BATTLESPACE
A tale of Horror and Suspense in the Battletech Universe
Jason M. Knight (Deathshadow), September 2002
Excerpt
Personal Log – Jake Helmsley - Ships Captain
Independent Warship Dark Victory
July 22, 3068
Suffice it to say that who I am is no longer as important as who I was, as those skills I once relied on to survive have become the only thing allowing me to keep those around me alive. Some time ago, closing on fifteen years now, I was forced to abandon my comfortable life with my father's mercenary company and flee as a common criminal to the recesses of the periphery. While the charges against me were completely unfounded, the Loki agents sent to investigate seemed more interested in finding a scapegoat to use as an example than in seeking the truth. It had cost all of my savings to acquire a fixer and have him transport me and my ancient Corsair to a place at which I could lay low. A man with an aerospace fighter and the knowledge to use it efficiently were in high demand across the Inner Sphere in the wake of the Clan Invasion, however any honest job would surely have given me away. The fixer, whose name escapes me now, had said hiding from Loki for any length of time would surely be impossible, so concocted the most daring of plans; hiding in plain sight. At first I thought the plan was daft, as it meant I would have to become the criminal everyone thought I was. Inevitably though, the logic of it overrode my misgivings. If I was to be damned for a capitol offense, I may as well at least commit them first. It was thus I was deposited on the busy world of Antillos.
This backwater world would normally be of no significance, if not for the fact that it had become a crossroads for trafficking of weapons and stolen property, and was a clearing house for more unusual and hard to find goods like slaves. Word spread quickly of the arrival of a green kid with his own aerospace fighter. While my Corsair was a relic, one of the first ten ever made and more suited to a museum than battle, in the periphery such a craft was worth a million times its range in C-Bills. Coming as no surprise I was quickly approached by one of the less reputable pirate bands. When one spends any time with pirates, one rapidly concludes that the age old adage of honor among thieves is lost on those who kill for profit outside the law. This first encounter was nearly my last, as the situation quickly turned into an attempt to take both my Corsair and my life. I still remember chafing of the ropes, the harsh edges of my fighters leading edge flap digging into my back, the sight of the Vibroblade arcing through the air in repeated slashes to my limbs, the high pitch squeal as it cleaved and the burning smell of my own skin. They did not mean to kill me quickly, as their intent was to torture me for the access codes to activate my fighter. I'll put up no bravado here on the subject, for the truth is it would not have been long before I talked. With only sixteen years of life under my belt none of the training or experiences I had provided any defense against the cruelty of my captors. I surely would have died that day if not for the intervention of a rival band of rogues led by Chops.
Joey "Chops" Davidson was a pirate before most of us were born. He offered me a place among his forces, leading me to pose the question of why I should trust him any more than the others. His answer was simple, I couldn't. Without the support of a powerful gang I would surely be killed for my fighter, while within most bands I would have to always watch my back. "Do better than others, share the wealth, and MAYBE they would let me live."
It was our first raid that led to the key event in my tale. We had been lying in wait at a jump point in the Laconis system on the edge of Taurian space. A major jump point between the Taurian Concordat, the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Suns, the area was ripe with traffic to plunder. Coming in at a pirate point near one of the many asteroid fields in system, our tired old Mule class dropship, the Pale Horse, detached from the jumpship and began a leisurely 1G burn towards the zenith point. Heavily modified to carry two pirate wings of fighters the Pale Horse also had a number of other surprises, including a more powerful engine and multiple hidden weapon batteries.
It seemed like easy sailing, especially after deceiving a pair of local militia Seydlitzs performing a routine flyby. Imitating normal civilian traffic we easily coasted near an ideal target, a heavily laden Buccaneer. The amount of exhaust she was venting showed that our target was expending more thrust than normal for her current acceleration rate, leading to the conclusion that she was overloaded. As we neared our prize, we scrambled fighters and boarding shuttles.
This first raid, while a disaster for the pirates I had hooked up with, proved advantageous for me. Within seconds of my separation from the Pale Horse, I could see launch flares around our target. Apparently the local militia had chosen to use our own tricks against us, converting an old Buccaneer into a fighter carrier. Within moments over half our fighters were adrift, their pilots fate unknown.
