Specter the Mercenary:
Chapter 10:
3067: November 15th 12:00 GST
Specter sat in the cockpit of his armed Raven, olive drab, C-streak 6, and two medium x-pulse lasers housed in his chassis.
He patiently listened to Duncan Fisher drone on about the players for about fifteen minutes before the air-horn blew and he pushed the throttle.
"The light circuit is all about speed, sometimes fans look down on the light circuit because they can't understand who killed who or what the heck is going on." Duncan's voice came over the field in an annoying tone.
Specter's mind screamed "shut up!" But he was too busy tracking the Osiris that ran by his side, firing red beams of medium lasers and peppering his beak-like nose.
Angered he locked and fired his streak SRM's and watched joyously as they tracked the little bug and squashed six holes in its form. He laughed at his opponent over the comm and toggled his lasers, and watched with satisfaction as they scraped away layers of armor from the center of the Osiris's nose.
He danced circles around the weak and unimpressive mech that his opponent foolishly fought with. His lasers and missiles quickly recycling, he fired with pinpoint precision and a growing heat inside his cockpit until the puny mech collapsed and his opponent ejected.
He laughed, quietly, as he moved towards the nearest red dot on his radar. A wolfhound entered his view, red paint and Duncan announcing her prowess. Sun Tso Liao turned to face him, her right arm bearing a clan PPC, and pretty mangled from earlier fights.
He raced forward, the speed of his mech and random stops and turns causing her to miss the first two times she fired.
Specter fired his weapons, an alpha strike, a direct hit to Liao's PPC bearing arm. The mangled arm ripped off the thin chassis, and its remaining myomer splayed and whipped like a snapped tendon.
Liao's Wolfhound only had two small pulse lasers to peck at him, at that Specter laughed at the pilot's foolish thinking. Laughing at the idea of only one powerful weapon in a place where it could easily be knocked off and cripple the giant.
While Duncan praised Liao's skill, Specter laughed at her incompetence as a pilot. He thudded forward, and smashed a hole in her torso with a volley his SRMs, soon following it up with several blasts of his advanced lasers. He only partially minded the equatorial heat inside his cramped and cheaply fitted cockpit.He sweat terribly under his cooling vest and began to stink up the cockpit.
But he was too invested in wiping out the Wolfhound to notice the heat, or the Owens that was sneaking around the corner behind him.
He was soon surprised to find a volley of SRMs streak past his view, and well as feel the jolt of medium lasers burn holes into his legs and back. He quickly turned his torso around for a quick shot with his lasers after he fired another volley of missiles at Liao.
His hit scored points on both opponents, the monkey in the middle killed the Wolfhound with the missile volley, and caused the Owens to lose its balance.
Even though he knew that it wasn't considered nice, he reminded himself that all the other pilots would do the same. Specter fired on the mech even as it hit the ground, his computer registering even more damage being done to the weaker and clumsier mech.
He began to notice cracks, or large gaps appearing on the mech, and fired once more, through the gaps to ensure victory. The mech had been trying to stand, but it exploded with an ejected pilot with a huge fire ball.
Specter cheered, and ran his mech in a large circle listening to his unheard of name being stated from the booth.
When he had left the arena he parked his mech in his borrowed, rather rented, space and let the techs run over it. Meanwhile Beowulf and Scrapper sat on the crates by their ship.
"You were showing off." Scrapper pointed out.
"You also left several large holes that a better pilot, like me, would have exploited." Beowulf cautioned.
Scrapper turned, hearing someone approaching, and turned back with a groan. "It's the Brit. again."
"She's not British!" Beowulf punched Scrapper in the arm, obviously insulted.
"You know, I would think that you would be a little more enthusiastic about having a comrade here." Specter teased.
"Well, I'm not." He replied carefully as Tamari approached.
"Well good that! Chaps!" She announced cheerfully placing her hands on her hips and facing them.
"Is that how you congratulate someone?" Scrapper teased.
She scowled, and ignored him. "Could I fight in the next match?"
"Sure." Specter waved his arms about in a confused manner. "You could all fight but I'm not paying for you."
They just grunted and returned to the nothing they were doing. While Specter got up and left for the hangar and to see when the next matches were happening. Lucky for him he had about another week, a week he could spend wasting time while war happened around him. A week he could waste money, and probably lose playing poker or what-not.
He sighed, he was smart enough not to lose money by gambling. So he just left the hangar and went back to their hotel.
It took a short ride in a cab to get there, as there wasn't much traffic at that time of day, and he arrived at the Solaris brand hotel. It was large, like most hotels, with spacious rooms and a pool for the summer months. Except that this wasn't summer so it was closed. He went to his room to change clothes and then see what he could do next.
He didn't have any plans, but even not having plans can be ruined. After he changed and went back to the lobby, because that is where the cafeteria is, he purchased a hot cup of coffee and sat down by the window to read the newspaper.
