed brick, plaster and tile rained a cloud of debris around the canopy, fogging his view. Once far enough inside, Connor worked his way left again, guessing but trusting his natural instincts.
In an avalanche of brick and glass bursting out from shattered windows, the Mad Cat tore its way from the structure and regained the street around the corner from its original path. Behind him the building began a slow and ungainly collapse, unable to stand up under the damage to its lower floors. Wrenching his targeting cross hairs into the right side of his main screen, he twisted the Mad Cat at the waist to drop the reticle over the backside of the Avatar. The 70-ton ’Mech was just now stepping into the intersection that the Annihilator had vacated in favor of chasing after the Mad Cat. As the building collapsed in that direction, the assault ’Mech became mired in a pile of rubble and the Avatar pulled up short. Sensors no doubt screaming the danger of an enemy Mad Cat at his rear, the Avatar began to turn.
Not fast enough.
Sinclair cut loose with everything the Mad Cat had to give, except for long-range missiles as he was not about to waste ammunition or run up his heat scale on such a chancy close-up shot. His large lasers cut across the Avatar’s back and the rear left leg. A trio of medium-range lasers scored out with emerald pulses, adding to the damage, and even his machine guns, generally used as anti-infantry weapons, managed to scratch into the other ’Mech. The thermal image of the Avatar flared red and then white-hot as the engine shielding was cut away, but the other warrior was faster than most on the emergency shutdown fields. Though ruined as a power source, the MechWarrior prevented a catastrophic explosion of the reactor. The Avatar stood there where it had been, blocking the intersection, and belching smoke out the terrible rents in its back.
Connor’s first thought was for his escape. The Annihilator was still fighting to extract itself from the collapsed building, and after such a close call it seemed the perfect time. His second thought was for the mission, and he turned to locate the command center for at least one good barrage before fleeing. Then with a short bark of shocked laughter, he turned his Mad Cat northward and throttled up into a fast run. Results were what counted, regardless if it hadn’t been planned this way.
Truthfully he hadn’t paid attention at the time to which building he was running through.
* * *

[Summoner_BD]

"All forces. This is Star Captain Dana Wimmer." Connor listened to the intercepted comms Sorenson had routed him. Apparently one officer had finally won out for dominance. "Enemy is moving north. Regroup at the canyon. Stop them!"
A narrow bluff separated Durghan City from the plains area on which the spaceport was situated. A jumping BattleMech might have cleared the steep cliff face and then walked down the far side, but not the MFBs. Even so close to escape, the commando was not about to abandon the critical vehicles. Too many things could still go wrong. Too many things already had.
Recon probe data, originally meant for Commandos Four through Six and provided by the Eclipse, had located a short canyon splitting the bluff. It also showed a wall with fortified gates warding the far end of the narrow pass. Sorenson had arranged with Keith Andrew to provide artillery support, his Catapult equipped with Arrow IV assault missile launchers. Epona’s Shadow Cat was modified to carry a TAG spotting laser, which would direct the artillery strike against the wall and blow open the gates. A simple plan, as the best ones usually were.
Who was it that said "no plan survives contact with the enemy"?
Autocannon turrets protected the pass along its entire length, slowing the commando to a crawl. An Avatar had also been stationed in the way, but by the time Sinclair reached the site, the MFBs had deployed a crane arm to raise its blasted hulk to a carrying trailer. The Avatar’s leg looked to have been crushed by giant hammer blows, a testament to the gauss rifle Allen Mattila’s Sunder wielded. Allen was already several hundred meters into the canyon, his Sunder’s armor protecting him while he methodically scrapped each turret along the way. Dominic’s Thor and Epona’s Cat protected the Mobile Field Base vehicles.
"Keith ran into trouble with an enemy patrol," Sorenson informed the lieutenant at once. "He’s trying to get in the clear to launch an Arrow IV strike, but it’ll take time."
"I can launch soon as you’re ready," Keith Andrew interrupted on the commando’s common channel. The transmission did not rob his voice of the tense determination. "Just say the word."
Connor dropped his jaw, closing a circuit built into his neurohelmet chin strap to transmit hands-free. "Keith, you get clear of any Smoke Jaguars before launching. They’ll see the missile launch and try to trace it back." He stepped his Mad Cat up to the head of the pass, facing it back toward the city.
The MFBs finished their work and began to roll forward, into the relative safety of the canyon. "Dominic, back up Allen," he ordered. Though the assault ’Mech pilot had yet to say so and wouldn’t until seriously injured, the lieutenant knew the autocannon had to be exacting a toll against Allen’s Sunder by now. "Epona, with the MFBs." Then, his commando safely into the canyon, Connor backed up the Mad Cat to block the entrance.
