TEN


Hogye, Engadine,
Melissa Theater, Lyran Alliance,
April 18, 3058

Two days ago, my scouts spotted a group of battlemechs, mostly heavies with some assaults, advancing toward Hogye. The scouts did not mention exactly the class of the mechs, but they did state a Cauldron Born. Mechwarrior Evee Ridinghood was right. Commander Rick was coming to Hogye.

Cedro did a wonderful job fixing the Trebuchet. He informed me about some modification to the chassis, particularly the struts that would make the medium-weight machine run smoother. I would be able to 'paint' an enemy while running full speed, perpendicular to it. Such a feature would be highly advantageous, especially when fighting a mech bigger than the 50-ton Trebuchet.

However, against Commander Rick's Cauldron Born, it was only a small advantage. I studied the specification of the 65-ton workhorse, and it was truly a masterpiece of the Clan engineers. No other mech, heavier or lighter, possessed better combination of speed, armor, and firepower like a Cauldron Born. Perhaps only Mad Cat, or Timber Wolf in Clan tongue, had better performance than the Cauldron Born.

So I shifted in my cockpit, trying to get comfortable inside the Trebuchet while the CAMR moved slowly toward Hogye. They were still 1.5 kilometers away, but I felt like I could hear the sound of their feet already. As I expected, the Cauldron Born led this band of mercenaries, followed by two lances of heavy mechs. At the very back, I noticed the JaggerMech, Bushwacker, and Centurion followed the heavy mechs.

"Commander Rick," I heard Megi spoke on a broadband comlink. "My name is Megi, the mayor of Hogye. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I think you know what I want," a stern voice replied. "You are holding one of my lance mates, and you have one of my mechs. I want them both back."

"Commander, the Hunt Lance came to my town with malicious intent over a small dispute. Your company tried to destroy Hogye with overwhelming firepower. However, we held our own and captured one of your mechwarriors with her mech. This proves that we can defend ourselves." Megi paused briefly before saying, "Your service in Hogye is no longer needed. We are grateful that the CAMR, under Hauptmann Viveros, provided protection to the people of Hogye. However, we're taking the Trebuchet. We won it fair and square in combat."

"That is not going to happen, Mayor," Commander Rick rebuked. "You are breaching our contract. On top of all, you need to pay off your contract. Then you have to return my lance mate and my mech."

"Commander, my name is Parker," I interjected. "This squabble stemmed from me. Let me finish what I started, so you can leave Hogye alone."

"So this is Parker, the infamous guest of Hogye," Rick mumbled. "I don't usually negotiate with a stranger or somebody that doesn't offer me much. But you intrigue me, stranger, so I'll entertain your offer."

"I motion for a duel," I put my idea forward. "You, or your finest mechwarrior, against me. If I lose, you will have your revenge, and Hogye will concede to your terms. If I win, you will leave Hogye indefinitely and forget about the contract, until we need your service again."

"I see that you're familiar with Clan culture," Rick huffed. "Did Ridinghood talk?"

"As a matter of fact, she did. She was no longer part of CAMR the day she was left behind by her commander. She does not wish to go back to CAMR."

"I'll be the judge of what she wants and what she doesn't want," Rick snorted. "Alright Parker, I'll fight you. But you can't use that Trebuchet. It's still mine, and I don't want to fight you in one of my mechs."

"Ah, Commander Rick, then what should Parker use to fight your mighty weapons?" Megi interrupted. "The only mech we have is a Commando. You're a respectable mechwarrior, aren't you Commander? How do you explain to the universe that you, a respectable warrior in a Clan tech, win a duel against a Commando?"

"The Hunt Lance, then," Rick decided. "You can use the Trebuchet, but you'll fight the Hunt Lance instead of me. All three of them. If you win, you can keep the Trebuchet, and we'll leave Hogye in peace. If you lose, I want Ridinghood and the Trebuchet back, plus Hogye must pay for the contract breach and the expenses of the battle. Failure to meet my demands results in total annihilation."

It might sound intimidating for most mechwarriors, but as a matter of fact, I felt relieved. I would prefer to fight the 3 Hunt Lance than Commander Rick. I had seen them in action. I knew I could handle the Viper, although he had 15-ton advantage. I knew I could handle the Centurion. The only problem was Wade Avery with his Bushwacker. If I could dispose the Viper and the Centurion quickly, without taking too much damage, I had a good chance to beat Wade.

"Deal!" I quickly agreed before he changed his mind. As I stepped forward, the Hunt Lance advanced toward me. I could feel adrenaline rushed through my blood vessels, and I did not like it. My breath turned into short and intermittent gasps, as the JaggerMech's image grew larger and larger in my screen. I drew a deep breath, trying to placate my augmenting distress, and locked my senses on the incoming JaggerMech, now 500 meters ahead.

"Commander Rick is wise giving me the privilege to stomp on your ass, you little thief!" I heard the Viper crackled over the comlink. "Our quarrel ends here. Now prepare to die!"

