Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion
Chapter 7
Caddo City, New Dallas
Free Worlds League Space
31 December 3062
Finding New Dallas wasn't particularly a problem - Michael Searcy hadn't even heard of it but Captain Holstein of the Bifrost had the system in his charts. Possibly for smuggling, but if so, Michael wasn't about to enquire. That could be a good way to get invited out of an airlock. However comical the dwarf might look at times, he clearly commanded ferocious loyalty from his crew.
Bifrost's charts even included orbital data on the planet, which Holstein cheerfully admitted was a matter of luck. Otherwise they'd have had to run an astronomical search of the approximate habitable zones of the star system, which could have been time-consuming.
"What a shithole," Mael Colium muttered from the bridge of the Glowworm as the dropship made preparations to land. The captain was strapped into his seat, technically, but he'd loosened the restraints enough to have his feet up on one of the consoles. "Begging your pardon, Emma."
"I've heard the word before," the woman said from her own position. She was trim and squared away - if Michael hadn't seen how she looked at her husband, currently engrossed in plotting the landing, he might have made a pass at the dusky-skinned ship's officer.
"Mm-mmm," Colium continued. "It's hot down there, Morgan. You sure this is the place?"
Ardan Morgan glanced at the orbital imagery. "Yep. North-pointing peninsula from an isthmus, a city with domes. It matches the description we have perfectly."
"When you say hot," Michael asked warily, "Do you mean temperature or radiation? This place got nuked, right?"
"Hard to say from up here on the latter." Colium reached over and flicked the scan over to infrareds. "Local temperature's higher than I'd expect for a world that had cities like that though. Must have been miserable as Texas."
"You've never been to Texas, sir."
"I saved up years for a vacation on Terra and then the Word took over, Emma," he grumbled. "And this is apparently as close as I'm ever gonna get. Dallas was in Texas, I looked that up."
Ardan shook his head. "I'm guessing they had some sort of terraforming that cooled the climate and that it's collapsed since then. Caddo City was the original settlement but most of the population was on the inland sea further south."
"We're locked in," the ship's pilot said from his part of the Mule-class dropship's bridge. Whether he'd ignored the conversation or been genuinely oblivious to it wasn't clear to Michael. Burt Alleyne seemed to be in a world all his own when he took the Glowworm's controls. "Five minute window before I have to replot."
Colium glanced at Ardan, shrugged and then straightened up, tightening his restraints. "Take us down."
The Glowworm rocked lightly as they hit the atmosphere and started to bite into it. Michael could have sworn he felt the heat as a halo of fire engulfed them but when he checked the thermometer, the bridge temperature hadn't budged. Then the rocking intensified.
"Nothing to worry about," Colium called to him. "We're just under-loaded. Burt has it under control."
Michael gulped and nodded. The Glowworm had a notional full load of over eleven thousand tons - more than an Overlord-class military transport, but right now it had all that volume and a total mass closer to that of a much smaller Union-class dropship.
Gravity took hold and his stomach churned as 'down' became about thirty degrees away from the vertical orientation of the compartment.
"Visual on our landing zone," Burt declared. "Looks fine." One of the screens lit up to display the derelict remains of what had probably been a busy space port. There were runways for aerodyne dropships and shuttles, one blocked by what had once been a passenger liner, and dozens of firmacrete pads for more spherical craft to come down directly. "Can't speak for what it looks like on the ground, but those pads should be solid. You care which one we use."
"Make sure we have plenty of room on all directions," Colium said, cutting across Ardan, who had been about to speak. "I want plenty of room if anything's been undermined from the support structures."
Michael saw Ardan lean back in his chair and force himself not to speak. The younger man's temper was under close rein, which was good. He wasn't sure the redhead really grasped how much he was depending on the willing cooperation of Colium and his crew. The Morgans were obviously part of some noble house and neither seemed to have been out much in the real world, outside the protections of their family.
"Where's Holstein's shuttle?"
Emma adjusted her controls as the Glowworm came closer to proper verticality. "A good safe distance, sir," she answered her captain's question. "I'd guess he'll come down maybe a kilometer south of us."
"Hmm. His risk to take, that little toy doesn't weigh much of anything." Colium still seemed relieved that the fusion torch of the shuttle wasn't anywhere near his dropship. At close range, the drive would have ripped through the light hull of the freighter and done untold damage.
The view of the dropoort below was growing but not as quickly as Burt brought more power to the engines, slowing their descent. "Deploy landing gear," he ordered.
His wife activated a control and after most of a minute nodded sharply. "Landing gear locked."
"Slow and steady," Colium warned. "Have us ready to take off if the pad can't take it."
"We'll come down as lightly as a leaf on the wind," the pilot promised.
If so, Michael would have hated to see the leaves where Burt came from, but more than three thousand tons of metal came to rest against the landing pad with far less impact than bringing a Pillager assault 'Mech down on its jump-jets. The man flipped switches. "Maneuvering thrusters off, main thrust..." He glanced back at the captain and got a nod. "Off."
The engines' roar, a sound that Michael had largely come to ignore, cut out sharply and the Glowworm vibrated briefly as it settled against the pad.
"Once again, we have cheated death." Colium leant over his controls. "And the radiation count is... well, worse than a day at the beach but not much. More a matter of the thin atmosphere than residuals from nukes, I'd guess."
