Chapter 8
Black Pearl Desert, Astrokaszy
130 Kilometers NE of the Oasis Forest
Periphery
7 June 3059
24:37:00 localtime
"Heads up, Striker. Don't want frighten you or Precious." Dingo never tired of certain games, and this one had been going on for three hours.
Wendy however got tired of Dingo's games quickly.
"Shut up Dingo, you miscreant!" Up until now she had let him have his fun, but this was getting old. Walking through the storm was solemn business, operating under relative radio silence and surrounded by a raging sand storm which dropped visibility to zero meant for most of the march each warrior was left to their own thoughts. Thoughts that more often than not turned back to the dire circumstances that brought them to where they were right now. Dingo's nattering with each pass actually broke up the monotony, but Wendy had had about enough of this particular introduction.
"Dingo you moron, I have you on sensors 6 minutes before you open up with some stupid variation of that "gee, didn't want to scare you" bit." Truth be told, the Precious, her completely updated 100 ton Atlas, could "see" nearly as far as any Clan 'Mech.
"Oh. Right. Might make sense for me to run a little further out then, 'cause this Bucket can't see much past 270 meters. I'm bet'n that you can almost see that far now."
"Yeah, just as well, you can move out another 200 meters and still be well within my range."
"Roger. 20 C-Bills says I find more sand."
Wendy chuckled but didn't respond. She actually liked Dingo's brand of humor, not that she'd ever admit it, nor live it down if the truth ever got out.
Damn I miss Hopper. Now, that guy was funny! Wendy's thoughts turned from happy, at the reminiscent memories of Johnsten's constant optimism, to depressed about another comrade yet to be properly mourned.
"Well, Well," Dingo broke in over the comm., his voice staticky through the Locust's underpowered comm. system, "What do I have here? Sand. What a surprise!"
"Ok Dingo, point taken, start swinging around…" Wendy began.
"CONTACT!" Dingo yelled over the line. A staticky live sensor feed sprung to life on Wendy's HUD showing multiple contacts strung out in a ragged line all across the Locust's sensor range.
"Reverend, Contact, live feed incoming!" Wendy called as she punched in the relay commands. "Dingo, pull back! I'll move closer, I can get the Intel at a safer range."
The long range proximity alarm blared in Wendy's ear as the long range sensors began painting new contacts all along the left edge of her sensor's range. "Dingo, break off! Reverend, relay to all units, I have massive contact readings we're about to be surrounded!"
"ALL UNITS this is Leader, "came the immediate response, "fall back to the column! We've got confirmed contacts all along the front and left sides of the column. Mongoose, I want you and the column to break right and back."
Wendy was about to confirm the withdraw command and turn in the column's direction when Dingo's HUD relay caught her eye.
"Dingo withdrawing." Dingo began the rundown of acknowledgments, followed quickly by the others.
Something isn't right here. Wendy glared hard at the flickering HUD relay.
"Leader this is Striker, I'm moving forward to investigate."
Allen had already turned his Battlemaster and had begun heading back to the column when Wendy signaled she was heading toward the contacts. WHAT?! Allen's mind screamed, but before he bellowed a counter command he paused, "Striker, what have you got?" Better to trust in your people, than try to micromanage.
"Dingo's signal was sporadic but I don't think this is a 'Mech column."
Allen checked his sensor readings again, she's right! Allen slowed his 'Mech to a walk.
"Leader, this is Fox Two, what's ou.. p..ay."
"Two, your signal is starting to break up. Keep the column moving away and send Dingo back to act as runner. Acknowledge."
"Ack..le..ged, Din.o on ..he way."
Allen veered toward Wendy's last position, his Battlemaster leaning hard against the driving winds. I hope Dingo doesn't get lost in this mess! Lightning flashed through the storm, very near by. Allen jumped in his command chair, Damn this {Naughty} is starting to get to me!. He keyed the comm. channel again, " Striker, report?"
No response. Allen checked his sensors which painted the green "friendly" contact at the edge of his range, fading in and out.
"Striker, report, " he called again. A second green contact flared to life on the opposite side of his display, running at high speed along the edge and fading in and out as well. Dammit Dingo! Your heading the wrong way! He can't see us in this soup with the limited range in that bucket!