While reading one of the articles, because there was a lot going on, he noticed that on almost every world there was conflict. At least every world he actually knew the names of. As he read the large number of articles, as his coffee got colder, and as the snow began to fall outside, he noticed that he had an almost limitless supply of jobs. He left his coffee and went back up to his room to pack.
Once had had all three of his bags he ordered a taxi and went back to his ship, leaving a few phone messages to his hopeful team. His replies, or off chance times when they answered he got unsuitable results when he announced his plans.
And by the time he had the ship warmed up his whole team arrived to meet him at the cockpit and frown.
"You want to leave now?" Shredder demanded.
"We just got here!" Buzz complained. "I deserve this!"
Specter waved his hands at them for attention, in a placating manner, and answered. "I was reading the newspaper today, and I actually found mercenary want ads in it. But they are probably cheap missions we don't want to waste time on."
He paused, waiting for his team to stop shuffling their feet.
"And what I noticed was that all over the inner sphere there is enough conflict for us to live fat and happy for two lifetimes. Even if we can't fight that long. You see, we are going to Hesperus II because there will always be something for us to do."
"I don't want to go there!" He heard several complain.
"I don't care, on Hesperus II there are several missions available to us. And I think an easy convoy escort shouldn't be beyond your capabilities, is it?" Specter taunted.
Hannibal crossed his arms, "Fine, I'll do it."
Tamari waved her arms. "This'll be Jolly good!"
At which, of course, everyone shuddered and covered their faces.
Once they had docked with a Jumpship that was en route to Hesperous II they sat around and waited for their Alernate Dimensional jump. As the ship rumbled and energy flowed to the engines, Specter leaned against the railing of the mech bay's catwalk.
Once the jump occured Specter was thrown into the air, and they arrived at Hesperus II. And Specter arrived to a meeting with the floor one story down. He picked himself off the floor and rubbed his chest and arms with a groan.
One of the techs hurried to his side and slapped him hard on the shoulder. "You'll be alright mate!" He said cocking his head to the side.
Specte ignored him, wishing to dish out a Scrooge scowl at the annoying tech, but he had already left his side and was tightening the bolts on his mech's foot actuator. He groaned once more and left the hangar for the lounge, hoping to get a bite to eat before climbing into his mech and going on another mission.
When he finally reached the cafeteria he picked up a hot dog and insensitively doused it in ketsup and mustard. Once he was satisfied with that he moved on to the other food, grabbing a muffin, a bag of chips, and a glass of OJ. With that he sat down at the table, alone without even the cooks nearby, and ate his slightly cold food.
His muffin had nuts and fruit, so that comforted him some. His hot dog was the only warm thing, so appreciated it, and his chips were just how they were supposed to be... cheap. But he ate all his food, five minutes had passed by the time his tray and glass were emptied. His hungar abated he left the cafeteria to meet his selected team for the mission and conduct business with the Davion loyalists.
There they were, on the ground, surrounded by mist, with a trail of snapping turtles. Excuse me. Annoying tank drivers and convoy leaders.
Specter rolled his head to the side, stretching his neck and cracking an annoying disk. He kept his hand relaxed on the joystick, and kept his head cool as the panicked voice of the convoy leader came on.
"We've got two bogies coming in, one in front and one behind!" The panicked leader's vehicle was swerving, and narrowly missed the laser bolt fired by the Shadowcat that jetted over the ledge.
Specter's Hellhound Snapped into action, with one light gauss and one rack of Streak SRMs he fired his first volley. "Scrapper, Hannibal take out that one behind us."
"Will do." Hannibal cheerfully complied, turning his heavily and decievingly stocked Bushwhacker to bear it Ultra AC 20 on the small Chimera behind him.
"Yes sir!" Scrapper cheered, banking his Shadowcat in a steep turn and firing its LBX 20 and ER laser at the Chimera.
Specter turned, noticing that Beowulf already knew what he was going to be ordered to do. He was firing salvo after salvo of Streak SRMs from his Vulture and moving slowly forward in an attempt to make it run. Specter had known that it would come in handy, letting Beowulf pick his own weapons. His vulture was armed with three racks of C-strk 6 missiles and two racks of LRM 15s. The only downside was the fact he had less heatsinks, and could overheat pretty easy.
Specter's light gauss punch the Shadowcat under the nose, in an undercut that cored through the feeble wreckage of armor and punched through the safeties of the reactor, and in another instant the mech exploded in a beuatiful fireball.
Hannibal and Scrapper stepped back into their positions, the Chimera having fallen long before the Shadowcat. "Move forward." Specter ordered to the tanks.
"Uh... Yes sir."
They rounded the bend without trouble and continued marching. Though it was only a couple minutes after that Specter heard Castle's voice come over the line.
"What's going on Castle?" He asked knowing a trap wouldn't be far.
"I'm detecting a light lance en route and one flight of Stilettos. Can you handle them?" She asked cynically.
"You bet." Specter relayed the information to his team. "Ok guys watch for the aircraft and keep your triggers ready."
They all had their little remarks, though Specter just kept his eyes ahead until his radar caught four red blips on a direct interception course, and five other red blips coming at a faster speed aiming for him. He sighed. "Here they come!"