"Mech cockpits get pretty warm too," Michael said, unbuckling himself. He felt light on his feet, not unsurprising given New Dallas had a surface gravity only about five-sixths that of Terra.
"It's closer to boiling than freezing out there and the atmosphere's thick with carbon dioxide and methane," Emma clarified. "We can use the lower cargo deck as an airlock but this is going to be pretty miserable for anyone outside. Pressure suits might not be required but I'd recommend them over just going out in a mask."
Ardan shook his head. "We don't have enough for everyone, so masks are going to have to be enough. Besides, in this heat, the suits would have us sweating too much."
Michael glanced at the clock. "Three hours until the New Year," he noted. "I suggest we let the crews get used to the gravity and maybe take a walk around to acclimatize before we start any serious work."
His boss squinted at the screens. "It's close to mid-day local and given the heat, we're probably going to do most of our work in the twilight hours. We can let the pad cool but I want survey teams out and checking for access to the domes in... call it four hours."
"You're really in that sort of hurry?"
Ardan rubbed his chin. "A few hours might not matter in the grand scheme of things, or it could be all the difference in the world. Besides, the sooner we find the cache the sooner we can be out of here."
"Acclimatization isn't a joke, sir," Michael warned. "We could lose one of our work-mechs if the pilot stumbles."
"I thought you were some sort of hotshot," the other man said lightly. "You can take one out and I'll take the other. I'm not going to take a tumble in a frigging workmech."
Michael sighed. "Fine, you're the boss."
Ardan gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, almost knocking him over, as he headed out of the bridge.
Behind him, Colium gave him a shrug, loosened his restraints and kicked his feet up again. "He can say what he wants but my crew have the night off. It's the New Year."
"What drives that man anyway?" asked Emma as her husband, also unstrapped, moved over to wrap his arms around her.
It was a good question, Michael thought as he headed out of the door. Ardan Morgan was almost as much of a puzzle as his sister.
Last time you worked for someone with secrets, you got a lot of trouble out of it, a little voice warned him. Michael blinked it away. Ardan was close mouthed, but he was nothing like the oily Drew Hasek-Davion who'd employed him on Solaris VII.
Chapter 8
Caddo City, New Dallas
Free Worlds League Space
5 January 3063
Moving carefully so as not to dislodge his mask, Daniel wiped sweat from his forehead. He was wearing a mechwarrior's cooling vest inside the confines of the construction exoskeleton but it didn't change the fact that New Dallas had a surface temperature nearly sixty degrees higher on average than Terra did and Caddo City wasn't in a particularly temperate location to begin with. Only the fact it was surrounded on three sides by ocean to absorb the heat made it bearable at all.
"We're almost through," Frye called from the other exoskeleton, shovelling away debris left by the drill mounted on the workmech they were supporting. "Once more should do it."
Frye was wearing no more than Daniel was - shorts and a cooling vest - but the sight had stopped being titillating long ago. He helped her scrape away the last fragments and then they backed up to let 'Max Sears' apply the drill again.
True to the Glowworm engineer's prediction, this time the drill dug less than a metre deep before resistance stopped. Controlling the 'Mech carefully, Sears withdrew the drill and then applied it again twice, widening the hole. Frye and Daniel backed up in case the structure broke down under the drilling and the mass of the workmech, but there was disarmingly little reaction from the dome's floor.
"Oh..." His voice cracked and he wished he could just take the mask off and drink freely. Instead all he could do was suck a trickle from the straw built into it for situations like this - enough to lubricate his throat but hardly satisfying. "Okay, let's see what we've found so far."
It was the thirteenth hole dug and the fifth to find a cavity beneath the massive crystalline domes that had once housed the nascent New Dallas colony. None of the domes was still intact but they were unsafe for the Glowworm, which had to remain kilometers away at the drop-port.
"Your turn to go first," Frye said with some relief and started securing cables to the nearby buildings. Daniel let her attach the cables to his exoskeleton and watched as Sears marched the workmech away only to return lugging a pair of A-frames and a connecting beam.
The simple crane arrangement was easily erected above the hole and Daniel marched around it, leaving enough slack in the three cables that were now attached to the upper spine of the exoskeleton for Sears to lift them up and over the beam.
"Ready?" asked Frye, rhetorically for she'd already activated the winch.
Daniel gulped and tried not to lose his lunch as the cables pulled him towards the hole and then up off the ground, dangling over it. He swung back and forth for what seemed to be forever until the motion died away. "Lower two metres," he ordered.
The cable played out and he descended steadily until his shoulders were level with the ground. "Another two metres."
Down again. The lights on his exoskeleton played out on unrecognisable angles and objects, too confusing to tell how near they were. "Wait one." He played one of the lights down and confirmed the floor below was clear. A laser rangefinder told him he was about twenty metres up.
"Five metres," he said cautiously and watched as the cable spooled out.
"Found something?" asked Sears. He sounded indecently comfortable, but then he was inside a sealed cockpit. He didn't even need to wear a mask all the time, the lucky rat.
Daniel played the lights around again. Walls in three directions, nothing visible in the other, at least within easy reach of his lights. "Some sort of storage maybe." He didn't want to get his hopes up. "It's tall enough for 'Mechs... give me another ten metres -" The line jerked out and he squawked the next word: "Slowly!"
