Chapter 35

West edge of Kevilston

Emily's sensors began to ping like someone ringing an old doorbell over and over. The Coyotes had drawn a good portion of their main battalion due southeast, while the Renegades pulled a few lances of their own. Damnit, our reputation's working against us right now. They see us as the main threat and want us dead, dead, dead. None of us are dead yet, but we've lost a couple of our 'mechs so far.

One of the Firebees in Mother Hen's lance had been frozen up by a side shot to the knee while in the open and had to eject before crashing to the ground to be dogpiled by angry weapons from the 2nd Legion.

Nymph's new'ish Mongoose also went down when a lucky AC 20 shot sent her spinning into the dirt with half a shoulder and an arm missing. She reported she was alive and would walk home, but wasn't able to get clear of the fighting safely. Emily hoped she made it out OK.

"Coyotes, you ready for another game of leapfrog?" The almost unanimous response of groaning and boos made her laugh. "Glad to hear it. Short jumps this time. Long sprints. We're going north. We can link up with the RoughRiders there. Clotheslance, you're up first. Give us some room."

"Roj, Dirk. Hey…Ah hell. Not againnnn. My gun cams are down!" Martin's voice sounded more like a whiny child who doesn't want to go to school than someone who just lost the ability to aim his weapons properly. "You still wanna go through with this, Dirk?"

"Wait one. Anyone else losing gun cams?" She paused for a moment, and both Romeo and Mowgli's Fire Javelins reported losing them. Another moment, as the number of blips continued to increase on her forward sensors, and Nymph reported losing them as well. "OK, plan C. We're falling back into Kevilston. Take away their fire support advantage."

"You positive, boss lady? Most of us are set up for LRM's." Pearl's voice came over the line as she visibly bobbed the left arm of her Trebuchet up and down, where half her LRM launchers were housed.

"Afraid so. We're running out of room and if we can't get locks, we're screwed anyw"—a different kind of blip followed by a series quick warning beeps she wasn't used to hearing in this cockpit. She looked at a display showing her own gun cams were going offline, and her crosshairs on her HUD were jerking back and forth in a really distracting manner. "Well, there goes my missiles. Let's get behind some buildings before we get overrun. Consider ourselves lucky we weren't busy shooting, everyone. Move out."

"Dirk, Clothesline. There's a light RoughRider lance that's surrounded just north of us. Think we can play chicken with 'em first?"

"How many of them?"

"Not sure exactly. Maybe two lances of the Legion. Minus one RoughRider contact."

"OK we'll all give 'em a scare, pick up any survivors, and run like hell. Leapfrog, go!

Firebase Yankee

Alshayra Continent

Corporal Wilson saw some huge changes on his datapad. He nearly spilled his coffee on himself as he got on his radio to the off-duty techs in his team.

As they gathered around the puddle of spilled coffee near the lonely Jenner, they saw the virus had returned to the master folder for the gun cams. The four of them had run countless simulations to figure out how to deal with it when it migrated back, but the "antivenom" as it had been dubbed by their team, still needed some fine-tuning once they ran it alongside the virus.

After days of waiting, it became clear the virus would not return to the trap laid out for it in the gun cam folder until the command to reawaken was actually given. Now that it had, they looked at it like one would look at an angry insect trapped in a jar.

"What odds did you give that this would work, again?" Wilson looked at his youngest tech, a woman not even twenty yet, who grinned like she had just played a prank on her college dean.

"About two-to-one it's gonna work, Corporal. Now let me have that pad." Wilson handed it over and the program they had worked on for countless days was run.

Lines of code scrolled by so rapidly that nobody could read it, but eventually it came to a halt while several blinking dots of text allowed the program to think about its next move.

It clearly didn't seem to understand what to do next. The virus also seemed to be running whatever fail safes were put into it. Wilson wanted to know one thing and one thing only before they vaccinated their entire regiment against this. "Any idea of the program's origin?" he asked, growing slightly impatient in his own youth, not much older than her yet.

"Not yet. It wants to leave this 'mech's systems really badly. Our little cage we set up seems to be holding it, but it might rewrite itself to try something else if it fails enough times in a row. Everyone just shut up a minute, please." He stopped the massage and checked the connections on the cables just to give himself something to do.

