Disclaimer: I still don't own this.
Chapter 7
Tamar
SLDS Lord George Murray
And Tamar City and Environs
George Murray shuddered as it took damage and I swallowed harshly as Trudy's throwing it around the sky threatened to send my stomach into full revolt.
I had designated drop zones around the War College, but they must have been preparing. Who they had been preparing for, us or the woofies, was a topic for later debate. What was relevant was that those preparations had included emplacing an anti-air weapon on top of what seemed to be every building.
They didn't quite all open up at once, which suggested their preparations weren't as far as long as they might have wished. If they had been, those defenses would have been networked together via multiple dug-in fiber-optic cables in armored conduits to a tactical computer (or several, taking into account redundancy) with predictable consequences for us. Instead the defenses were engaging individual targets and there didn't seem to be any coordination other than 'open fire' and 'God shall know the Righteous.'
It took about twenty seconds for every weapon in the city, war college, and palace to be firing at us. It took less than a minute for them to be joined by all the weapons in the extensive training fields that surrounded the campus.
The same fields I had intended to use as drop zones.
Durandal was flashing pictures from drones and other intel assets that had been seeded into the Ops area. Some of them had been released by droppers, but a great many had been delivered by the warships in orbit that were currently venting their fury on every recon, communications, and weather satellite in orbit. One image in particular caught my attention. A half-dozen soldiers had lined up and were volley-firing their rifles at our droppers. It was like watching one of those 'historical' holo-dramas of 'simpler and better' pre-space times, you know, the kind that make you want to scratch your head and ask 'people really fought like this?'
Murray rocked.
Without the gunners, Trudy had her hands full and was limited in the responses she had available. She had settled for treating the dropship like an oversized fighter, throwing it from one wild evasive maneuver and into the next. The other dropships with the rest of my squadron were doing something similar, but whether by accident or design it seemed as though the majority of the surface instillations had chosen my dropship as their primary target.
Tamar City was set into the bowl of a roughly crown-shaped valley. Seven expansive hills—in one case the slope was so gentle it went nearly unnoticed until it dropped away on one side—ringed the city from the west and then around south to the east. An eighth hill, this one obviously man-made and much more imposing, rose to the north with the palace of the Dukes of Tamar set on top of it. Across from Hill 1 with the palace was Hill 6 that was home to the Tamar HPG station. Hill 8, the far western hill, was the exclusive residential district of the city. Between Hill 6 and 7 was the campus of the War College with its expansive training fields and gunnery ranges spreading out beyond it.
From the north out to the east of the city, broken hills rose before giving way to gently rolling plains. To the west and south the ground broke into a series of rift valleys separated by ridges. The valleys were not unduly narrow, nor the ridges particularly steep, but they would be…unpleasant terrain features to have to deal with and limited approaches to the city.
I frankly hoped to avoid them entirely but I wasn't sure if that would be possible. Someone had hacked into the planetary communication net and an intelligence squeal was scrolling in a sidebar as Durandal updated the tac-map. Most of it was ignorable, stuff was outside my area of operation and the like, but Durandal bold-texted the stuff that concerned me. Sometime in the recent past the valleys I wanted to avoid had been co-opted by the War College for use as training fields as its expansion overwhelmed its existing grounds.
A broad heavy wall was being built around the city proper. Large swaths of it were still under construction, but the completed parts allowed for a projection of what it would look like when it was finished. A slab-sided monstrosity of poured, reinforced concrete more than twice the height of an Atlas on the outside with a deep, wide ditch in front of it and approaches liberally festooned with vibrabomb minefields. Towers every couple hundred meters bristled with autocannons, lasers, and missile tubes. There was a guard-walk wide enough to parade three heavy tanks abreast and a breastwork low enough to allow a mech standing on the guardwalk to fire at the enemy while still providing it with a great deal of protection…at least for as long as the wall held. That probably wouldn't be for long. Fixed fortifications of the kind and on the scale that were being built hadn't been effective for centuries.
Emphasis on hadn't been. Maybe they had made a comeback with the general decline of tech while we were…in transit.