He turned his nose in the planes' direction and aimed skyward, as soon as one nose came into view he fired his gauss rifle, the shock of the shot throwing him slightly off balance, but still succesfully giving the plane and body piercing.
Two more planes fell as Beowulf locked on with his LRMs and fired his SRMs at another.
The flight passed them, firing their annoyingly accurate and destructive AC rounds at their chests. Scrapper melted one down as they came back into view, leaving only two planes that were crushed the next instant. One was due to Specter's gauss, the other to Hannibal's only laser.
By this time the lance of slow moving "light" mechs were behind the next hill.
"Castle?" Specter's voice shaky.
"Sorry sir." She answered. "Those aren't light."
"I know!" He practically screamed as a Zues and three Arguses rounded the bend. "Fire on the Zues!"
Specter twisted his torso, hoping to run around his opponants and shoot them down one by one. But it seemed the enemy commander knew what he was doing and ran in a circle opposite him, not wanting to stand still.
Beowulf fired, his missiles all locked onto the ballistic arm of one of the Arguses. The flights of missiels tore the weak armor and ripped the arm to shreds, effectively making it inoperable.
"Fire on the Zues!" Specter ordered again, this time aiming at Beowulf. "Worry about them later!"
"I think not Sir!" Beowulf replied, "They've got the most firepower."
"Kill the hardest, save the easiest for last!" Specter cried, still firing his missiles and light gauss at the hulking menace successfully denting its armor and causing shrapnel to fly in all directions.
Beowulf complied, only after having the time to knock off the ballistic arm of one other Argus. He fired all his missiles at the Zues, Hannibal fired all his, and Scrapper just focused on finishing one of the Arguses.
Specter grunted as the Zeus' laser burned him on the arm and shook him off balance. Annoyed he turned his Hellhound's torso to face the giant and fired his gauss rifle into its large left shoulder, knocking it back and confusing his enemy. Beowulf was on the opposite side of the beast and launched a good salvo of SRMs into its side, causing it to face him angrily.
"I'm running low on missiles Sir!" He announced to Specter.
"I'm on it!" Hannibal answered quickely while depressing the trigger of his joystick and firing a round of his Ultra AC 20 into the center torso. The first round cracked the plating and the second scored a hit on the reactor. "She's gonna blow!" He declared as he traced the ejection pod.
"Don't shoot, let him live." Specter aid as he noticed Hannibal's action. "Fire on th remaining Arguses."
As he was speaking, he noticed Scrapper give a shout. "I NEED some help over here!"
Both Arguses were pounding him with all they had. One even scored a hit with its heavy gauss, which threw Scrapper to the ground.
The rest of the Lance, ashamed of leaving him behind, turned around to fire on the "healthy" Argus. Hannibal's nearly empty UAC ripping the H. Gauss arm clean off the mech.
"Not so hot now are ya?" Scrapper demanded as the panicked mechs back-peddled in the direction they came from.
It was then that they noticed how far the convoy was, as the driver yelled to them over the comm. "We're at the bridge already! Where are you?"
"Saving your skins... still." Specter replied during his weapons' recycling time.
"Well hurry it up!"
Specter groaned inwardly, knowing he made the wrong choice to become a merc. and have to deal with people like them. He shook his head and continued his barrage against the Argus. His laser burning it thin standard armor and his light gauss slug punching through its stumach and out the other side.
"Whoa! You see that?" He asked, noticing that they had he laughed and faced the remaining Argus.
"You willing to surrender?" He demanded of the pilot, who was still firing his medium pulse lasers.
"No, I will not!" The Italian accented voice returned.
"Then pull out now." Specter happily advised while his lance fired alpha strikes in timed precision, impacting perfectly on its nose.
"I yield. I yield!" The pilot panic stricken screeched.
"Not anymore buddy." Specter sneered.
He fired his gauss rifle at its nose, just as the pilot began to eject. The slug crushed its compromised hull and destabilized the reactor. The mech collapsed to the ground and exploded an instant later.
"Come on guys, let's go escort these truck jockeys and then get outta ere." Specter scoffed.
"I deserve a break." Scrapper complained, with a cheerful tone.
"You sure do, after they way we fought today." Specter mused. "We need to get practicing working as a team, they way we acted today was unacceptable; we left Scrapper by himself against two heavies, partially my fault."
They lance sat quietly in their mechs, waiting for him to finish speaking, and tell them it was his poor planning.
"And uh... It was my fault right? Just mine?" He asked of his silent companions.
"Um, yeah, yeah it was." Beowulf replied with a stifled yawn.
"Yeah well we'll do better next time." Specter said, cracking knuckles and breathing a sigh.
I'm sorry this took so long to update, but I really was into my new story. And yes I know how lame it is of me to have so many unfinished stories, but my answer is that if I didn't write m ideas down fast and first I would forget all of them.
So I'm sorry about the wait. And I hope this was a decent chapter.
-Tremble Wolf