"Damnit! It seems to know some of our protocols, at least. It's using command lines only RoughRiders tend to use. Might be an inside job or at least someone on-planet." Her first wrinkle of her life seemed to appear between her eyebrows as she furiously tapped away at the datapad. To some, it appeared some young adults were watching a protege playing some kind of video game to learn some of the tricks to get their score higher. Wilson wasn't interested. He just let her work for a while.

"Shit! OK, good news and bad news. Bad news is it's loose again. Good news is it can't do anything to the gun cams anymore. We can worry about it later. For now, it seems more like it just wants to live instead of doing its job. Amazing. I sort of…made a deal with it."

"A…deeeaaal?" Wilson sounded more than a bit nervous as the last word drew out.

"Its money or its life." The wiz-kid chuckled nervously and showed him the pad. It showed the Jenner's gun cams were functioning normally again, and it displayed the place of origin.

Suk II Department of Technology. This is about as inside of a job as it gets, but it's not a RoughRider source. The datapad felt like it weighed about as much as the Jenner itself. He stared at it for a moment but shook his head and got on with their mission.

"Lee, get in the cockpit and confirm the cams are back online. If they are, go get Hardcase and tell him his mech's ready. Stewart, get the package ready to transmit to our whole regiment with an autorun protocol, and slap the CO's access code on it so it doesn't waste any time running. Antoinette, I really hope this virus actually is sentient or intelligent enough to want to keep its own life, or we're either out of a job or dead. Or both."

Northwest of Kevilston…

Leutnant Jean LaPointe completed another jump and broke into a sprint immediately. Since he wasn't able to use his only gun on the move, he was only going to drive up his heat if he tried. He did, however, look to his right just in time to see his lancemate in the Wasp jump into an area above the low hills he had just occupied.

An area where not seconds before, at least a half-dozen pilots from the 2nd Legion had their weapons trained. As the Wasp sky lined itself, everyone who didn't already try to hit Jean found another target at just the right moment. Half of them didn't even wait for the weapons lock.

By the time he realized his pilot's mistake, the lasers were already cutting into her before he could even utter a word.

The Legion unloaded. Autocannon rounds landed into its shoulder, sending it off-course on its jumping arc. The Wasp leaned backwards in midair with multiple laser scars across its entire upper body, making it look like it was originally put together like some sort of metal golem.

Then the missiles hit. Short and long-range warheads slammed into the upper half of the light 'mech so hard that what was left of the Wasp did half a backflip in midair. The computers onboard either lost their connection to the jump jets or were destroyed entirely, ending the leap prematurely. It fell over twenty meters flat onto its back with a bone-shaking thud, and didn't move.

Jean knew nobody could survive a barrage and a fall like that. He looked away, as his Locust pilot was also caught in a crossfire almost simultaneously. Something knocked out the twenty-tonner at the knees, sending it skidding across the dirt in a cloud of brown. It also remained stationary. His comms went silent for a moment.

And then no less than an entire lance of 2nd Legion mechs fired a volley from their main guns just to make sure it was down. That much fire on a stationary Locust meant pretty much nothing would remain intact.

Watching two of his people get unceremoniously executed within ten seconds of each other, 'mechs and all, made him numb to the whole situation. His limbs felt heavy and slow, and his Otscout visibly slowed as well, as if the 'mech itself were having the same shocked reaction he was.

His lance had been almost completely removed from the fight with just one wrong move. Only Venom's Valkyrie and his Ottie remained, and it was too beaten-up to continue fighting, with no weapons remaining. He sent it back to Yankee along a very grateful lady in the cockpit. The 2nd Legion had fallen back to regroup, which wasn't according to plan at all. Now he could see the sky lit up with three suns instead of normally just one as two Overlords were coming directly into the fight to give fire support.

An aerospace fighter blurred past his vision, moving too quickly for him or his sensors to tell if it was friend or foe. An almost instantaneous punch to his 'mech's rear knocked him sprawling forward with incredible kinetic power. His Otscout stumbled, and Jean hit the jump jets just so he could get himself vertical again.

It was still too much of a push. He was still numb, and he wasn't ready for it. He landed, stumbling again and finally crashing on his front, skidding the last few meters in the dirt until his Inner Sphere jump jet record came to an end at one hundred forty-five consecutive jumps.

He was thrown against his harness, feeling a small pop as one of his ribs was broken from the force. He was breathless and clawed for air but felt no pain in the adrenaline dump he was experiencing. Lights flashed everywhere, but he ignored them, knowing his mech was beyond saving. Going from mind-numbing loss to a massive spike of energy made his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He fumbled for his connections and unfastened himself, falling on his hands and feet against the front of the cockpit. There he paused, his fight in this war nearly over.