The red light snapped on. Instead of trundling up to the doors like we had for the more sedate landing on Ridderkirk our mechs were locked into the cradles that were normally used to move mechs around the inside of the ship without powering them up. Now they lined us up with the door without our hundred-ton machines being flung about the bay like dice inside of a cup.
The doors slid open, the spinning ground-sky was even worse than Durandal's holographic representation of it, and Durandal locked on a Lucifer that was dogging after us. That particular fighter had been around for a couple of centuries before the temporal displacement, and this one looked like it could have come off the first production run…and fought in every war since. My mech's arms were locked in the frame, but the particle cannons in its torso had clear arcs of fire as did the missile packs in the modular bays. Before I could lock on, autocannon fire ripped from the side bays.
Trudy must have reprioritized the loading cradle queue to move the air-defense element up. I expected their fire to be off—only natural considering that the platform they were firing from redefined 'unstable'—but Durandal flatly reported 98% of their fire was on target
"Not possible," I said as the fighter was literally shredded. That kind of accuracy just wasn't possible. Even shooting at target-drones on straight-line courses during training ops wouldn't touch that percentage.
"They are tied into Murray's tactical net," Durandal said.
"Neat." Using a dropship's sensors was old hat. I couldn't recall anyone ever actually tying into a dropper's fire-control, but Annie had done just that. She hadn't been using her mech's guns at all.
I was still thinking about it when Trudy bucked the dropship vertical. I hung in the command frame in a way that wasn't exactly uncomfortable but was unfamiliar as hell. Then the light flashed green and I fell through the open bay door.
The drogue parachute popped open as we cleared the plasma-cones of Murray's engines, and Durandal was snapped vertical. We were heading for a valley two ridges over from where we were supposed to be. Then the main 'chute popped. It blossomed above me and a heavy missile tearing past nearly spilled it.
"Surface-Air Emplacement, looks like a fixed 'cudda station," Howard Arnett, who normally ran my lance so that I could orchestrate the battle, reported in. The twin OmniX autocannons his King Crab mounted were thundering at the ground and his 'chute was luffing dangerously in the back-scatter from the muzzle blasts.
Another missile ripped past just as there was a terrific explosion from below.
I tracked the missile going up, but the canopy of my 'chute was too big. The missile flashed through my engagement envelope and since it wasn't targeting me the LPDS ignored it. Durandal did manage a radar lock so I was able to track it missing the rest of my detachment, and then disappear into one of the closing bay doors of the George Murray.
Fire and debris vomited out the after end of the dropship.
There wasn't time to do anything about it, and in any case, there wasn't anything I could do. I sent the 'chute on its way and goosed Durandal's jets as we dropped the rest of the way.
"AirCom," I said, calling whoever was in command of the aerial action and Durandal shifting channels without my asking, "Quarterhorse-Six, reporting loss of dropship George Murray to ground-fire."
We grounded in the middle of a surface-air battery. A dozen or so prime-movers with long carrier/erector trailers attached were scattered around a command/control trailer. There were a pair of radars—far too close to the battery, one had been Howie's target and he'd gotten a secondary explosion from a round hitting a fuel bowser for the radar's portable generator—with their own control module. More generator trailers were scattered around, providing power for radars, command/control trailers, and erector-launchers, along with fuel bowsers to fuel both generators and tractors.
"Understood, Quarterhorse. Be advised, we're registering two emergency personal beacons active to your south-west."
I flushed one of the Clan-built SRM racks I'd had fitted into Durandal's right torso at another bowser, which promptly exploded in a wash of burning fuel, and then turned the particle cannons on the last radar. The radar array deformed as it was bombarded with ions and sort of crumpled. What its death lacked was more than made up for by shredding its control trailer into glowing slivers of composite with the heavy laser battery built into Durandal's arms.
Then Howie dropped his King Crab right on top of the battery command trailer.
