Chapter One
"Second Lance, form up on the right flank and take the missile position! They're killing us over here!" Colonel Bryan Cochren, commander of the Angels mercenary regiment, barked over the TacComm frequency.
The commander of First Company's Second Lance, Lieutenant Marcus Freeman, instantly answered an affirmative. Glancing out of the cockpit of his VTR-9B Victor, Bryan watched the four heavy BattleMechs of his Second Lance break away from the center of the fighting and gain speed as they rushed off to the right flank.
BattleMechs were the kings of 31st century combat, carrying enough firepower in the form of massive lasers, autocannons, missiles and particle projection cannons to level a city block by themselves. Standing between eight and twelve meters tall, they ranged in weight from light twenty-ton scout mechs to massive, lumbering hundred ton assault mechs. It was generally held that only one thing could stop a BattleMech.
Another mech.
Things were not going at all well for the company under his command. A combined arms unit consisting of a full company of mechs and a lance of heavy armor had ambushed his unit. The Demolisher tanks that had sprung the trap had taken out two of his medium mechs in their first salvo of dual class twenty autocannons before being silenced by a withering counter fire. The damage had been done, however. As any commander could tell you, the element of surprise counted for a lot in combat. Third Lance, already at half strength because of the Demolisher tanks, had taken out the two Rommel tanks supporting the ambush before succumbing to a hellish crossfire of laser and autocannon fire from the ambushing unit's mechs. Turning back to gaze out the front of the viewscreen, he noted another spread of long-range missiles arc up over a hill, heading straight for him.
Taking his feet off the pedals that controlled the steps of his eighty-ton metal monster and stabbing them down on the studs to each side, he ignited the jump jets in the legs and back of his Victor, which he'd named Gabriel, and sailed up and over the salvo. Heat blasted into the already sweltering cockpit as the jump jets fired. His vest pumped a fresh wave of coolant through its tubes, the only thing keeping him alive in the intense heat of the mech's cockpit. Sweat poured down his head, making the neurohelmet, a device that transmitted his own sense of balance to the mech's gyro, slip a bit. Flexing the mech's knees and coming down with nary a wobble, he leveled the right arm of his mech at a shiny AS7-D Atlas painted with the red square of an enemy and pulled the trigger. An incredibly loud thump-thump-thump sang through the cockpit as his Pontiac class twenty autocannon ran through an entire clip, slamming the massive high-explosive, armor-piercing rounds into the goliath BattleMech's chest and left arm. The 100-ton Atlas didn't even flinch, and he swung his left arm into line as well, triggering the two medium lasers housed in the wrist. Twin ruby beams shot out and skewered the opposing Atlas, but if the enormous autocannon couldn't stop the mech, there was no way a couple lasers would.
The Atlas swiveled as fast as its torso actuators would allow it, trying to get its own two hundred-millimeter autocannon into firing position. Bryan slammed his feet onto the foot pedals again, taking one, then two steps as he tried in vain to get out of the weapon's firing arc. A spread of short range missiles sailed from the tubes in the Atlas' left breast, four of them slamming into the Victor's right side, exploding in puffs of smoke and sound. The gyro, which controlled the bipedal mech's balance, was thrown out of sync for a second, and the Victor faltered a step.
Another salvo of LRMs flew over the hill sheltering the missile boat mechs of the opposition just as the Victor's missed step let the Atlas line up its shot. The thunderous roar of the mech's A/C sounded across the clearing as the shells stitched a line into the right arm and breast of Cochren's BattleMech. The computer controlling the exercise determined that the combined effects of the autocannon's kinetic energy and the unbalanced gyro would cause the Victor to fall, and it locked the leg joints for a fraction of a second. Bryan gritted his teeth and braced himself as best he could. Not that it mattered much, as eighty tons of metal tipping over simply couldn't be land gently.