Almost at once an enemy Puma raced up from behind, likely hoping to catch one of the MFBs or a smaller commando ’Mech by the backside. Instead it found Sinclair’s Mad Cat holding the defile entrance. Recovering quickly from any surprise, twin PPC strikes arced out and slammed into the Mad Cat’s side. Molten armor ran to the ground as large sections sloughed away, baring the right arm to its titanium skeleton and leaving a red-tinged scar angling from shoulder down to hip. The 75 ton ’Mech rocked back, but righted itself under Sinclair’s touch. The Puma spun around in a tight turn, ready to race back the safety of the city.
Sinclair was not about to let it off so easily. His heavy missile launchers speared out a full flight of 40 missiles, raining destruction over the upper torso of the Puma. The ’Mech staggered but did not go down. Following up with the large lasers carried in each arm, both sapphire beams stabbed into the Puma’s left leg. The intensely concentrated fire demanded more than the Puma had to give, slicing through just below the hip and amputating the leg. The 35 ton Omni plunged forward headfirst from its 90 kilometers-per-hour sprint, tearing itself apart against the ground as it rolled into and through a nearby warehouse.
No time for congratulatory thoughts. On his HUD, the Annihilator and a second Puma maneuvered into the outskirts of the city directly facing the defile. The assault ’Mech had finally cleared itself from the collapsed building and come looking for the commando, picking up some support along the way.
"Things are heating up back here," he transmitted. The literal truth, actually, as his fusion reactor spiked from the power demands of his weapons and the waste heat bled into his cockpit. He gasped for breath in the suddenly heavy atmosphere. "Tell me you’re to the gates."
Allen Mattila answered him. "We’re workin’ on it."
Working on it? A probing attack by the Annihilator walked autocannon fire across the canyon wall on Sinclair’s right. Stone chips and ricochets pinged off his Omni’s chest. He throttled into a backward walk, moving his Mad Cat further into the canyon’s protection. "Work a little faster, will you?"
"We’re trying," Sorenson cut in. "The wall has PPC turrets arranged for a savage crossfire, and they’re backing up an Annihilator."
Another Annihilator, this one playing Horatio at the bridge. Time was slipping out from beneath the Damocles Commando like quicksand. "Allen, can you handle it with Dominic?"
The frustration was evident in the MechWarrior’s voice. "If it has to be now, yes. But it will hurt. The Annihilator ripped a large hole into the leg of my Sunder that Sorenson wants to patch up before it costs me an actuator."
"We’ve pulled back and the Annihilator isn’t pursuing," the corporal added.
Of course not. Its job was to hold the pass until the city defenders could rally to the canyon. Connor selected for his large lasers only, chanced a long-range shot at the Puma which had run out to fire its PPCs. Both beams flew wide of their mark and low, scoring instead a parked groundcoach that exploded into an orange fireball. If nothing else, it hurried the Puma’s pilot, his own shots also missing though coming closer than Sinclair had. The manmade lightning scarred the ground 10 meters in front of the Mad Cat.
"Do we have 10 minutes?" Sorenson asked, able to pull Sinclair’s sensor feed and no doubt aware of the enemy ’Mechs pressing from behind. To the corporal’s credit, he didn’t worry the rest of the lance with details. That decision was left to the commando leader.
Now an Owens had moved up into the shadow of the Annihilator. The 100 ton assault ’Mech waded through a one-story warehouse and was briefly lost from site behind a parking garage. "I don’t think so," Connor admitted, the heat now drawing a river of sweat that stung at his eyes and left a salty taste on his lips. He arced another flight of missiles toward the Annihilator’s position, just to give the Jaguar warrior something to think about before it broke cover, and then wheeled around to pace deeper into the canyon.
"I’m moving up to rejoin. Sorenson, get the Sunder fixed. We’ll need it the other side of those gates." There would be room for two ’Mechs to fight abreast in the canyon. Between his Mad Cat and Dominic’s Thor, they could hope to bring down the Annihilator and both PPC turrets without losing a ’Mech. Chances are, one of them would be risking an ejection. The tight quarters favored the assault ’Mech too much.
"Launching," a voice whispered into his ear, soft but steadfast in its determination. "First missile away. Second missile away."
"No!"
Too late, Sinclair still tried to countermand Keith’s missile launch. The MechWarrior had been monitoring communications and knew the commando to be in trouble. He was trying to give them an edge, putting artillery-grade missiles into the air that Epona might call down in a massive strike. The lance leader throttled into a run, coming up on and passing the spot where Sorenson’s MFBs tended to Allen’s wounded Sunder, in time to see both Epona and Dominic move forward into the wider stretch of canyon held by the turrets and Annihilator. Already a blue-white glare flashed in the deeper shadows of the canyon as the turrets speared out their lethal energies. The Mad Cat moved around a final outcropping of rock to witness Dominic’s Thor taking a full barrage of the enemy assault ’Mech’s autocannon.