"Copy, AirCom, I'll designate a detachment to investigate and make pick-up. Quarterhorse clear. Durandal, tac-map. Saber," I continued as the holographic interface shimmered and was replaced with a bird's-eye view of the War College at the same time as Durandal switched over to my element-push, "Ten second smash, then action east. 'Berta—" Corporal Roberta Blum was in charge of the Regulator element that had been on the Murray "—barrage the SAM site as soon as we're clear."
Icons swarmed across the holographic map, showing my mechs, located enemy forces, terrain features, the location of the two personnel beacons, and more. A sidebar of color-coded 'waterfall' graphs indicated local gravity, air-pressure, air-density, temperature, and humidity. All of which could affect the accuracy or range of one weapon or another. Another, similar, display tracked ammo expenditures, armor loss, component damage, and health of my troopers.
A remote turret popped out of the ground and a snub-barreled autocannon trained around. Worn scars on its casement showed past weapon hits. A training emplacement then, but one that had been loaded with live ammunition. Twin bars of silver light struck the emplacement as my railguns drilled it cleanly, and a secondary explosion drove the turret out of the casement as its magazine blew.
Durandal tootled a kill for Curt Mortensen. After Ridderkirk I had insisted that live ammunition be kept available on board the Murray. I hadn't anticipated actual combat, but I had hoped for some live-fire training so my mechs had full ammo bins and besides, fool me once, shame on me. The massive magazines that feed the missile launchers of Curt's Longbow could sustain a maximum rate of fire for over ten minutes—forever by the standards of a modern battle, but the Black Watch had never believed in running out of ammunition and it was something that the survivors of it and the 'training units' had taken to heart.
"Up the slope ladies and gents," I said. We were two valleys out from the War College and there wasn't time for us to loiter. "Stetson, George, take tactical command of the Squadron until I can link back up. Split a lance off, probably Apache-Three but whichever you think best, to go make pick-up on those E-Perbs."
"Boss, mercy-four, impact ten, shot out."
A big red 10 flashed in the upper right corner of my cockpit. 9…8…
The concept of MRSI, Multiple-Round Simultaneous Impact, where a single artillery tube could launch multiple rounds using different charges and elevations so that they all impacted at the same time had been around almost before mankind was first able to break free of Old Terra's orbit. It had been a standard feature of artillery tracks going back to before the second Russian Civil War, but it was a technique that had stubbornly refused to make the jump to a mech-based platform. A combination of an advanced stabilizer mount, a feed-system based on a concept that everyone had spent a couple centuries 'knowing' didn't work, and (especially) a liquid-bulk propellant that allowed for very precise charges had changed that—as a battery of artillery-mechs had taught an entire combined arms brigade one miserable December night.
Theoretically each tube—the Thumper artillery-based mech had two—was capable of putting six rounds onto a 10x10 meter target in the space of an eyeblink. In reality they could achieve that rate of fire—sometimes, in an emergency—but doing so stressed the feed system and (especially) the stabilizer, caused excessive wear to the difficult-to-replace barrel, rapidly depleted ammunition, and would cause heating issues well beyond excessive. It was even possible for them to achieve that sort of accuracy if they had someone to paint targets for them and used laser-guided munitions, otherwise the rapid-firing tended to produce enough vibration to disperse the rounds.
As it was, coupled with a little judicious shifting of point-of-impact, the sixteen rounds dropped on the SAM site were just enough to thoroughly wreck anything that had escaped destruction.
The secondaries were bright and plentiful. Fuel bowsers opened into gushes of burning petroleum distillates rather than explosions of hydrogen tanks, which spoke volumes about the equipment in use. Then the solid-fuel rocket engines of the missiles began to cook off. In some cases, warheads exploded first, scattering chunks of burning rocket fuel that started fires. In others rockets were split open and flame fountained forth like giant fireworks. A couple of missiles lurched free of the erectors and skewed up into the sky out of control as their solid-fuel rocket-motors burned.
"Air Com, Quarterhorse-Six, be advised we have anti-air missile cook-off in my vicinity," I said.
"Locus appended," Durandal added.