While the militia outnumbered us and outclassed us in terms of hardware, it seemed the other pilots I was supposed to work with ignored the concepts of mutual cover or concentrated firepower. As the inevitable fur-ball developed with our dropship at its edge, I repeatedly attempted to convince my supposed flight leader to pull back to the ship for cover. Watching my tactical display, I pulled back to the far side of our own dropship, watching for stragglers or those willing to brave the Pale Horse's Guns.
Time after time, a stray enemy fighter would drift off to the edge of the fight. Going to full burner, I swooped in for a quick strike followed by a retreat to the safety of our own air defenses. By the time Chops called for retreat, I had accounted for five kills and no less than three assists, while a debris field consisting of no less than 28 fighters, ours and theirs… mostly ours, hung as silent testimony to the battle. With their own dropship lacking any real firepower, and unwilling to brave the defensive batteries our ship carried, the Taurians decided not to pursue. Nearest the ship, I docked immediately, waiting there on the recovery deck to see if any others had made it. After almost five minutes, the only other survivor limped his craft on board, reporting all others destroyed or adrift.
The burn back to our jumpship was… panicked to say the least. At over 3 G's the effects on the crew were debilitating, not helping the somber mood that follows such loss. Worst of all, it seemed that a lone Leopard CV was ghosting us the whole way, even after we turned about to begin our reverse burn. It was only during docking that they finally confronted us with a quartet of Seydlitzs, two of which corresponded on their transponder codes to the pair that had given us a once-over earlier.
The Seydlitz is a light fighter, and under normal circumstances not a threat to any large dropship or jumpship… under normal circumstances. At this point however, not only was our dropship attempting to dock, but our parent vessel was still attempting to recover its solar sail. Designed to capture the solar rays into the massive Kearny-Fuchida drive system used to hop between stars, it was a component we could not afford to lose, much less even have damaged. Without it we would be trapped at whatever star system we jumped to next. During both these operations even a single Seydlitz could wreak havoc. Repairs on the other fighter, an already dilapidated Transgressor, were makeshift at best. The Transgressor is a heavy fighter able to cripple light craft like the Seydlitz in a single pass, and between our two fighters we quite easily out-massed our opponents.
This of course was our problem. Light fighters like the Seydlitz would run circles around our two fighters, making hitting them next to impossible and preventing them from doing mischief to our jumpship even harder. A quick discussion with the other pilot proved we both were on the same track, as it was obvious that they would probably avoid going after the docking collar since that would put them in the line of fire of the dropship. Instead they would probably go after our jump sail, hoping to inflict enough damage to cripple it or make recovery impossible, forcing us to cut it loose before we jumped. Positioning ourselves some distance apart on the opposite side of the ship from their approach, we hoped to pop up and catch them in a crossfire as they made their passes against the sail.
By the time they entered weapons range the sail had been completely furled against the main spar, and was in the process of being gently retracted into the ship. Captain Ivanov radioed us from the Pale Horse that a 'mere three minutes' was all we needed to provide. As if it was that easy. In combat three minutes seems like eternity, often enough time to completely empty your ammo bins assuming one even survives that long. This is true in fighter combat even more, where single hits can cripple engines and controls or even worse, rupture the canopy killing the pilot instantly.
As we came up to engage the lead pair of fighters on their first pass each of us showed remarkable luck, scoring direct hits with our large lasers. Both fighters disintegrated under the hail of fire, neither pilot having any chance of ejecting, much less returning fire. This gave the remaining fighters time to blow past us to turn onto our six, resulting in a classical knife fight. Up close, the lighter fighters were able to maneuver hard enough to keep away from our noses, removing our large lasers from the equation. Indeed we were barely able to score hits with our backup lasers.
After almost half a minute of cat and mouse, we got the radio call that sail recovery was complete and to land immediately. My wingmate was in rough shape, so I let him down first. Our ancient jumpship provided little in the way of firepower, and the enemy did an excellent job of avoiding our dropships line of fire, leaving me to try to prevent them from doing significant damage. A plan started to form in my head and I relayed to Chops to go ahead with the jump and to just relay to me how long I had to set down. Roughly five seconds before the time ran out I swooped in close to the dropship, nailed my thrust reverser to come to a halt over the deck and engaged the magnetic links in my landing skids to attach myself to the outside of the ship. One of the enemy pilots opened fire on me with his lasers at that moment.