He hit the ground hard enough to rattle the fillings in his teeth, but immediately began the task of getting the BattleMech back on its feet. He had made it to the mech's knees when the computer informed him of his death, probably at the hands of a second autocannon salvo, and sent him back to the ground.
He swore, then chuckled to himself. "That damned computer is always so calm about it. 'BattleMech deactivated'," he imitated the computer's female voice. One of these days he'd get a new package installed in the Angel's mechs. A drill sergeant, maybe. He smiled as the radio crackled to life, the voice of the unit's XO, David Mellert, coming through the speakers mounted in the Victor's cockpit.
"Now, now, Colonel. You should know better than to come down right in front of Death and I," he said. 'Death' was his Atlas, and Mellert had chosen the callsign Lucifer for himself. Bryan often wondered if it warned of a rebellious nature or was just hi XO's idea of a joke.
"Oh, like I meant to. You just happened to be in my LZ. Besides, I figured you'd be out of ammo by now," Bryan responded, referring to his XO's well-known tendency to rely on his ammunition based weapons, often running out of ammo completely within a couple minutes. Mellert's chuckle was the only reply for a second as he turned his attention to one of Cochren's mechs, a heavy Grasshopper that was harassing the 100-ton king of the battlefield. The radio spurted to life once more.
"Well, you know,' his XO began, "if you'd just take a Cyclops or Atlas or something else really big and nasty you could take more than a single shot from my little old A/C-20." The Colonel laughed.
"We've gone over this before, Dave. I need the mobility. If I'd gotten one more step in, you'd have never been able to twist fast enough to bracket me. Death's dead slow, and you know it."
Again his XO laughed. "Death may be a big-legged bitch, but she's pure mean. Shall we call this one over? That lance you sent over the hill ran straight into my Stalkers and got ripped up, and the only thing left over here is this damnable Grasshopper – who is that, anyway? That new guy, Sun Chin?" Mellert cursed, probably at another hit from the Grasshopper's plethora of lasers. Chin had been accepted into the Angels only a week prior.
"Yeah, that's him. Pretty hot hand in that 'hopper, isn't he?" He flipped on the regimental frequency. "This is God. All stop, the exercise is over at," he checked his watch. "Oh four twenty-seven hours. Good work people. Back to the crib for a post-battle analysis." The callsign, God, was coined by one of the regiment's original armor drivers. When asked about it, the tanker would simply shrug and grin. He commands the Angels, he'd say. What else would you call him?
The personnel that controlled the exercise released the computer-imparted restraints, freeing the 'dead' BattleMechs to get up and move freely. All of the weapons were powered down for the exercise, with smoke rounds for ballistic weapons and the lasers and particle projection cannons nothing more than pretty light. Colonel Bryan Cochren stood his Victor up and headed off the practice field and towards the spaceport, the rest of his Angels in tow.
Seated at his desk later that evening, Bryan was going over the battle-ROMs from the afternoon's practice. Coming from a wealthy Lyran family, Cochren had inherited a company that manufactured myomer, the 'muscles' of a BattleMech. His company made him enough money to give him virtual free reign with his mercenary regiment, allowing him to be more selective in his MechWarrior choices and less thrifty than most strapped-for-cash mercenary groups when it came to equipment. It also allowed him to field a considerably larger force at the beginning of his career as a mercenary than he otherwise would have.
He had spent twelve years in the Federated Commonwealth's Armed Forces, rising to the rank of Kommandant, commanding a battalion. After the end of his third term, he had chosen instead to retire from national military life and pursue the romanticized life of a mercenary. He convinced a group of friends from the military, including his XO and one of his company leaders, to join him in his new endeavor, and the Angels were born. Cochren had gone on a recruiting blitz on Outreach, the home world of the famous mercenary unit Wolf's Dragoons and base for all Inner Sphere mercenary activity. Due to his money and contacts in the military, his efforts had been quite successful, and the Angels rapidly grew first to battalion, then to just over two battalions of combined arms. Given the Angel's size of two battalions, his rank of Colonel was really honorary. But the unit's reputation was solid, having completed several contracts for the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine. They had also taken part in the Ronin Wars, fighting for the Free Rasalhague Republic alongside Theodore Kurita as it attempted to break away from the oppressive Combine not so many years ago.