Without even waiting for my response, the Viper fired his autocannons within 400 meters. I slammed my feet on the pedal, jerking my Trebuchet to the left. A second later a fireball ripped the ground where I stood just a moment ago. I brought my mech a little bit more to the left, waiting for the auto-lock system to finish painting the JaggerMech, then pushed the trigger. White smoke covered my windshield as 30 guided missiles lept forward. Seconds later, the JaggerMech reeled under the impact, but shrugged it off and fired back at me. Beam javelins danced on my left and right. The Viper launched everything he had to knock me out, but his attack pattern was easy to dodge. Several cannon rounds manage to peel my armor, but nothing was critical.

Suddenly, my console howled proximity alarm. The Bushwacker and Centurion had put their launchers to work. I tightened my grips on the joystick, then shoved it to the right. I could hear the lanky mech groaned as it responded to my abrupt movement. Most of the missiles missed their mark by a mere centimeter, but the few that succeeded raked my right arm, pushing my mech into a twist. Half a ton of armor flew into the air, and the armor tracker turned yellow.

I always knew that this was the kind of tactic I could expect from the Hunt Lance. They overwhelmed me by 3-to-1, so their biggest advantage over me was their number. They would pick me from any possible direction, running me out. Obviously I could not outshoot them. Forget my plan to quickly dispose the Viper and the Centurion. If they kept doing this, they would wear me out in half a minute. I had to find another way, and the first thing that came to my mind was to disrupt their coordination. Break their bonds. Divide and Conquer.

"Still think that you cannot beat me by yourself, Viper?" I taunted him using general frequency, intentionally broadcasting our dispute, hoping that he would slip his tongue. "Am I that big of a menace in your eyes? Your mech is 15 tons heavier than mine, yet you still need the assistance of a Bushwacker and a Centurion."

"It's not even your mech, crook!" he spat in response. "Avery, Hunter, squash him like a worm!"

Multiple cannon traces charged my cockpit with audacious intensity, but I expected this. I pressed my joystick forward and triggered my lasers. Heat spiked up as three tubes discharged watts of energy, stabbing the JaggerMech in the torso. I ducked at the right time, just as lasers and missiles from the Centurion flew above my head. I followed up with three blasts from my lasers. The Centurion swayed left and right to dodge the beams, but one of them sliced its shoulder. I kept moving, dodging as many rounds as I could. But a well-placed salvo sliced a deep cut on my left leg. The alarm sounded strut damage. I realigned my crosshair to the Centurion's midst, but two shots from the Bushwacker threw my targeting system off. A vigorous quake enveloped the cockpit, nearly throwing me out of my seat. Sparks burst from destroyed circuitry. Warning message flooded my ears, and acrid smoke filled the cramped cockpit.

"How does it feel, scum?" I heard the Viper taunted me. "You'd better say your prayers quick, or you won't have a chance to do it at all."

"Even if you kill me today," I replied, aligning my crosshair with the JaggerMech's center, "your tyranny will soon come to an end. All a man needs to oust you is heart and rectitude."

"Tyranny? My tyranny? What do you know about tyranny, you punk!" A burst of energy speared from the JaggerMech's arms, smashing my right shoulder. My entire right torso disintegrated in a yellow fireball, chewed by an internal explosion. I covered my head with my arms, as the Trebuchet's wobbly knees could not cope with the abrupt change of mass. It crashed to the ground.

I fought hard to get my consciousness back. I could not lose, not to this guy. I was the one that originated this conflict. If I could not finish it, then I would leave Hogye in a worse position than before I miserably tried to set everything right. This was a critical moment for everybody. No, I could not lose. Not today.

"I am hard, but I am fair!" the Viper kept rapping on the comlink. "If you see that as a tyranny, then it's my tyranny that kept this Hunt Lance intact. It's my tyranny that saved everybody from many hard battles we've gone through. You're just a redneck, Parker. You don't understand what it takes to be a commanding officer!"

"I understand one thing," I got my mech up. "You left your lance mate in the hands of the enemy."

"You sonofabitch!" the Viper rattled his autocannons. My Trebuchet shook and trembled sustaining volleys after volleys of cannon rounds. At point blank range, the cannon shell's punching power was enough to grind the torso armor into scrap metal. Fire burgeoned from the impact, tossing chipped armor into the air. My console flickered incessantly, alternating between distorted images of the battleground and total static. Why exactly I had not exploded yet was beyond my guess.

"She is a soldier and a mercenary!" the Viper roared on the comlink. "She knows the consequences, and she knows that our mission is more important than her life! You're not even a merc, you punk!"

"And who judges what is important and what is not? You?"

"You damn right I do! I've got enough of your crap! Avery, Hunter, let's burn this asshole!"

No one moved.

"Avery! Hunter!" Viper turned back, only to see the Bushwacker and the Centurion stood idly in the distance. "I said singe this sonofabitch and send him to hell! What, something wrong with your comlink?"

"So are you just gonna decide if the mission is worth more than my life and John's, just like you did to Evee?" Wade Avery's voice crackled, calm and clear. "Had we been disabled that day, would you have had fled alone?"

"Jesus, Avery! Are you questioning my decision now?" the Viper started to get really mad. "You're a soldier, for Christ sake! Your life is for the mission! And yes, I'll waste you punks if you don't do what I say!"

