(Author's Note: Hey guys, I just noticed that the armistice had ended in 3067, (oops), and the year is 3073, the reason that they haven't invaded the Inner Sphere is because of internal turmoil. The clans are all at war now, I guess it is the Clans' War I.) Chapter 11

Strana-Mechty ("Land of Dreams")

6:49 GST

--Patrol Duty—

Battlemech stats: Sommoner: 70 tons

Armor: Ferro-Fibrus

Internal Structure: Standard.

Weapons: ER PPC

Clan Gauss rifle

C strike 4

All unused tonnage compensated by added Gauss ammunition.

Terrain: Marine Temperate.


Michael yawned as his Sommoner trudged across the terrain inasmuch the same tired state as its master. He had already marched for nigh fifty minutes without any disturbance, and his second hour was going to start.

He made a mental note to get some sleep when he got back, and continued up a gassy hill to see a deer run away. He wished he could do some hunting, but he knew that he wouldn't be given the time; he had duties to his clan.

Michael jumped as a tree fell across his path, his metal frame tripped and fell face first.

His radar crackled and a sinister voice sliced across his comm., sending a shiver down his spine.

"Hello, I am Paul Redmond of the Fire Mandrill clan. I challenge you to a duel for the honor of my clan."

"I am Star Captain Michael of the Coiled Viper Clan, you challenge me, and I accept. Well bargained and done." Michael replied as he stood his mech up with a slow screech of metal on metal.

"One question first…" Mike stated before ending his thought. "I stated my rank, what are you? Dezgra? Outcast?" Mike taunted as he noticed a quiver in his enemy's Mad Dog.

"You will call me bold-holder soon enough!" Replied the Angry blood-named mechwarrior.

"I doubt that." Mike answered before he hailed his missiles into the face of his opponent. The counterstrike of his enemy was far fiercer as the fiery warheads impacted into his side and melted away bits of armor and sent other pieces away at lightning speed.

Michael wiped his brow as he pulled the trigger on his gauss rifle. The magnetic rail gun spat its slug into the torso of the Maddog. The slug tore open the metal casings and ignited the ammunition housed within. One half of the Maddog became a charred skeleton of black twisted metal.

"Curse you sibko brat!" Redmond's cry was harsh to his ears, but Michael only replied by electrifying the Maddog's nose with his Particle cannon.

Paul sputtered out his pulse lasers and scorched black lines across Michael's side. His C-Strike 4 missiles peppered the mech, making it even blacker. The heat was rising in his cockpit as Michael fired his now reloaded gauss rifle into the awkward shaped frame of the crisp Maddog. His shot went straight through the core and destabilized the reactor.

Fire.

Michael stumbled away as it went up in a mini mushroom cloud. The shockwave hit him nanoseconds later and threw him on his face.

With a grunt he righted his mech and looked at the horizon in the direction of his Nav.

"I hope I do not have to do that again." Mike thought to himself while he put his speed to full and trudged for nav beta. The glare from the sun peeking through the dark nimbostratus clouds gathering about him impeded his vision as set it to autopilot so he could shade his eyes.

Mike cleared nav Beta and turned the bend to come to the next nav, gamma. He passed uneventfully through that one too.

But… When he was heading for Epsilon, his comm. Crackled.

"Recall all patrols! Forward is under attack!"

"I am coming." Mike replied and went full ahead.

The dirt was thrown uselessly behind him as he trudged dutifully on. And as he crested the next hill, he saw the attackers mauling a TimberWolf and a Maddog.

The attackers were a group of Condors and Harassers accompanied by a point of elementals, (Five Elementals a point, right?) and Hellhound and Shadowcat.

The Condors were busy pounding the TimberWolf with their AC's and didn't notice when Michael's PPC disintegrated one of them, and another was crushed by his gauss rifle. Mike's C-strike missiles found the air cushion of one of the Condors and demobilized it.

The Mad dog quickly finished it off with its pulse lasers. While the Shadow cat took the destructive blow of all their missiles, Michael, the Timber Wolf, and the Mad dog all locked on and fired their missiles at once. The blow immediately destroyed the mech.

The Timber Wolf fired its lasers into the last remaining Condor and left it smoking in a puddle of slag and molten metal.

Michael thundered forward and began to circle the Hellhound. What he got was an LBX shell to his shoulder, which knocked him slightly off balance. Mike leaned in his chair and stabilized himself while replying with his gauss and PPC firing at once into the face of the almost dizzy looking mech. Sheets of armor flew in all directions and others purely melted by the PPC that also impacted the mech.

It staggered and tripped over a passing Harasser, and crushed it at the same time. Mike launched more of his missiles into the back of the mech. The Mad dog trudged behind him and chased down a Harasser that had an Elemental on it, firing his lasers incessantly.