Now it was 3049, and the Angels were once again looking for a contract with one of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. There were garrison contracts available all over the galaxy, for any of the seven nations. The pay for each was comparable, as well as the salvage rights and resigning bonuses. The difference lay in location. Cochren knew well the dangers of garrison duty. No action sapped morale as well as skill. If he was going to take a garrison contract, and it looked like he'd have to, then he would at least try to pick a location where there was the chance of doing something other than nightly patrols.
The Angels had a suite of rooms to conduct business in while on Outreach, but the men stayed in barracks located near the spaceport. It was there that the Angel's dropships stayed while on planet, the two massive Overlord class vehicles each capable of carrying a battalion of mechs with associated support personnel. Dropships were only used for inter-system travel, however. For traveling between the many stars that made up the populated galaxy, jumpships, with their delicate Kearney-Fuchida drives, carried the dropships. The drives warped the space around them, ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe and instantly transporting the vessel and its cargo up to thirty light-years distant.
A knock sounded from his door, and with a sigh he turned off the battle-ROM from Sun Chin's Grasshopper. The man was very, very good with the seventy-ton mech, launching it all over creation to stay away from the more heavily armed mechs. He'd definitely tied Major Mellert in knots with his bounding. "Enter."
The doorknob twisted and in walked the Angel's negotiator and agent, Leslie Nesmith. Bryan smiled. Leslie was an old friend, daughter of his parents' closest friends. They'd known each other for nearly their entire lives. He'd gone off into the military while she had pursued a business degree. His parents hired her as a manager and advisor for the myomer company, CTI, and then Bryan had asked her along to aid in the business transactions of the Angels. "What've you got for me, Leslie?"
She gave him a lopsided grin and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. "Nothing new, Bryan. Nothing new. Of the available garrison contracts, the best out and out deal is from the FWL," she said, referring to the Free Worlds League, a conglomerate nation under the rule of Thomas Marik. I think I can argue them up a bit more, too."
"Ahh, but Leslie, there's no way we'll see any action in the FWL. Things are anything but hunkey dorey over there, but their problems are all internal. They're on good terms with the FedCom and the Cappellans." Nesmith sighed.
"Boys and their toys."
He chuckled. "Boys with toys that can do a lot of damage should they go nuts from inactivity." His demeanor shifted, suddenly becoming serious. "What about the FRR?"
"Well, since we've worked for them before, the negotiations would be pretty smooth. As a whole, they're not real big on mercenaries. Not to mention the fact that they don't have as solid a financial base as the FedCom or Snakes." 'Snakes' was a common slang term for the Draconis Combine, whose seal was a stylized dragon on a black background. "But, and I assume this is why you're asking, it's the most unstable world to garrison. There's always the chance that the Draconis Combine will try to bring the Free Rasalhague Republic back under its heel."
Bryan smiled. "Leslie, you always know just what to say to me." She chuckled. The two had never dated, only remained friends, and Bryan was, in fact, married. His wife commanded Third Company.
"Should I start talking to the FRR, then?"
He shrugged. "Get our foot in the door with them, but don't commit to anything. We need to discuss it with the staff first, then put it before the Angels as a whole. They say no - we don't go. How soon could you have preliminary data on pay, salvage and the lot?" Leslie looked at the ceiling for a minute, no doubt running figures from her last negotiations with the FRR through her head.
"I'll see if I can get hold of them for a dinner meeting. No promises, but perhaps late tonight I can give you some data."
Cochren leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers. "Excellent. Unless you tell me otherwise, we'll have a meeting with the staff tomorrow morning at oh nine hundred, then a group meeting with the Angels at two or three hundred hours." She nodded agreement, and he continued. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out how in the hell my XO hid two Demolishers from my scouts. Unless you want to stick around and see me get my head handed to me by an Atlas."