With Dominic in his line of fire and Epona crowding his right as she turned her lasers against the PPC turrets crowning the wall, there was little Sinclair could do but watch the Annihilator’s four autocannon tear into the Thor. The depleted uranium rounds hammered into an already savaged right side, smashing his large laser and leaving the right arm hanging from the shoulder by a ruined tangle of myomer musculature. Fragmenting rounds sanded armor away, scouring deep into the Thor’s torso. Thick, dark smoke roiled out of the ruined right side chest as the reactor’s physical shielding was breached, the excess heat dumping into the Thor’s vitals to scorch coolant and burn the myomer lubricant.
And Connor Sinclair winced, anticipating the explosion that would render the 70-ton Thor down into scrap metal and ruined equipment.
The explosion threw a cloud of gray dust over all four BattleMechs. Not from the destruction of Dominic’s Thor, however. The huge gates barring the pass fell under a gout of fire which ate into the ferrocrete walls, raining out shards of poured stone and then a blanket of debris which blinded natural vision. The thunderclap explosion almost drowned out Epona’s "First missiles down." The Arrow IV assault-scale missile which Keith Andrew launched had demolished the gate and part of the wall with it.
The heavy particles in the cloud fell to earth quickly, leaving only a light haze to cover the area. By some miracle, Dominic’s Thor was still standing. The right side was cored, showing several holes penetrating front to back when the smoke cleared enough. The reactor shielding had obviously been damaged, but not to the point where the power plant was in danger of immediate explosion. And though his right arm was all but severed, Dominic still retained possession of his most lethal weapon, the same heavy ultra autocannon Connor had put to such good use before.
The rapid-fire weapon spat out a blizzard of hard-hitting slugs, raking intense fire over the Annihilator’s chest and left leg. To add insult to such grievous injury, the Thor’s SRM system hammered in with five of six missiles, scattering more damage over chest and arms and even slamming one into the head near the cockpit.
The assault ’Mech stumbled up against one of the canyon walls, catching itself from falling but clearing the Thor by just enough for Sinclair to bring his own weapons into play. Sapphire lasers cut into the other ’Mech’s side and down into a leg already torn apart by Dominic’s furious assault. One beam stabbed in past the shreds of armor, worrying the titanium skeleton and cutting free one of the critical actuators. The Annihilator toppled this time, the gyro and pilot’s efforts not enough to stand up under the combined assault of the commando ’Mechs. Ponderously slow it seemed, the 12-meter tall machine crashed down to the ground where it immediately struggled to right itself. Then Epona stepped in and focused her Shadow Cat’s spotting laser onto the Annihilator’s broad back. Like a divine strike of retribution, Keith’s second Arrow IV missile hammered down into the assault ’Mech. And it was simply no more.
The force of the exploding Annihilator drove everyone back several paces. The Thor’s arm finally gave way, some razor-sharp shrapnel slicing through the last of its myomer arm muscles. The limb crashed to the ground to lay among the litter of the ravaged assault ’Mech.
Allen’s Sunder, still walking on a partially ruined right leg, walked in just as the three commando ’Mechs were starting to pull back from the ruin which had been the Annihilator. "Man, talk about your big guns."
Epona echoed his sentiment, though in more direct appreciation. "Thanks for the assist, Keith. It made the difference." Pause. "Keith? Keith Andrew?"
Her only answer came from an intercepted Clan transmission, riding in on a burst of static. "They are through the gates. Striker Star, defend the north pass. Gamma Auxiliaries, hold your line at the spaceport. Any warrior who falls without taking a stravag enemy with you will never pilot a ’Mech again."
Connor ignored Star Captain Wimmer, opening the common channel to commando forces. "Keith Andrew, respond please."
"He’s gone silent, lieutenant." Sorenson, pulling forward the trio of MFBs. "The sideband Clan channels I’m monitoring reported that he broke past one picket line, but they’re after him, chasing north. Let’s hope he can make rendezvous with Eclipse’s company, because for helping us he’s now out of reach of the spaceport."
"Yeah, well we might as well be, too," Dominic said, sullen and shocked at he same time. He pivoted his Thor to stare northeast. "All this way for nothing."
Three other ’Mechs swung around to stare after the Thor’s gaze. Seen above the lip of the canyon, what looked like a large spheroid-shaped skyscraper rocketed skyward on a tongue of argent-white flame. It rose slowly at first, quickly gaining speed even as it gained more altitude, until it looked like an early star in the pale blue sky.
The sight of a DropShip, rocketing for orbit.