A curious thing about jump drives and something not commonly known outside spacers, is that the energy of a jump field is carried most effectively through matter. The reason jump fields in space don't go any major distance is a lack of medium to carry it. Solids work better than liquids, liquids better than gasses, etc. Apparently, the particles of a laser are of sufficient density to impart some of that energy. In the instant those lasers made contact, our ship engaged its jump drives.
The world exploded in a blast of light, unlike any jump I had ever experienced to that point, or have endured since. For a moment it felt as if the beams pierced my brain, then turned into a conduit between me and the other pilot. Briefly I felt as if he and I could share every thought. Just as it seemed we sensed each other, reality snapped back into harsh focus.
I found myself thrown against my restraining harness as my fighter was thrown clear of the jumpship. Apparently his lasers had pierced an airlock just aft of my position and the resulting exhalation of air blew my fighter off the side of the ship. As I worked to recover control of the craft, I began to notice an odd debris field floating about near me, which on closer inspection turned out to be the remnants of the enemy Seydlitz. Enough jump energy had traveled across his lasers to bring him with us, although it turned that fighter inside-out in the process. A strange red mist sparkled about my craft, most likely frozen particles of the other pilots bloody remains. Upon returning to the dropship, I was greeted with cheers as their savior, as it turns out my wing-mate had crashed on landing, leaving me the only survivor of the mission. It took several repeated attempts to get a straight answer as to what system we had jumped to… New Vandenburg.
New Vandenburg. The name alone causes dread and loathing in even the most experienced spacers. Located deep inside a nebula, the ionized gasses in the surrounding space made jumps to the system extremely dangerous, long range sensors almost useless, while the endless array of asteroids and other stellar debris made movement through the system near impossible. For years pirates had used it to hide, but even this was not the cause of the trepidation most got relating to the area.
No, it was the stories; Phantom Warships that would appear and disappear randomly throughout the area. Dropships that are found with no damage, all the lifeboats and shuttles aboard, with nothing stolen, yet the crew is missing. Logs show no indication of the crew ever leaving the ship or encountering trouble. The crews just vanished. Entire squadrons of white fighters of star league vintage seen ghosting mysterious convoys.
While most people inside the Inner Sphere treat these events as mere tabloid rumors, the likes of which are made up by rags like the Planetary Inquisitor, we pirates knew better having encountered these things first hand. The truth is even stranger than the fiction, as the New Vandenburg system is an exit point for certain types of jump failures. Craft from as far away as Nueva Castile had been known to mis-jump and come out at this backwater instead of their intended destination. Those mysterious white fighters and convoys are actually Com Guard recovery teams constantly patrolling the system to take control of any craft that show up there. One of the major reasons for interest on Comstar's part and the continued cover up, is that craft that mis-jump into the system were rumored to have also traveled through time. The rumors I had heard on the subject had some ships coming from as far forward in time as three years, although craft from the past were much more common. Often the craft would break-up on re-entry to normal space, sending their dropships spinning through space, their crews and even the air inside the ship appearing at a different point in the system.
To pirates, the system was a treasure trove. Even Comstar didn't have the resources to cover every square inch of the system, so often ROM agents, those elusive sneaks who worked in Comstar's intelligence branch, would contract with 'privateers' to cover the system. We called these 'Grave digger' runs as we were supposed to salvage anything of value, kill any survivors and make sure ROM got their cut. It was morbid but lucrative work. Over time the number of privateers in system led to the establishment of several 'monitor stations', Warship class vessels without jump drives, these mobile space stations had become major refit and re-supply points for pirate forces, right on the doorstep of three major realms and within one jump of several major commercial trade routes. Because of their ability to move about in the system, these craft can easily avoid detection, and since it is in the interests of anyone using them to keep them secret those who do inquire or talk usually don't live long enough for word to spread.