"What, watch the great Colonel Cochren lose? Like I'd miss the chance." She flashed a mischievous smile and stood. "But I should really go track down the Rasalhague delegation and get this show on the road. See you later tonight, Bryan."
"Goodbye, Leslie. Bring me back good news."
Later that night, seated in the living area of the apartment that he owned on Outreach, the news vid he was watching was interrupted by a knock from the door. It was a small affair, but allowed he and his wife some privacy and a chance to get away from the pressures of running a mercenary regiment. His wife, Nichole, was just coming out of the bedroom, and walked over to open it. Standing there beaming was Leslie. "Hi, Les," she said, pulling the door open and signaling for her to enter and have a seat. The unit's negotiator returned the greeting, seated herself, then said hello to Bryan as well while he watched the news, intent on whatever story was on at the moment. He glanced at her, flashed a smile, and then turned back to the screen.
"Seems the Hounds are heading out into Rasalhague space as well." The Hounds were the Kell Hounds, one of the largest mercenary groups and, alongside Wolf's Dragoons themselves, the best. "Wonder what they're up to?"
"Search and destroy, Bryan. They're going after pirates near the Periphery." The Periphery was the area outside the Inner Sphere. Often unmapped and largely unpopulated, it was a haven for bandits and pirates.
He turned back to Leslie and raised an eyebrow. "Where do you come up with this stuff? Contracts are supposed to be confidential. Yet every time I wonder aloud in your presence where another merc group is running off to you know. It's kind of," he waved his hands and grimaced, searching for the right word. "Disconcerting."
She gave him a completely false and intentionally disarming smile. "Relax. I've got contacts, that's all."
Cochren laughed. "Did I ever tell you that I'm damned glad you're on our side? How did dinner go?" he asked, switching off the news. "I assume that's what you're here about.
She shrugged, as if to say, what else? Leaning forward, she placed the stack of papers she'd been carrying on the coffee table that was one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. "If we want it, we're in. Seems that we're one of the few outfits the FRR is inclined to trust with the security of their worlds, and since the Royal Kungesarme isn't exactly up to snuff yet, they're paying quite well for good units. I think I can even get them above what we got from the FedCom last time."
"Really?" Nichole asked. The FedCom job had paid quite well, even netting the Angels a fair amount of salvage in the form of Major Mellert's Atlas and Bryan's own Victor. She now piloted his old Lancelot, a sixty-tonner that had served him well through his years in the AFFC.
"Really. We're looking at an on the table offer of well into seven digits, with room and board provided once we make planetfall. Obviously, with the Messiah at our disposal, transport isn't an issue." The Messiah was the Angels' Invader class jumpship, capable of transporting three dropships across the desert of space. CTI had originally owned the vessel, as well as a smaller Merchant class, but Bryan had taken the rechristened Invader to give his Angels an additional bargaining chip. Cochren nodded for her to go on. "The term is for six months, renewable on the agreement of both parties, and includes fair salvage rights. The interesting bit, and I assume this is why we're attractive to them, is that they want the garrison unit to train their militia. Everything from mechs to tanks to groundpounders," she said, using common slang for infantry.
"Train their militia? In six months? Won't happen. We could get them started, sure, but to get them into serious fighting shape would take a year, at least." He raised an eyebrow, obviously expecting more information.
Leslie answered him with another grin. "Which only means that we're practically guaranteed a contract extension." The couple both chuckled. Leslie definitely knew her stuff.
"Shall I let everyone know that we're having a meeting tomorrow morning, then, love?" Nichole asked him. Bryan had picked up the papers Leslie had brought and had sat back, thumbing through them. He looked up, and nodded.
"Leslie, I'd set up another dinner date with that FRR fellow. Providing the crew is all right with heading out to Rasalhague again, the Angels will take to the heavens soon."