"Dingo, this is Leader, your headed the wrong way. Come left to heading 2-7-0!" Allen knew Dingo couldn't respond at this range, but watched intently for several seconds to see if the little icon changed direction. Instead of changing direction the icon vanished from the display again. This keeps getting worse and worse!
"Striker, this is Leader, Dingo is off course and headed straight for the contacts, I'm breaking off to pursue."
"R..ger, Lea.." Wendy's voice broke through the static, "..'re ok. Con…t ….. Awaiting your ….."
"Striker, Stay Put! I'm marking your position so I can navigate back!" And if I don't hurry Dingo's going to run straight into that line of contacts, while our column's running blindly off into this storm!
Without waiting for a reply, Allen made several marker points on his map to show distance from current location and broke into a full run in the direction he last saw Dingo headed. Long minutes crawled by without any contact on his display. I should have known better than to request Dingo take that half blind antiquated {Naughty} alone into this looking for us! Shouldn't I be able to see that column of contacts by now?! Suddenly a single green icon bleeped for a second now on the right side of his display straight ahead, before fading out again. What's he doing? He's running all over the {Naughty} map!
Another flash of lightening seared the ground very near by, causing Allen's whole HUD to flicker. The contact he had pegged as Dingo flashed into existence again.
"DAMMIT DINGO! STAY STILL!" Allen yelled into his mic, to no avail, the contact vanished again. Only to reappear two heart beats later, this time it wasn't moving. Allen repeated his hail as he approached, each time there was no response. As he got closer his sensors informed him that the Locust was, in fact, powering down!
"Dingo, have you gone nuts?!"
With only 4 meters remaining between the two war machines a small sounding Australian voice answered. Allen could tell that his signal wasn't coming from the 'Mech's comm. system. "No Sir! I've been running around back tracking to your last known position, but this lightning keeps scrambling the guidance system. Then a minute ago I thought I heard a signal off in this direction and figured it might be you or Striker, so I bolted in the direction."
Great! The storm is reflecting our comm. signals! Allen thought as Dingo continued.
"Then I got hit with this lightning strike and the whole command console starts going berserk! So I initiated a shutdown, I just hope the thing will restart!"
"How are you broadcasting if all the 'Mech's systems are down?" Allen queried.
"I brought along a handheld just in case. I still don't really trust this bucket"
Allen chuckled as he walked around the Locust and leaned in close to survey the damage. There was a scorch mark just aft of the cockpit, but other than that the little 'Mech seemed fine. Let's hope that boy is a real good tech!
"Ok Dingo, try bringing it back up. I've marked your position on my guidance systems but I've got to get back to Wendy's position. The column must be half way to the Southern hemisphere by now! I don't want to loose everyone! Stay put, and hunker down. I'll be back as soon as possible. If you have to move, and can't stay in the area, make your way back to the forest. As soon as the storm breaks head to the LZ. Got it?"
"Yes Sir! Hurry back, I don't fancy sitting blind in this sand soup for long."
"Right, Leader out." With that Allen charged back to the place he had marked as Wendy's last known position. Navigating by HUD only, buffeted by winds high enough to stagger his 'Mech, and stumbling on the ever shifting sand dunes, getting back seemed to take an eternity. Just as he began to wonder if his guidance systems were experiencing the same problems Dingo described, his HUD started painting contacts, That's a LOT of red! Allen thought with some reservation about continuing, then a single green icon appeared in the center of the sea of red. Allen slowed to a walk to assess the situation.
Those aren't 'Mech signatures, they're people! As he approached the sea of red continued to spread over his HUD. Hundreds, no thousands of people! What the {Naughty} is going on?
"Lea..er, this is ..iker" Wendy's broken voice sprang to life in Allen's ear.
"Roger, Striker, what's the situation?"
"Survivors Sir, "Wendy began, her signal getting stronger with each step Allen took, "mostly from Astrokaszy City. They would like to have a word."
Relief spread through Allen's body. "Roger Striker, but you'll have to entertain for a little while, I've got to go track down the column and round up Dingo. His Locust had some difficulties with this weather." Allen continued with his best imitation of Dingo's Australian accent, "Seems he went for a "Walk about" and got lost."