Putting in at one of the smaller stations, we set about repair and recruiting. Word of our being ambushed had already spread, since the Concordat's news service had sent it out over Comstar's HPG network. Watching the re-broadcasts sent to the station from planet-side we had to laugh at their claim of all pirates having been destroyed along with their jumpship. Chops spoke true that day: "The best lie is one where the only ones able to provide the truth cannot speak out for fear of recrimination."
This was my first real chance to actually talk with the crew, and I was rather surprised as they were a remarkably eloquent and well educated lot. As the new guy few if any had even been willing to speak to me on the way to my first mission, something of a tradition among Pirates. The life expectancy of a green Aerojock in the periphery is brief, and it is best not to get to know anyone until you are sure they have the skills to be alive tomorrow. I would make the mistake myself several times before learning the lesson, and it still troubles me that among my current crew I am very close to every one of them. When you know and care about those in your command, it is difficult to make any decision as to who goes on a mission as every job is most always a guaranteed death sentence.
While Chops band was an interesting cross-section of society, I was surprised at the number of veterans from Steiner space whose stories mirrored my own. With the constant back stabbing and social climbing involved in the Commonwealth military, many soldiers found themselves drummed out of the service for merely being the only survivor of battles against the clans. It appeared that Lyran command thought that if some important noble got killed in the fight and you didn't, some form of cowardice or treachery must be involved. Branded as traitors or worse, a life on the run was the only option available. Guess we can't all be the Archon's son.
Chops and I were sitting at a table in one of the many bars on the station interviewing one of the many candidates. He had decided that as the only survivor of the air wing he would promote me to flight leader, and said I should have a say in selecting my new wing-mates. Halfway through the interview Thanos, our unit's exec, came running up with a Comstar printout in hand. Tall and spindly, he was a real cutthroat if ever there was one. His underworld contacts and skill at inside jobs made him indispensable, but at the same time difficult to trust. He would leave us almost a year later, striking out on his own, but I still keep contact as a man of such talent and brutality can be extremely useful.
The job was a simple one. A tachyon surge had been detected at one of the many transitory pirate points, and due to the unusual nature of the pulse it was most certainly a mis-jump. Com Guard had sent two of their fighters for a fly-by, and it appeared to be a Merchant Class vessel with two dropships. Camera footage from that flight showed an obviously ruptured jump core, much of the outer hull plating missing or hanging off, half of one dropship missing, while the other craft appeared to be completely intact. With the war against the clans coming to a head, Comstar would be unable to send their own recovery teams. This is where we came in. Burn out to the ship with the Pale Horse, salvage what we could, and destroy what we couldn't. It was a very generous contract, as ROM was willing to let us have the jumpship and remains of the ruined dropship if we turned the one functioning dropship over to them. They would send two of their agents with us to oversee the operation, and enough personnel to man the surviving dropship.
Before leaving the station we managed to trade the remains of the ruined Transgressor for a small shuttle. If it were a mis-jump it was unlikely we would encounter heavy combat, and a shuttle would be much more suited to transporting our boarding parties over. Chops was somewhat upset that I had said no to every pilot we had interviewed as replacements, especially since two of them had their own fighters. It took a bit but I was able to explain it was obvious those we were talking to were merely fluff bunnies, having no real skill or experience. One of them was an out and out liar, and I was willing to bet he had never even been in the cockpit of a real fighter. If this was typical of those hired into pirate bands, it was a miracle we did as well against the Concordat as we had.
The trip out took close to three weeks, twelve days of that coasting at no thrust. In most star systems we would have maintained at least a one gravity burn the whole way, however due to the restrictions in radar and visual range traveling too quickly could result in an unavoidable collision with some bit of debris, an asteroid or even worse another craft. From the moment we left everyone's mood seemed to brighten, which again surprised me. It seemed as if the crew had completely put to rest the demons that haunted them after the last mission. Inquiries on my part kept getting the same answer: "A pirate cannot dwell on the past or the future."
As we closed to the point visuals became available, I felt a cold chill. Never have I seen such destruction wrought upon a jumpship. The difficulty in their manufacture and repair had made attacks directly against such vessels almost forbidden, so seeing one in such disrepair was extremely rare. Severing a jump sail or puncturing the helium tanks to strand one was acceptable as those systems could be repaired or replaced, but the rest of the vessel was strictly off limits.