"You don't care about us," Wade's voice thundered on the comlink. "We've been covering six for so long, and you don't even have the scantest decency to recognize us as your lance mates. We're just tools to you. I tell you what, Viper. From this moment on, we're no longer taking your orders."

"What the hell is this? You come back here, scumbags!" Viper bellowed, but the Bushwacker and the Centurion turned their backs at him and walked off the battlefield. "Commander Rick, are you gonna do something about this mutiny? They are desecrating you by disobeying my command! I request immediate assistance!"

"You breached their trust, Viper," came Rick's answer. "I can't do anything unless you win it back."

"Commander?"

"Finish the fight, and we'll talk about getting your lance back."

Well, my plan worked, but not the way I imagined. I was hoping I would turn their guns at each other. I wanted to make them fight each other, then I would pick up the survivor, which should have been mangled badly. I never thought Wade and John would leave the Viper. Maybe they realized everything when I mentioned about Evee, and decided it was enough. It was a nice turn of event, however. Unexpected, but nice.

Now my Trebuchet was in really bad shape. My entire right torso had been blown apart, along with it my right arm with two medium lasers. My remaining weapons were one 15-pack missiles and one medium laser, all in the left arm. If the Viper had just one lucky shot, I would be fighting throwing rocks.

But looking at the hesitant gait of the JaggerMech, I knew I would trump this duel.

"If we settled everything with a duel back then, none of these should happen," I said as the Viper trudged toward me. "You would still in charge of Hunt Lance, and I would be either dead or out of Engadine."

"Let's just finish this off, scumbag!" the Viper hissed. "Now go to hell!"

The Viper blasted his autocannon and spearheaded his laser beams, but I shrank back, then fired my missiles at the JaggerMech's chest. The JaggerMech trembled and spun uncontrollably before the Viper forced his dominance over it. He paused for a moment, then fired all of his weapons while closing the gap with me. His uncoordinated attack whooshed left and right of my cockpit, but it was surprisingly easy to dodge them. I danced some time, waiting for my missiles to reload, then sent another wave at his midst. Again the JaggerMech staggered. The front armor breached, spilling gallons of coolant from within. My laser incinerated the coolant, and the 65-ton monster engulfed in a flame.

"Damn you Parker! Damn you all to hell!" he screamed, at the top of his lungs.

It was a sad irony that the last thing he would remember, before he died, was his utter abhorrence at me. I knocked the trigger once more, sending my third wave of missiles to his center torso. The front armor was shredded open, exposing engines and delicate circuits to the fire. The flame torched the ammunition bin, and in a second, the JaggerMech erupted in a geyser of fire, parts, and smoke.

I took several deep breaths, wiping the sweat that drenched my face, and lined up my crosshair with the Bushwacker, in case they wanted to continue. But they kept their posture at long distance, and I knew that the fight was over.

"Commander Rick, two of your combatants have turned their back from the battle, and Parker killed the other one," Megi quickly took advantage of the situation. "I say that we have won this contest, unless you see otherwise. I expect you to honor our agreement."

There was a long lull, but in the end, Commander Rick decided, "Alright, you win. We will not see each other again, unless you want it to happen. And keep the Trebuchet. I see that it is a very useful machine for Hogye in the hands of Parker. I wish you good luck in your future."

"Thank you, Commander," Megi said courteously. "You are a respectable man, and if we see each other again in the future, I hope it will be in much friendlier circumstances."

I could not believe what I just heard. It was over, it really was. I climbed up the Trebuchet, letting the cool air of Engadine envelop my body. As my feet touched the ground, the CAMR had turned their back at Hogye and started their journey back to where they came from. The charred hulk that was Viper's JaggerMech was still crackling with fire, but everybody knew that it was the last thing they would ever see of the CAMR, at least for a very long time.

I could almost see Hogye in the biggest fiesta they had ever had tonight.

"That's it, Parker," Megi stood beside me. The aura in her face told me that she was still trying to accept the fact that we succeeded. She paused for a long time, watching the flame on the JaggerMech flicker, then turned to me with the biggest smile on her face. "We did it. Hogye is now an autonomous town!"

I stretched a smile, and even thought it was just a smile, it never felt better. Other people started dancing and screaming erratically, realizing that from this day, they would live like any other people across the Inner Sphere. Fear had been their regular tone for years, and today they would start to learn living without it.

"Come on, Parker! We have a long overdue party!" Megi grabbed my wrist.

"Mayor, as much as I want to be a part of it, I cannot," I politely refused.

"What do you mean you cannot? You're the one that make this day possible!"

"Mayor, I gave my word to Evee Ridinghood that I would take her to her home once this fight is over. Now that it is, I have one more task to fulfill before I can celebrate. Bear in mind that we succeeded because she gave us the key information about her former unit. We owe her one."

Megi looked at me in a strange way, as if I was some kind of alien. But I knew she understood me. She gave me a look of wonder and pity, then said, "You don't know what you're missing."

"I will be back before you know it, Mayor," I nodded. "Just keep the food warm."