Wendy's laughter boomed over the command line, between gasps she stammered, "Right, tell Dingo I'll hold his hand next time so he doesn't get lost."
"Affirmative, Leader out." Allen chuckled as he cut the comm. I hope the column isn't moving too fast! Or worse, getting as turned around as Dingo in this miserable {Naughty - excrement}.
Not for the first time since the march through the storm had begun, Allen wished they could use the VTOLs, instead of having them strapped to the cargo bed of the sand crawlers.
It took two hours to track down the column, round up Dingo and get everyone back to Wendy's position. Happily Jess realized that they didn't need to be too far away to be at a save distance in this storm, so the column members had simply dug in just a kilometer from their previous position.
Black Pearl Desert, Astrokaszy
130 Kilometers NE of the Oasis Forest
Periphery
7 June 3059
27:16:25 localtime
Wind tore at Allen as he ascended his Battlemaster causing him to loose his hand hold. Briefly he caught himself, but just enough to swing around and bounce off his 'Mech's leg. His grip lost he fell free of the ladder landing hard on his back in the sand. Two meters isn't a great distance to fall, especially when you land on a bed of sand, but in a swirling sand storm with zero visibility Allen had only instinct to tell him he had a short fall to the ground, rather than a potentially deadly ten meter fall. The short freefall was not unpleasant, just scary, but the quick stop at the end still managed to knock the wind out of him. Allen lay still for a moment, catching his breath, and letting the face plate of this light environmental suit come back into focus.
I better start moving again! Allen thought as soon as his vision began to clear, I'm going to be buried alive in this sand if I stay here much longer. That wasn't an understatement, in just a few seconds his legs and torso had already begun to disappear under a layer of sand. Using his 'Mech's direction beacon to reorient himself, Allen felt around like a blind man through the storm until he again found his 'Mech and began clamoring back up the ladder.
Finally dogging closed the hatch on his 'Mech, Allen collapsed against the bulk head and began removing his suit. Pulling off the helmet Allen swore aloud. He proceeded to store his environmental suit and re-situate himself in his command chair. His comm. console was already blinking at him as he lowered his neuro-helmet and issued the release commands to restore his war machine to normal operational mode.
"Leader, respond," came Jess' voice before his systems were fully active.
"Go two."
"What kept you?"
Allen rolled his eyes and sighed, "felt the need to play in the sand, but it's not as much fun as I remember." Allen's voice dripped with dry humor.
Several chuckles broke over the comm. as Jess continued her own tone sparkling with mischief, "If I'd known I'd have brought you a shovel."
More laughter echoed over the line as Jess, obviously struggling not to laugh herself, continued, "Soo, what's the story? "
"Well, they got to the point quickly, they don't have a full head count, but they think they've got 50 thousand plus, " a low whistle could be heard in the mist of the background noise, "and they're headed for a system of caves over in the Warrior's Despair region of the Veiled Mountains. That's roughly 20 klicks South of our destination. I told them our plan, but the Antelope can't take a fraction of their numbers. Hell we'd need a fleet of Flying Fortresses to begin moving that many! So we agreed that we're going to continue along our original plans. We both felt that we've lost a great deal of time with our little encounter. Night is falling and they tell me the storm looks to have teeth for a while yet. We're going to get the word out and they're going to ground until the coast is clear. They've given me some contact names to try in the Magistracy that might cause enough of a stir to get them here to mop up. The old Sultan seems to think the Magestrix wouldn't take well to a force the size of the one we've identified sitting on her back porch."
"No kidding!" Dingo broke in, before Jess could respond, "I doubt the Free Worlds League would appreciate it very much either."
"Ok so it's on to the Antelope then," Jess finally interjected.
"Right, we've picked up some help in the form of a couple of elderly gentlemen who feel they can guide us through this storm better than we can. The price is safe passage for them and what's left of their families. To prove their point, they pointed out that we are, in fact, 2 klicks off our planned route and heading further away."