"Sorry!" Frye apologised and the descent steadied. Daniel forced himself to remain still, he'd started to sway and that could be bad. The walls were broken by catwalks, he saw, and framing that could possibly be 'Mech bays. If so they'd been stripped of working gear and lay empty. Another disappointment.
"Okay, gradually give me another five or six metres," he requested.
The floor when he reached it was reassuringly steady. "Okay, definitely part of a larger complex," he said guardedly. "Not sure how large it is."
Flashing his torch around he saw something sprawled on the floor. Whatever it was, it was huge - taller lying down than he was in his exoskeleton. "I think I'll need some help to look around."
"Roger," Sears agreed. "I'll call in Mr Morgan and his team."
Daniel disconnected the cables and began to pace out the echoingly vast space. There were more of the shapes - all wrapped in some sort of white plastic, all broadly the same size... twelve metres long, at least five wide and more than three tall. Each was laid partially within the bays and partly extending out into the wide central corridor. Maybe he'd found a vehicle bay of some kind.
There were six on either side from his landing point to the wall at one end, but the broad storage area extended considerably in the other direction.
By the time he was back, a pair of exoskeletons were coming down and Daniel waited for them to reach the ground.
"What have you found?" asked Ardan Morgan. He played his own searchlights around.
"I don't know. This might have been a Mech hanger once I guess. But what's actually in here, I can't guess."
"Easy way to find out," Frye offered and deployed a pair of shears. "Let's cut this covering off and take a look."
Behind the mask, Ardan's eyes were eager but his words were cautious. "Don't cut through the contents. And make sure you can re-seal it if we need to."
"I brought duct tape," the woman declared and pulled a corner of the plastic wrapping away. The shears cut a little and then she had to relax them. "Damn, this stuff is tough."
"It's a good sign. Someone wrapped it for storage so it may be valuable," Ardan noted. He stepped aside as two more exoskeletons lowered. One occupant was visibly smaller than the other - Daniel's father. Looking down from above were others waiting to join them, Catherine Morgan's blonde hair easily identifiable among them.
Daniel started to help Frye, cutting away from her original incision as more prospectors descended. Eventually they'd cut enough away to open the incision and Daniel peeled it back and lit up the contents.
"Jesus, what is that stuff!" one of the team exclaimed, eyeing the slug-like contents visible inside the wrapping.
"Myomers," Clovis said eagerly. "It's a myomer bundle, this is some sort of industrial or military 'Mech."
Ardan nodded slowly. "Paydirt."
"If so, why lay out out flat?" asked Daniel. "And why isn't there any armour or at least a chassis?" It was unsettling like finding a giant body skinned.
"The owners can't have planned on going to all this trouble to keep it wrapped," one of the prospectors suggested. "Check to see if there's a seam that's supposed to be cut open and we can look at the whole thing."
Workers spread out around the frame, lifting and pulling the wrap. Eventually one found a blue line that had been under a fold in the wrap. Fresh shears made quick work of it and together, a half-dozen exoskeletons dragged the wrapping off it.
"It's a 'Mech alright." Ardan sounded chastened. "Not sure what type without the armour on it though."
"And no weapons." Daniel walked along the side and examined it. "Barely any arms for that matter."
His father started unfastening his exoskeleton. "Let me take a closer look."
Daniel moved around to help his father and was halfway through removing the salvage gear when Ardan raised his voice in alarm. "Where's my sister?"
A quick headcount turned up one missing member of the team: Cat Morgan and her exoskeleton. "We have footprints here in from the dust we dropped digging through," one of the prospectors noted and pointed along the store room. "She went that way."
Their boss closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them they were fierce. "Okay. Clovis, stay here and figure out what we're dealing with. Who's lowest on air for their masks?"
Comparisons turned up that it was Daniel and Frye, which made sense as they'd not replenished since they began helping Sears dig this hole.
"Right, you two head back up and get fresh air and some water," Ardan ordered. "The rest of us will start surveying this place. Whoever finds my sister let me know."
It was tempting to insist on staying but water sounded real good right now. When he heard about the cache Daniel had envisaged powerful warmachines lined up, polished and ready for action given just a little preparation. The way they'd been in the Helm Cache according to Gray Death Legion accounts of that found. This stripped carcass of a BattleMech was far from that.
Sears, still in the workmech, hauled them up out of the hole. "What did you find?" he asked. "Some sort of 'Mech."
"About half of one that we've unwrapped so far," Daniel told him. "Whoever stored them seems to have stripped everything useful."
"I wouldn't go that far," Frye disagreed. "There's still all that myomer, the structural framing and it looked like it had a reactor. And there's, what... a couple of dozen of them?"
"At least that we found so far, yeah."
"That's got to be worth at least ninety thousand each, more if the reactors are in working order. And then there's historical value," she said optimistically. "It might not be what Mr Morgan was hoping for but at least he's turning a profit."
Daniel grunted as they freed themselves from the cables. "Maybe." The myomers hadn't looked corroded so that was something, he guessed. "I wouldn't want to be Cat Morgan when her brother catches her though."
"Oh yeah. He's the type to worry and let that feed his temper," the engineer said with a roll of her eyes. "Come on, let's get back to the shelter. Soon as I have more air I'm going back down there!"