The data pouring in from the various sensors aboard the Pale Horse let us put together a plan of action. It was obvious that the port dropship, what appeared to have once been a Buccaneer was a complete write off. By all indications over 90% of its mass was unaccounted for, with all that remained being a portion of the ships outer hull. If we boarded the jumpship using the shuttle, those remains could probably be cut loose allowing our ship do dock in its place, at which point we could fan out to secure the jumpship. The Com Guard force accompanying us could then disgorge to take their prize dropship.
Comstar's analysts had missed one detail however; as it was not a Merchant class Jumpship, but a disguised warship. This was evident as several hull plates had blown clear, showing what appeared to be concealed gravity decks where the superconductor ring normally appeared. Towards the aft of the craft the edges of a much smaller compact K-F drive could be seen poking out. This mistake was likely the reason for them letting us have the jumpship, as to a casual visual inspection it would have appeared that the entire jump drive was in fact missing. Without a star drive the vessel would have had no value except for any parts we could have stripped, forcing us to destroy it rather than leave it behind.
The other dropship appeared to be a Mule class vessel, a distant sister of our own craft. While the Pale Horse was a relic, having been barely maintained at functional levels, this vessel looked to have been recently updated to a much more modern configuration. Unlike our craft which went to extremes to hide it's turrets and appeared to be a commercial vessel, this other ship made no such pretenses and was obviously a ship of war. All of the ships turrets appeared to be laden with clan weapons, giving the craft almost double to triple our firepower and range, of course explaining Comstar's interest in keeping that craft. If her contents were Clan Omni-mechs or even just clan supplies, it was a bigger prize than even a functional jumpship. It was also apparent she had been modified to be a fighter carrier, with four large pressure doors circling her mid-section. A marvel of engineering these doors would likely have allowed the craft to perform fighter recovery even when grounded on a planet, something our dilapidated old Mule could only dream of.
Once we were within a thousand clicks, I was sent out in my fighter to make a few up close passes. My sensors indicated power was out on the jumpship except for emergency life support near the bridge, while the nearly intact dropship still seemed to be supplying power to some decks. From outside the only indication of life was a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be someone aboard the 'Merchant's' bridge, but I was unable to make out anything on successive passes. I did find the crafts name emblazoned on one of her jumpsail masts: 'Dark Victory'
As the shuttle was sent across, I held position to provide cover. While none of the craft appeared to be active, those big guns could easily power up at any moment, turning our entire force into Swiss cheese. Scanning through the radio frequencies I was able to listen in on the shuttle crew as they put down on the hull outside the ships docking bay. One of the bay doors was bent outward, leaving the bay depressurized. Within moments an EVA crew had opened the doors allowing the shuttle and my fighter to land aboard the craft.
Setting down aboard the Dark Victory proved something of an obstacle course. The bay was flooded with bodies, most of them grouped about near the trio of shuttles at the far end of the bay. Most likely these were the survivors of the jump, who were attempting to escape on the shuttles when the outer door blew. That any bodies were left inside indicated that there were probably an even greater number of corpses drifting away from the craft, blown out by the escaping air. Unable to seal the bay properly, we were forced to use the emergency airlock to enter the ship.
While most of us kept our spacesuits on, a handful of technicians were forced to disrobe in order to work on the docking collar. The hallways around the port collar were abandoned, and those of us not skilled in dropship maintenance fanned out to set up a perimeter should some form of resistance show up. I very quickly found myself paired with one of the two ROM agents, with whom nobody else wanted to work. Upon telling her how I though I saw movement on the ships bridge, she suggested we go and look.
The path to the bridge was a gruesome sight, as it seemed many crewmembers had materialized inside of the bulkheads. An occasional arm, leg or even head could be seen sticking out of a wall or floor. Even more unusual were the number of bodies we found that had obviously been shot in the head with a laser. All of these were greatly deformed, and would have likely died a slow painful death if someone had not already put them out of their misery.