"Regulator-Three, put a couple of Falcon rounds over that ridge." It was going to take a long time to get used to it anticipating me like that, I just knew it was. Best to ignore it for the time being.
"Copy, Quarterhorse."
The Falcon-round was a 'support munition', meant as a combat enhancer and force multiplier rather than the artillery's primary role of blowing things up. In this in joined military flares and thermo-optical occlusion rounds. Unlike those rounds, however, Falcon rounds were meant to go unnoticed by the enemy.
The Falcon round came with two presets, the primary was intended as a high arcing shot that deployed a parasail at the apex. Beneath the parasail was hung a spin-stabilized pack with half-a-dozen different sensors, a secure transmitter, a small heating element (to keep the parasail in the air), and a fairly stupid computer to run things for up to ten minutes (or more—or less—depending on local gravity, temperature, and atmospheric density). The second preset was intended for range, rather than height, and didn't deploy the parachute at all. Instead the round would sweep a swatch of terrain a quarter-klick wide and five or more klicks long.
"Quarterhorse-Six. This is Five."
"Go ahead, George," I told my XO.
"We're in among the mech hangers now, boss. I've got one company of machines accounted for, but there are bays for five. Two of the hangers are brand new, but I figure why build bays for mechs you haven't got?"
"Unless they're still in transit," I replied. "What kinds?"
"We've seen a lot of old bugs. Cheap training models, mostly, though I've seen one Crockett. We're securing the rest of the facilities."
So George went off to do my job while we approached the ridge-line. The Falcon-rounds reported no signs of the enemy so I started over the ridge.
"Hold up, Colonel," Howie said. "Kael, you lead."
As organized each of the command lances was filled with three assault mechs (Black Watch-variants of a King Crab and a Pillager in the –two and –three slots, with a Cav-modified Longbow to provide fire support). This had the effect of making us the biggest hammers (and targets) around, but also put the commanders behind the most armor. George's –three had lost a leg at the knee during the fun and games on Ridderkirk and his mech would be in the shop for at least a week yet while the new limb was attached and calibrated. Under the circumstances, I'd traded over Maria Chan and grabbed up Kael Dunbar whose mech had taken the miss-jump hard enough to require a complete overhaul.
He was test-jock certified—the one school I had never managed to attend—which helped explain how he'd been able to get the only Devastator ever built to Black Watch standards.
Now he cautiously crested the ridge and started down the other side. We followed after at a sedate pace, half-keeping watch for the enemy, but mostly concerned with not putting a foot out of place on a treacherous slope.
The ambush, when it came, was about as slick and professional a job as ever I had seen…or it was, right up until the moment they sprung it early.
The valleys were lousy with iron deposits that made magnetic-resolution scans problematic at best, and they'd had plenty of time to get under thermal and pattern disruptive blankets. Coupled with the light forest they were in it had been sufficient to hide from the Falcons, and with their reactors shut down we hadn't even gotten a hit on a neutrino scan. Possibly it went even further than that, a hide prepared well in advance and incorporating all manner of technical goodies designed to hide the mechs concealed within.
The area was a kind of natural crossroads which should have been my first clue. Downstream—one feature that practically every ridge-valley in temperate climates has is a central stream running smack down the center—it widened out into a marsh. Upstream the forest turned unpleasantly dense. Both would have restricted our mobility, and the latter our range advantage, hence my choice of crossing points. The ridge opposite wasn't quite what I would call a 'pass'. Truthfully, the ridges weren't serious enough to even have passes. And while not a pass in the conventional sense, this one had a much more gradual incline for a stretch of about a quarter-klick both going up and down, with only some light forest between us and it.
What they should have done, provided they had the capability, was position themselves higher on the slope we were traversing with its dangerous footing where their nimbler—which isn't the same thing as fast or maneuverable and something that a lot of people forget about—machines would have had a flat-out advantage over us; or, if they didn't have a choice, waited until we were in amongst them in the forest and they could concentrate fire effectively. In among us where most of our advantages were limited and we had to carefully pick targets to avoid blue-on-blue fire and they would have had shots at the thinner armor on the back of our mechs, we would have taken a terrible pounding. Given the disparity in numbers and the advantage of surprise they might even have succeeded in taking us out—though no doubt at a stiff price and ultimately futile given the forces we had on the planet.