Chapter 9
Caddo City, New Dallas
Free Worlds League Space
6 January 3063
There was a lot more to the space under the dome than Peter had expected. He shouldn't have been surprised given the Star League was infamous for digging deep into the ground for military bases, factories and almost everything else. The long hangar had opened into a central hub area with five other openings, two of them more storage and the others ramps leading up (once) or down (twice). Even if the ramp up was an exit - much easier than the hole they'd dug for extracting the 'Mech chassis they'd found - that indicated at least one more level.
Naturally, Catherine's footprints had led downwards.
He played his searchlight across the markings on the walls. They were obscure, probably to confuse an intruder like himself, but the basic logic matched a military base. Peter followed the footprints into an administrative section and to his annoyance, after wandering around for a whole and after he'd entered, Catherine had left because the footprints of her departure hadn't been there when he entered.
"Maybe she has private business, chief," one of the prospectors suggested. "Chasing a woman doesn't always work out. Wait and she'll be back."
"And if she has an accident and she can't?" he snapped. "See if the computers are working. Maybe there's a map - or a manifest of what's been stored here."
The halls echoed with his exoskeleton's feet as he stomped it out and after her again only to lose the trail in a hangar full of what looked like self-propelled guns - each missing the artillery guns that should have been mounted on their upper hulls. There was less dust here for some reason. Maybe the air conditioning had been better or maybe these sections had been cleaned out a few times.
Returning to the hub of the level - the third one down, no less - Peter halted his exoskeleton and tried to listen for any sounds. Nothing. "Catherine!" he shouted. No reply. He jammed his speakers to maximum and shouted into them. "CATHERINE!"
"-et-an?" came a distant reply.
Huffing indignantly, he marched off in its direction, finding a battered down door into what looked as if it might have been office space at one time. More broken doors led him at last to a room right at the back, Catherine standing just outside it, a cylindrical casing held in both her exoskeleton's hands.
"Found you!" she said brightly.
"No, I found you."
She frowned, considered and then nodded cautiously. "That's right. I found... hmm." Through the mask she looked down at the casing. "Ah, I found this." She held it up triumphantly.
"Dammit, Catherine! What were you thinking?" He moved his hand to knock it aside but thought better of it. "You shouldn't go off on your own. What if you had an accident."
"I'm not alone. You're here."
"But I wasn't with you until now."
"oh."
"Yes. Oh."
"Who was with you?" she asked, looking around.
"...no one," he admitted grudgingly. "Look, that's not the point. Is there anything here that isn't junk?"
His sister considered and then tucked the casing under one arm, before shrugging helplessly.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. These aren't mechs, they're wrecks. I should have just headed to Arc Royal or somewhere like that."
"Found this."
"Yes, very good," he snapped. "I'm sure that that makes up for all the time we've wasted grubbing around here." Peter threw up his hands. "Come on. We're headed back, how much air do you have left?"
Cat squinted down at the dial inside her mask. "Half?" she said questioningly.
"Right. Good job I found you." He didn't even have that much left. "At least this crap'll cover the costs. We'll get into the Federated Suns and head for Kathil. Clovis said there was fighting there between George Hasek's people and the Archon's."
"Kathil's a mess," Catherine said in a lecturing tone.
"Yeah, but I can probably get someone to take you to New Syrtis from there. George'll at least keep you safe. Maybe he can figure out who it is on New Avalon too."
"It's a qu-quagmire."
Peter grabbed her exoskeleton by the wrist. "Come on," he snapped and half-pulled her after him, up the ramps and back to the original entry point.
Searcy must have noticed his tone and didn't bother with any small-talk as he used the winch to hoist the two of them back up and out of the hangar. "Do you know where Clovis Holstein is?" Peter asked him.
"Back in the shelter, sir."
"Right." He took a deep breath. "I'll get a fresh mask and then we can see about finding the original entrance. We'll need that if we're getting anything out of there."
They'd set up a temporary shelter inside one of the more intact buildings under the dome, somewhat hampered by the local air-pressure. Peter's ears popped unpleasantly as they went through two separate airlocks necessary to get in. Even after that the air inside smelt rotten, which approximately everyone on the expedition had complained about to him.
"Ah, Ardan!" Clovis looked up from the technician's computer he was studying as they climbed out of the exoskeletons. "You found our lost lamb, I see."
"Lamb?" Cat made a face. "Horrible ration packs."
"What?"
"She doesn't like the roast lamb ration packs," Peter translated. "So what did we find?"
The dwarf set down the computer. "As far as I can tell, the 'mechs in the room we found are all the same model: the MCK-6S."
Peter blinked. "The what?"
"Mackies," Clovis expanded. "And a very early model. I'd not be surprised if we found MCK-5S models as well, the first production line version the Hegemony ever deployed."
"Entire battalions of them?"
"Basically, yes. Back then it was normal to fill out companies and battalions with a single design - there wasn't such a great variety of 'Mech designs to begin with."
"And these are early models... museum pieces?"
Clovis hesitated and then nodded his head. "I'd say so, yes. We're talking first generation designs. The armour's mostly been stripped but it's inferior to the basic types we use today. The cockpits are... well, they're probably functional with a little work but they're bulkier and cluttered with systems that fell out of use centuries ago."
"And the weapons."