On hearing a soft thumping noise ahead we both drew our side-arms. My ROM companion cocked an eyebrow at my Federated Gyro-jet pistol, I am certain because it was an unsafe weapon for use aboard a spacecraft, but we didn't get to discuss it as we both saw some form of deformed gibbous creature move across the doorway down the hall. Training our weapons on the door, we saw this form push a chair to the middle of the room and sit partly facing away from us.
A distorted voice trickled down the hall to us from the creature. "I… expected… you… in hall… Come… Is safe." The words were half choked, sounding more like they were being spoken while gargling. We got up and crossed to the doorway peering in. The location was where the bridge on most merchant class vessels is located, but had been converted to what appeared to be the captains quarters. I know a number of civilian craft that had been converted for military did this, moving the bridge to the center of the ship to reduce the chances of it being damaged, but had never actually seen one so changed. You could see that some of the equipment near the bed was still intact allowing various routine tasks to be performed from that station. Besides the creature seated in the center of the room, it was empty, and no other exits could be seen. The creature appeared to be holding an old style blazer pistol, but it seemed was trying to turn it upon itself, it's short stubby remains of what had likely once been arms unable to bring the weapon around to the misshapen head.
"Who are you?" My cohort asked, crossing the room to see this pitiful being from the front. Her demeanor changed from hostile to confusion as she saw its face. Disgust and Nausea were quite evident, and as I went to move to her side her face changed to genuine fear. The ROM agent moved her gun onto me "NO! For Blake's sake and by his Holy Word, whatever you do don't come over here!"
"Please…" The voice croaked out from the poor soul, "Kill me."
My compatriot went to put her gun to the creatures head, but at the last moment folded in half, grasping at the helmet of her spacesuit and hastily opening it before emptying her stomach contents onto the floor of the compartment. I swiftly moved to check on the agent and then made probably the biggest mistake of my life; turning to face our host.
In all my years, I have never seen nor experienced such horror. There are no words for what passed through my mind as I fired a single shot into the creature's forehead, the hydrostatic shock of the heavy gyro-jet slug completely disintegrating the creature's pulpy upper torso. I found myself moving about in a fog, but with the help of the ROM agent we dragged the remains to an airlock and set it adrift. We hastily discussed what we should do, and agreed it would be best if nobody ever knew what or who we had found.
Over the next couple days cleanup operations took place. Dislodging the various bodies from the ships components turned out to be the grisliest work, and indeed I think we spent as much time cleaning up vomit as we did flushing the remains into space. Polly, the ROM agent and I spent much of this time together. While we grew quite close during that time, we never spoke of what had happened that first day. Somehow, she never quite looked at me normally, but considering what we had seen I could hardly blame her.
The craft itself turned into a major prize, with several intact fighter craft aboard as well as a fairly well stocked parts supply. At the end of the first week the Com Guards detached their newly acquired dropship and began a burn towards the zenith point. While I was sorry to see Polly go, I felt more secure with her gone as I had begun to fear she would be unable to keep her mouth shut about what we had encountered. Many in our group had talked about killing the Comstar crew and taking their prize, but Chops put a stop to that talk real quick, as doing so would have made enemies of every other pirate in the system. The pirate bands had a good thing here, and there was no reason to ruin it. Inside of a month we had the Dark Victory completely up and running, and transferred all of our operations to it. By selling off the old jumpship we were able to repair the drive seals, buy a second dropship and recruit enough fighters to make ourselves a major force. Inside a year we had managed to go legitimate, garnering a contract with House Kurita to operate as mercenaries off of Wolcott under assumed identities.
Since those events some fifteen years ago I have dreaded the possibility of returning to New Vandenburg. Command passed to me with Chops death nearly ten years ago, and we still use that same captured warship as our base of operations. My force is pursued by what seems like the entire Word of Blake fleet and while I am uncertain why they have chosen to come after us, I find myself tempted to turn ourselves in. There is no choice though, as jumping back into the hands of the Blakists is certain death. With their war-fleet arrayed behind us we can only hope to outpace them towards the rim. I know that I should not dwell on what happened or what has not yet come to pass, but I am certain going forward dooms us all as well. I shall never forget the face of that hideously deformed monster as I fired that shot, a perfect mirror of my own.