Now they crash-started their fusion plants, threw off pattern- and heat-disruptive camouflage cloaks, and charged.
There are exactly two kinds of ambushes in the parlance of mech vs mech combat, 'close' and 'far', and each had a response that was diametrically opposed to the other. Being able to make the right call is one of the ways of distinguishing the battlefield tactician and the book-taught scholar. In 'Ambush far', the ambushee grabs what cover (i.e., terrain features, buildings, other mechs) is at hand and uses fire and maneuver to turn on and overwhelm the ambusher. In 'ambush close' the ambushee turns and charges the ambusher, hoping to get within his ranks and devolve combat to a chaotic brawl.
I took one look, decided that charging heavies and assault-class mechs with lights was not the act of a sane mind, and snapped out: "ambush far!" as I split to the left.
Kael followed after me while Howie and Curt went right, the artillery and air-defense mechs splitting up with us.
Ropes of silver-blue lightning lashed out from Kael's Devestator, and a Locust simply vanished into a blast of fire and greasy black smoke. A Commando was overtaken by the destruction of its partner. It too exploded and I suddenly understood the apparent lack of sanity on the part of the other side's commander.
"Suicide jocks!" Howie snapped into the AVIX battle-link before I could.
There was quite a bit of empty space in a mech, if you knew where to look, and it looked like these had been filled to the maintenance hatches with stuff that went boom. Durandal opened a window in the holographic environment, filled with a color-coded representation of a molecule of—
"Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine," Durandal informed me as a Wasp blew itself apart under my guns. "Common names include cyclonite, hexogen, and RDX. Originally developed for military use in the late nineteenth century, it remained a staple for most of the next two centuries. Due to stability and low shock and friction reactivity it was in common use for controlled demolitions up to the Event."
And apparently through to the present day.
The next thirty seconds were too one-sided to be called a battle. 'Massacre' didn't begin to describe it. They charged, we maneuvered to keep the range open. They tried to get into range of their pop-guns, we opened fire at maximum range and one solid hit was often all it took. The explosives might have low shock reactivity, but the same couldn't be said for whatever they were using for detonators. Usually the ensuing explosion would take out another, or two, or three additional mechs. They got into autocannon range, 'Berta dropped her artillery cannons into direct-fire mode. A few managed to get closer, and the air-defense section opened up and even the flak rounds in their MetalStorm cannons were more than effective against their minimal armor.
Even the engineers got in on it.
A plasma bolt caught a Flea streaking across the open ground in the knee. For a moment the actuator was a molten glob of composites and battle-steel, the next it had solidified into an unmoving chunk of scrap. The upper leg was sheared off, and moving at better than a hundred-twenty klicks an hour there was no time for the pilot to do anything except hang on as his mech plowed into the burning grass and rolled for another thirty meters before exploding.
George's report of what he had encountered seemed to be the way all of the War College's mech-companies were organized. Most of them were light, cheap and aging mechs that quickly died. The longest lived were a pair of Crocketts that while old, were anything but light. They were also slow, which is how they managed to live so long. One dinged my armor with a 155mm slug at extreme range, then hopped out of my targeting brackets on pillars of blue-white plasma. It was an old trick and these people had clearly never managed to remove the limiters that prevented engaging targets while in mid-jump because he didn't take the opportunity to continue shooting down at me.
It was an effective enough tactic against most mechs. But it had been intended that the Crockett jump over its target and engage its rear armor. As it was, I had engaged from too far out. The jump evaded my fire but the other pilot didn't have the range to clear Durandal and it left him hanging there for half of eternity. Plenty of time for me to shift my point of aim, and the concentrated fire from my command lance blew him apart. I shifted towards the second just in time to see Roberta's section lay down a direct-fire rolling barrage like old-fashioned muzzle-loaded artillery.
There were very few pieces.