"My best guess is that they were stripped for use as replacements on newer machines," Clovis admitted. "Same with the armour. You've basically got the core systems still - reactor, gyro, myomer bundles except in a few cases - but by mass I'd guess about half of each 'Mech is gone."
"You can fix them," Cat offered optimistically.
Peter shook his head. "With a mountain of parts maybe. And the reactors... wasn't there something about the reactors back then... I don't recall exactly."
"They had an efficiency problem," agreed Clovis. "And the shielding wasn't brilliant, mostly because they wound up having to use overpowered engines to get the same effect. Anyway, it'd be a moot point. I've never even seen a manual on the Mackie, I'd pretty much have to tear one apart and document it piece by piece to do anything with it and that would take years. No offense, but..."
"More time than you have?"
"Well, more than I care to invest in it. No offense."
Peter shrugged. "You've been more than helpful. It's not your fault Catherine led us to obsolete wrecks."
Turning back to her exoskeleton, Cat tried to pull the casing it was still carrying away. "Here, here!"
"What?"
She pulled again, staggering as the mass exceeded her expectations, nearly dropping the end she was pulling and barely managing to lower it to the floor while the other end remained supported by the exoskeleton. "Here, this is it."
"This is what?" Peter asked, walking over and with an effort pulling the other end out of the exoskeleton's grip. "What are you talking about?"
Clovis studied it and took a sharp breath. "It's a computer core. Where did you find that?"
"Buried," Cat declared. "Buried treasure! Like pirates. Pirate data!"
"I'm pretty sure there weren't any pirates around here," Clovis told her patiently. He plugged a cord in from his computer. "A bit too near to the centre of the Inner Sphere."
"Maybe in the twenty-third century." Peter thought back to long ago lessons. "This was outside the old Terran Alliance after they withdrew to their oldest colonies so things were pretty wild for a few generations."
"It's encoded. Pretty old security though." The dwarf typed away for a moment. "One science we never really lost, cryptography. Our computers back in the 3020s might not have held a candle to the Star League's but security programmes advanced a whole lot."
"Military espionage drove that I guess."
"Yup. This was probably really tight security back in the twenty-sixth century but today, feh." He typed in the final command and data began to appear on his screen. "...oho."
"What?"
"Manuals. All sorts of technical data," Clovis told him.
"On obsolete Terran Hegemony designs," Peter asked wryly.
"Not just them. Seeing Draconian, Capellan, Suns... looks like a database of technical data on every mech and vehicle they could scrape together. Sorted chronologically for some damn reason." He scrolled to the bottom and whistled. "Right the way up to the 2760s. Must have had a feed from somewhere else because this place has been sealed up longer than that."
"Fix the 'Mechs?" asked Cat hopefully.
"Maybe. It'd make it a lot easier."
"But still grossly inferior."
"Yeah. Sorry, but an engine that big is overkill for a 'Mech that size. I could probably fix the efficiency issue but it's still wasting..." Clovis paused.
"What?"
Clovis steepled his fingers. "I'd have to run some numbers. And we'd still need hundreds of tons of parts - armour and weapons."
Catherine dropped to her knees, lowered her head and kowtowed towards the dwarf. "Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope."
"Oh come on, Cat, you're embarrassing him."
"I'm not embarrassed," the red-faced Clovis protested. "Although Karla would kill me if she knew a woman our kids' age was throwing herself at me."
Chapter 10
Caddo City, New Dallas
Free Worlds League Space
9 February 3063
It took the better part of two weeks to dig out the original entrance to the bunker. Twelve days of work and one day off in the middle as everyone piled back into the Glowworm with not even Peter determined enough to make them keep working under the conditions.
He was as sick of the smell and the heat as any of them.
Clovis Holstein didn't seem to mind any of that but that was because he was holed up in his shuttle with the computer core and a datalink up to the Bifrost. He was probably the only one though and he did have the benefit of being in a sealed environment.
In the meantime though, they could finally start emptying out the cache using prime movers and a road that wasn't in the best of shape to say the least.
"Say, Morgan."
Peter pulled the radio handset off the cab of the truck he was riding shotgun of. "This is Morgan."
Mael Colium didn't sound amused. "You know anything about another shuttle coming down here?"
"No, I don't. Is it the Bifrost's other shuttle?" He didn't find that likely - not unless something was badly wrong because if something did go wrong that shuttle was the crew's only way to leave the jumpship.
"No, I asked Captain Holstein and he says his crew still have theirs."
Peter bounced his head off the back of his seat - deliberately rather than incidentally as had been the case all too often on this route. "Then I guess we're going to have visitor. How big a shuttle is it? And how long do we have?"
"Not more than a few minutes and it looks like an ST-46 or similar, so worst case is a platoon of battle armour or maybe a couple of light tanks."
"And right now we have... what to defend ourselves?"
"Small arms," Colium said flatly. "Which is a loser's game anyway you cut it. How long until you get here?"
The truck rounded a corner and passed what had used to be the dropport gate. "About the same as the shuttle." He leant forwards and craned his neck. "I see it. Looks like it's landing on the runway. I'll see if some sweet reason won't deal with that."
"Sweet reason?" Colium laughed bitterly. "Better than guns we don't have. Good luck, Mr Morgan."
Beside Peter, Frye jerked the wheel, sending the truck off the route they'd cleared back to the Glowworm and towards the shuttle. "I hope you're a silver-tongued devil, Mr Morgan."