"WHAT?" Dingo broke in again, "Precious has led us astray?" Peels of laughter could be heard bouncing off the closed-in walls of the Locust.
"Careful Dumbgo, Precious can't see the mountains from here, but she can alpha strike a Locust cockpit without scoring the paint around the canopy! I can see you, can you see me?"
The laughter stopped cold, "Ahh Leader, where is Striker?"
Allen laughed along with the rest of the unit. "Right, if we're finished…"
A light lit up on Allen's console indicating a message from Ryan. A sequence of keys later and the coded text message appeared on Allen's HUD,
Leader One, meet with representatives of the "Khalifat of Tazi." Very informative. Detailed report later.
Short and to the point Allen reflected as he signaled Ryan his "Message received" code.
"Leader, this is, Ahh, oh hell what is it? I forgot my code name. This is Ron."
Techs Allen thought with exasperation. "Squirrel, go ahead."
"Squirrel? How did I get the code name squirrel?"
"Call sign, squirrel, and you get a new one… NEVER MIND!" Allen couldn't believe this guy ever signed up for a military unit! The man didn't have a military bone in his body! "What is it?"
"Jennifer, I mean…"
"Never mind squirrel, just continue…" Allen felt more tired talking with Ron than climbing up his Battlemaster in this storm.
"Right, well, Jen and that new guy are making progress on that device! They think they can extract the remote detonate code. One of them anyway!"
"New guy?" Allen asked.
"Yeah, Dillan the Locust tech."
"Right, continue." Allen wondered if he should scream or pound his head against the bulkheads. He lets the newest member of our group, a complete unknown, work on a self-destruct device while riding in the middle of our convoy. Who needs spies, with techs like Ron willing to invite anyone technical to sit down and explore whatever we have at the moment?
Despite this Allen turned his attention back to what Ron was driving at. He got the feeling that this might be significant but wasn't getting what Ron was excited about, "Do they think they can decrypt the code?"
"NOoo, "Ron began like a exasperated professor talking to a student who they didn't feel was ever going to be at their level, "we don't need to break the code, just extract and broadcast it!"
Allen opened his mic to ask another question, then paused. What good is broadcasting an encrypted code? Unless…
"Are you suggesting that their 'Mechs would detonate if we simply extract and broadcast a code from the device?" Jess beat Allen to the punch.
"Sort of, "Ron responded, "The devices are in a cascading series, so there is actually a series of unique codes for each 'Mech. As a unit, one 'Mech receives, or a commander would enter, the broad unit destruct code and before blowing, the device in the original 'Mech in the chain applies an algorithm and resends. They go off in a chain like series. Don't get me wrong, you'll never notice the time lag; the radio signal and optical processors both operate at the speed of light, so unless you're a real long way away then the effect is near instantaneous. But the double linked chain makes sense, that way anyone who knows the proper sequence can start the chain reaction from any point in the chain. The catch here seems to be that who ever made this device actually hard coded a destruct code into the device, probably assuming that since their device is fool and tamper proof that no one would ever know."
"What kind of range are we talking about?" Allen queried.
"Oh, I don't know, it's actually a microwave transmitter so the signal would pass through solid objects and it's a pretty powerful, it gets amplified by the 'Mechs power plant. Oh, I'd say, couple thousand kilometers, give or take."
"Ok, so, "Allen started slowly, "what path is hard coded to blow? You did mention something about each 'Mech being a fusion bomb!"
"Yeah, well, we can't tell. Some of the optical circuits were crushed when Wendy, I mean Striker, Ahh," Ron seemed to struggle in finding the right description," disabled the 'Mech. Which is a good thing," he added quickly, "because that's what stopped it from self-destructing in the first place."
A quiet chuckle could be heard over the comm. just before Allen responded, "Ok, keep working on it and keep me updated but we'll treat it as a last resort. I haven't checked my Battlemaster owner's manual but I'm pretty sure my 'Mech's not rated to stand on a sun!"
Even as the conversation had been progressing the two columns had separated and began moving in their respective directions. The Privateer's had resumed their diamond formation with Dingo running in an orbit. Their new guides, despite utter darkness within a solid mass of swirling sand, seemed to quite adept at finding their way across the desert.