"Hungry?" Mike sneered over the comm. As his gauss rifle and PPC finished recharging and reloading. "Then eat this!" He demanded before he loosed the Gauss slug into the now righted mech, before following it with his PPC.

The heat of the PPC went into the reactor and detonated the mech like a grenade.

"Look! Fireworks!" One of the other pilots sated over the comm., in a cheerful voice.

LRM's streaked past, Mike followed their path with his eyes and watched as they threw one of the Elementals about twenty meters before killing the occupant of the power suit.

His PPC glowed on the end of his arm for a brief instant before it was flying into the hull of the last Harasser. Two Elementals stood still in the middle of a dip in the ground. They both looked down the barrels of the guns of three heavy mechs. They split, running as fast as the two thousand pound armor would allow. One charged Michael and punched its jets in an effort to collide.

It impacted with his mech soon after it had fired its missiles. The Elemental began to climb up his mech's torso, and Mike realized what it was doing and powered down his mech while pulling out his sidearm.

Mike opened the hatch of his cockpit and watched as the monstrous looking Elemental dragged itself closer to the cockpit. He leaned over the edge and pulled the trigger of his small laser pistol. The first few shots only succeeded in making black dots on the armor, but with a little aim, he was able to get some shots to hit the same place and make cracks.

With a wicked smile, Mike began to fire at the beleaguered Elemental's claw that he was using to climb with. After overheating his pistol, he looked at the damage done to it and was content, after firing one more into the cracks to break it, forcing the elemental to fall off and activate its jets to keep from breaking its legs from the fall.

Mike trained his crosshairs on where he knew it would land, and fired his gauss rifle as soon as it touched the ground. It never had a chance, simply vaporized.

Michael looked at the other two mechwarriors who had already dealt with their Elemental and raised his mech's arms in a shrug like fashion.

Then, he turned and plodded for the mechbay, he steered it into the racks and shut it down. The whole mech 'relaxed' and Michael popped open the hatch, and stood out on the catwalks. The room was slightly damp, or he thought it could just be him, since he had just been in a mech.


Dominic came striding out in his cooling vest and stopped right in front of Mike to give him a tired smile.

"Good morning champ." He declared while tapping him under the chin. "Nice scar."

"Indeed…" Mike breathed. "Good morning to you too."

"How civil!" Dom exclaimed, "But alas, I have to go on my patrol. And I get to trudge around in… I doubt you will believe you have one in your hangars, a Dragon!"

"I believe they are 'letting' you use that so that they can have their mechwarriors use our design mechs and not Inner Sphere salvage taken by need." Mike replied with a roll of his eyes.

"Was that an insult to our technology? I am happy to get to use it, one reason may be that I was trained more extensively with it, and I miss it, but that's beside the point. I'll have fun." Dom replied as he swished his mug in his hand before chugging its contents and slipping on his nuero-helmet and walking over to his mech.

He turned and waved at Michael almost as if he were far away and added: "Wish me luck."

Mike halfheartedly waved back and walked away.


Michael quickly changed out of his cooling vest and put on his uniform before striding out of his room for what he considered his primary objective: breakfast.

The mess hall was filled with tired but aware crew, techs, and warriors. Mike felt right at home among them. He picked up a tray and dragged his feet over to the buffet and dished himself four sausages three large pancakes, two stripes of bacon, and a glass of orange juice, sourdough toast, and bowl of lettuce.

Mike eagerly set his tray down on the table and took a seat. His sausages were the first to go, and then the bacon, Protein dealt with.

The pancakes were another matter; he spent a minute enjoying looking at them while he spread the butter on each one and pouring thick maple syrup on them before stacking them and picking up his knife.

The pancakes were gone in record time, his small salad history, and empty glass… Well, now empty glass sat on his tray next to the bowl.

Mike took his tray and decided put it in the kitchen. On his way out, he was met by his Galaxy commander. Michael saluted of course and gave a brief 'hello'.

"By the way, good work out there on patrol… You dealt with the bloodnamed mechwarrior easily; perhaps you'll get a name for yourself soon… Sooner than you think." He stated with a gleam in his eyes, and a hidden chuckle in his voice.

Mike did not know what to say, besides 'thank you' and left. But he couldn't shake the feeling…

"Sooner than you think…"

"Sooner than you think…"

He decided to do something, so he went out to the comm. Relay to see how Dom was doing.

Dom was having his own personal skirmish, only, with his heavy gauss rifle, it was an already known bid who would win.

But Mike still couldn't shake the words out of his head: "Sooner than you think."

"What are they up to?" Mike thought to himself.

"Am I really going to fight for a bloodname? Did they sponsor me?"


A/N: More later for you. I am excited, I see that there are only 295 mechwarrior stories, and I have about three hundred and fifty hits on my first chapter… That means that not all the readers are actually mechwarrior authors! It means people who write about other things are still interested in us.

Thank you everyone for your reviews.

-Tremble Wolf