"That makes two of us. Have you ever been shot at before?" he asked. She didn't look or sound like a soldier.
"Twice and neither time better armed than now. First when I was twelve and the Smoke Jaguars rolled over my home town and then when Prince Victor's troops rolled over the Smoke Jaguars."
Peter shook his head. "Well I hope this goes better for us than those two."
"I'm alive, aren't I?"
"Let's keep it that way."
Frye pulled the truck up as the shuttle touched down and they watched as it rolled down the runway towards the wrecked dropship, halting not far short of it. "Is that ComStar colours?" she asked.
Peter grimaced. "Their uglier cousins, Frye. The Word of Blake have arrived. Let's hope they're just selling copies of their holy texts." He checked his mask, hoping it would hide his face and climbed down out of the cab.
Ahead of him the shuttle began to turn around and the hatch on the side opened. Fortunately the man who exited it wasn't waring battle armour - or any kind of combat gear. Instead, save for a mask much like Peter's he wore the robes of an Adept, not so very different from those seen at an HPG station under ComStar.
"Good day," the Adept called.
Peter took a sniff of the canned air in his mask. "As good as it gets around here, Adept. Welcome to New Dallas."
The man walked closer. "I believe that that's my line, Mr..."
"Morgan." Peter offered his hand. "You're welcoming me? I thought you'd just arrived."
"Here in Caddo City, yes." The man accepted and shook it briefly. "But New Dallas itself is another matter."
Camp... robes... Peter thought back to Catherine telling him about New Dallas. Was this what she'd meant. "Ah, you have an outpost here?"
"Exactly, good sir. I can't say we watch the skies very closely, it's primarily a prayer retreat, but when we picked up some side-scatter from your datalink we thought that we should investigate. After all, it wouldn't be the first time someone found themselves stranded jumping through an uninhabited system like this one."
"And like the good samaritans that you are..."
"We do like to help those in need," the adept agreed. "I take it that you're not in distress."
"Not more than usual," Frye assured him cheerfully, having also dismounted from the truck.
The Adept took her in, all one hundred sixty centimetres of her wearing no more than she had to in the heat and took a deep breath. "That is pleasing to hear, Miss...?"
"I'm just Frye," she said cheerfully. "And you're..."
"Adept Coltrane," the man said after a moment. "I take it then that is a salvage operation?"
"Indeed." Peter thought a moment. "There's a bunker full right under the dome. We've got a fine example of what we've found back here. Come and take a look."
They went to the back and Peter opened the duct-taped hole they'd made in the covering of the 'Mech. "What you're looking at was probably the fastest 'Mech in the Inner Sphere when it was first fielded."
"Really?" The adept shook his head. "I have to be honest, I find that hard to believe."
"Well, that was back in 2443." Peter let a little of his smile show. "I dare say there may have been just a little bit of wear and tear over the last six hundred years."
"Do you know, I think you may be right. Is this junk... I mean, museum piece, really worth the time to haul it away?"
"Museum is right," Peter agreed. "And for any they don't it's still hundreds of tons of high value material as scrap."
"And then there's the core," Frye added.
Right in that moment, Peter could have punched her.
"A core, you don't mean like Helm?" The adept's eyes were wide.
"Something like that, but not as new."
"Yeah. It's been locked up since back before the Star League, but it should have all the information needed to rebuild these old 'Mechs good as new," Peter offered. "As well as a good number of other designs of someone wants to see what their own states were building at the same time."
"Well I wouldn't have thought that that would be worth all that much," the Adept admitted, "But it seems as if you've figured out how to make a profit off a find that most would have written off."
"I'd like to think I'm shrewd businessman," Peter assured him. "I'd offer you hospitality but this is kind of a working camp."
"Oh, we're all in favour of hard work." Coltrane cracked his knuckles. "Prayer is enhanced by some good old sweat in my experience. You won't offend me by that."
"Then why don't we give you a little tour," he offered the adept. With a bit of luck, Catherine would be out of sight and Coltrane wouldn't investigate Holstein's shuttle. The dwarf was even more distinctive than Peter's sister.
Two jumps to Terra, he thought. Or coming the other way. It's a safe bet that there's a working HPG here on New Dallas. Let's hope that they don't have anyone closer because the chances are mighty slim that the Word of Blake will be inclined to believe that the core and the 'Mechs are scrap.
That means we have two weeks, give or take, to finish loading and get out of here.
Chapter 11
Nadir Jump Point, Oliver System
Free Worlds League Space
22 February 3063
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Peter asked, eyeing the lashed together rig secured to Glowworm's deck. It had taken the dropship four days to reach the Bifrost, which was waiting for them with it's Kearny-Fuchida drive fully charged and a fresh IFF block that claimed it was a Combine-registered ship. No one would particularly doubt that story in Oliver, since the system was within a couple of jumps of the Draconis Combine and House Kurita was still paying the League back for wartime loans of equipment from the Clan Invasion.
"The simulator or the refit?" Clovis Holstein wiped his hands clean on a rag. "In the first case, it's not a proper simulator - I can't get a fully articulated rig in here and Captan Colium would probably have my guts if I tried."
"Better than five tons bouncing around on my decks? I would indeed," agreed the dropship's owner and commander, who had turned up to watch what promised to be a spectacle.
"But all the controls are working and any cockpits, even as old as these one, can run simulations." The dwarf tucked the rag away. "All I needed to do was wire them up and fiddle with the coding a little to reflect what we're going to be doing with them."
Peter rubbed his chin. "Yeah. I know a lot of mechwarrior families keep a spare cockpit rigged up like this, it's better than no simulator at all. I was thinking more of what you have in mind for the Mackies. I've never heard of this sort of refit."
"It isn't factory level work, kid. But your sister gave me the idea that if the engine is overpowered, then shaving off some weight to take full advantage of that could turn these lemons into something pretty decent. It all depends on if you can get the parts."
"I think I can manage." Peter went over to the row of four dismounted cockpits and opened the hatch of the one marked with a 1. "Sears, you want to try the other one? It's been a while since I strapped on a Mech so I should try and get some of the rust off."
The other mechwarrior glanced around. "I don't see why not. Don't expect me to go easy on you, though."
"In your dreams, hotshot."
The inside of the cockpit was a strange experience - the basic controls hadn't changed much over the centuries but the Mackie had additional displays, particularly detailing the status of the 'Mech. The holodisplay that overlaid tactical data for the mechwarrior was bulkier than Peter was familiar with and projected data across a 180 degree arc rather than the standard 160.
Still, the seat and neurohelmet were as he'd expected, even if the latter wouldn't actually be doing anything. It felt wrong to strap in without stripping down to shorts and cooling vest, but the cockpit wouldn't heat up the way an active 'Mech's would. Maybe it was more like one of the arcade simulators he'd heard about while at the Nagelring - a place for mall-rats to play at being mechwarriors.
The screens lit up, displaying a canal, bridged by a monorail track. Low commercial buildings this side, apartment blocks on the other and beyond them towering skyscrapers. City-fighting, not exactly his favorite exercise but one that would be all too important if they reached New Avalon.
No. They would get there, he told himself. They had to. What Catherine predicted was a war that would be fought for five years across more than eight hundred worlds, killing millions and utterly ending the dreams of his parents.
The 'Mech status lit up and he checked his weapon payload. An extended range laser in the centre chest, a particle projection cannon in the left arm and an ultra autocannon opposite. The high weapon mountings of the arms reminded him of his JagerMech from back in Skye.
"Straight skirmish," Clovis' voice announced. "Good luck, both of you."
Peter pushed the pedals down and the Mackie lumbered forwards, slashing across the shallow canal and towards the centre of the city. He flipped from visual light to infrared and then night vision. All seemed to work. Magscan also worked when he tried it, but it was next to useless surrounded by buildings with metal frameworks inside them, which was accurate enough.
Nothing interrupted Peter as he marched the Mackie in among the city blocks, following the roads and leaving a trail of incidental destruction as the blocky feet smashed through ground cars and street lights with equal ease. At least he hadn't battered any buildings yet...
A high pitched squeal and red flashes on the holodisplay alerted him that he was under attack. The view shook, simulating the shaking he'd normally have experienced as a second 'Mech unloaded into him from his left rear quarter.
Swivelling, Peter brought his PPC to bear and discharged it, following with the chest laser and then his autocannon as each crossed the corner where the other 'Mech had fired from.
The PPC dug into the barrel chest of Searcy's Mackie but the laser missed as the other Mechwarrior backpedalled into cover and the autocannon blew a fourth-floor corner office apart. Some of the shrapnel may have hit the retreating 'Mech but Peter wouldn't count on that.
He pushed the Mackie after the other warrior, pleased by the speed. From its size and the reactor he'd expected it to handle sluggishly, like Uncle Morgan's old Atlas. Instead, the Mackie was only fractionally less responsible than a JagerMech. Hopefully the reality would match up to what Clovis had programmed into the sims.
As he pounded towards the corner he checked his damage. About a third of the protection over his PPC was gone and a ragged scar had been gouged through the armour of the Mackie's left leg. A smattering of other damage suggested light missile or cluster round damage - he hadn't seen missile contrails which suggested Searcy's Mackie had a LB 10-X autocannon.
He reached the corner just in time to see Searcy backing around the building's next corner, having fallen back almost behind it. Peter fired his PPC a fraction early and the brief beam of charged particles barely clipped the searchlight on the Mackie's right shoulder. The laser shot was lower, scarring the chest alongside the damage from his earlier shot and the autocannon rounds spread across Searcy's own autocannon mount and the building behind him.
Keeping the momentum up, Peter ignored the autocannon burst that crashed across the left chest of his 'Mech and pushed the Mackie as fast as he could. Backing up was always slower, so he could catch up and then...
He rounded the corner only to see that Searcy hadn't backed up at all. The prince triggered everything but the PPC was too close to focus correctly. The swinging autocannon jammed muzzle first into the corner of the building and dragged backwards, pulling him off-balance as he fired his laser, the weapon slashing a shallow trail into Searcy's.
Then Searcy's Mech stepped forward and almost lazily kicked the legs out from under Peter's. Automatically bracing for an impact that didn't come, Peter saw the sky between the buildings, oddly disorientating when his inner ear told him he was upright even though the Mackie was.
Searcy fired two chest mounted lasers into the PPC mount, following them a moment later with his PPC. Unlike Peter's there was no focusing issue - he must have an extended range mount.
There wasn't any armour left on the left arm and Peter tried to roll the Mackie to shield the weapon with his right side. Backing up, Searcy let loose with more cluster rounds from his autocannon, peppering the Mackie. One shot hit the cockpit's faceplate, causing the holodisplay to generate hairline cracks that weren't reflected on the actual faceplate behind it in real life.
With a frustrated cry, Peter managed to get the Mackie upright again but there was no sign of Searcy or his 'Mech. The man had done a hit and fade, textbook urban combat and Peter had fallen for it.
Dammit.
"Player three has entered the match," a robotic voice announced.
"What?" Peter released one joystick to adjust his microphone. "Clovis did you rip some of this software off an arcade."
"I had the code handy," the engineer said unabashedly. "And your sister was getting upset at seeing you getting your ass beat so she's decided to join the scrap."
He shook his head. "Catherine's not a mechwarrior, and he is not beating my ass."
"I'm sure you have him right where you want him," Holstein said with evident amusement. "Which if you check your tactical display..."
A blue icon - Catherine's 'Mech obviously - was visible on the street map of the battlefield and an intermittent red marker popped into view. Searcy.
Pushing the Mackie to maximum speed, Peter raced along the street and turned at an intersection, ducking it under the monorail and emerging into a plaza cluttered with food stands and surrounded on four sides by what seemed to be hotels.
Two Mackies blazed away at each other, one backed up against a hotel and the other occupying the gap between two. Given the former's wildly inaccurate fire - it was doing far more damage to the hotels than its enemy - Peter deduced that it was Catherine and opened up on the other Mackie.
He had the satisfaction of seeing the armour broken on the right chest before Searcy's Mackie smoothly retreated behind cover, pivoting to put the wounded armour behind the building first. In a final salvo the Solaris mechwarrior fired his laser's into Peter's Mackie and his PPC into Catherine's.
The weapons display highlighted Peter's PPC in red, indicating one of the laser shots had hit it and put the weapon out of action. Catherine's 'Mech slumped backwards against the hotel behind it. A real building might have collapsed upon it but either this was made of stronger stuff or the simulation wasn't quite that realistic.
"Catherine, are you okay?"
"Fallen," she said plaintively. "I can't get up."
"...right." The stubby arms weren't any help, but this was just a sim. "Rock the controls a bit. It's not realistic but without a neurohelmet the proper way won't work either." Peter moved his Mackie to cover her as she worked the 'Mech free and the computer judged her to be upright again. "If you really want to learn to use a 'Mech, we'll need to get you fitted out and do this with a real 'Mech. No offense, Clovis."
"None taken. I just wish I had some popcorn."
Peter's damage display lit up again. "Stop distracting me!" he shouted and wheeled, firing his autocannon as Searcy moved behind cover yet again.
A full alpha strike crashed past Peter's left side and ripped a hole in the building Searcy was behind... as well as carrying away what was left of Peter's PPC.
"...sorry," Catherine said in a small voice.
He forced himself to count to ten before responding. "It's fine, it was broken anyway. Let's move back and get to some more open territory so he can't sneak up on us."
The two Mackies retreated, Catherine taking the lead as Peter focused at least half his attention on their rear arc. He noticed more property damage and realised his sister was absently bashing her autocannon arm against the buildings along the side of the street. "Try not to hit the buildings, Cat, it's not doing the 'Mech any good."
She stopped and adjusted her course, walking more centrally in the street.
"Okay, good," he said encouragingly and then a salvo of fire lanced out of an intersection, smashing the left knee of Catherine's Mackie. She lost control immediately and the 'Mech crashed down onto the street.
Wheeling into the turn, Peter marched past, firing down the street. His shots slashed through the air underneath Searcy's Mackie, which was standing on the monorail track, and return fire blew into the right chest of his own 'Mech with disturbing precision.
Raising his guns, Peter tried to track on the matching damage to Searcy's chest but the other mechwarrior twisted to use his left side as protection and fired again.
With a flash, the holodisplay went dead and the controls followed. "What?" He checked the screens and they were still live... although an overlay reported 'Ejection'. "Clovis...?"
"He hit your ammo bins," the engineer told him. "No cellular ammo storage on these crates. Sorry, kid, he got you."
"I noticed," Peter snapped. Damn, he'd not thought much of Searcy - real mechwarriors like Kai Allard-Liao and Galen Cox had mopped the floor with Searcy's rival Vandergriff and another gladiator back in 3056. I guess I was measuring myself on the wrong scale, he thought. "How's Catherine doing?"
Clovis' voice was pained. "Kid, she didn't last thirty seconds once you were done."
"Fair enough." He pulled off the neurohelmet and ran his fingers through his hair. "Can you put me through to Searc- to Sears?"
"Sure."
A moment later, Searcy's voice was audible. "I hope I lived up to your expectations, sir."
"Yeah. It was... good work." He rubbed his jaw. "And you know what the reward for that is?"
The triumph leached out of the older man's voice. "More work?"
"Yeah. I obviously need more practise and if Cat expects to use one of these for real she's going to need intensive practise. Can you guess who just got appointed chief instructor."
"I'm not sure how much good it'll do her in a real fight," Searcy said honestly. "These simulators have limits."
"I noticed, but hopefully we'll have working 'Mechs by the time she's ready for them." And by the time we need them, he added to himself.