He had pushed two of his people beyond what they were capable of. Pushed them beyond their piloting skills. Pushed them too damn far, he thought. I got them killed, and I'm next. I'm all that's left.

The blinders were on, and he felt alone vs. the entire 2nd Legion. He climbed out and was greeted by a Jenner in the colors of the Legion of Vega. Its pod-like arms each aiming a pair of medium lasers right at him. He held up his hands and looked around, though the pressure on his ribs made him struggle to breathe.

Everywhere around him, a dust-covered scene kicked up by the landing Overlords was further blurred by his lack of enough oxygen. RoughRider 'mechs were pulling back to the northwest, towards the capitol. The opening to the south had given them a massive advantage, but one by one everyone lost their ability to aim, and all momentum had ceased. Jean's lance had been isolated and removed from the fight, his Otscout the final defender in this pocket of resistance.

Their artillery could get into position to pound those Overlords, but they needed more time, and more real estate. The RoughRiders were running out of the first one, but might be able to buy enough of it with the second. "Stall for time" became the mantra he said over and over, and it continued in his head now even with almost forty tons of death staring him down.

The Jenner didn't move, confident that they held the field. Jean took his neurohelmet off, and without a word, the Jenner fired a laser into the dirt to his left. A warning not to make any more sudden movements.

Sometimes violence was the most well-understood language of them all.

Jean made no further movements, but the pain in his ribs began to grow. The Jenner pilot came over his speakers in English, despite the thick Japanese accent. "Pilot, head towards the dropships for interrogation." He turned and motioned with a wiggle of his lasers towards the Overlords, several kilometers to the south.

They don't have the infantry to round me up. This realization came to Jean as tried to figure out how far he could run before he coughed up blood. The massive amounts of dirt being kicked up by the dropships, even at this distance away, might make the Jenner just give up a chase in the nearby ruins of a small factory. He probably had better things to do anyway, he thought.

In his injured confusion, he had forgotten to grab the mini sapper kit all RoughRider pilots carry in their cockpit. Just enough to disable an ankle of a 'mech. Just out of reach.

After a half-second thought, Jean sat down on the back of his Otscout. "You'll just have to kill me, Drac." he said without much emotion. He doubted the pilot even heard him with all this noise from the dropships. I can't survive the run, and hell I might not even survive the march to their ships anyway. My mistake got two of my people killed, so I suppose it's time I pay the price for it.

The Jenner pilot seemed dumbfounded. He didn't know what to do in this scenario. Welp, at least I'm buying time while he asks his commander what to do. Jean stayed motionless, grateful for the rest. The armor beneath him was cooling rapidly but was still warm to the touch from all the heat radiating beneath it. The gaping hole of what appeared to be a heavy autocannon round from the aerospace fighter left a jagged crater next to him, filling the entire center of the Otscout. Hot smoke continued to bellow from that area, blown downwind by the dust storm.

A gyro hit. No wonder I couldn't keep it vertical. It took my 'mech literally collapsing under me to end the record.

He wasn't sure if he should hate himself more for thinking about the record instead of his people. He wasn't really sure why his mind was even wandering at this point, having barely escaped death but getting closer to it if he didn't get medical attention, while staring down the barrels of four lasers all large enough to flash-fry him whole.

Then the Jenner turned, and ran. Fast. Small tremors shook Jean's whole body, making his ribs hurt a little more, as the 'mech rapidly left the scene. Jean guessed he was standing still too long and the natural instincts of a light 'mech pilot to simply keep moving were likely making him itchy as it was.

Then before much longer, maybe less than thirty seconds, two 'mechs even smaller than the Jenner came towards him from the southeast. From Kevilston. Mercenaries? He wondered while still sitting on his broken war machine. Two Fire Javelins ran his way, one raising his 'mech's arm in a wave of "hello!"

They had Coyote camouflage.

"Well helloooo…" a rather young-sounding pilot came over his loudspeakers. "We have to go. Like right now. Our gun cams are down, but he didn't know that. Pick a Jav and get aboard." Even though he said that, the other pilot had already opened his hatch and dropped the rope ladder down for him, making the choice obvious. "We're falling back into Kevilston. You can find a doc there."

I guess we're even now, Major.

He wasn't sure if his ribs could take the ride in a jump seat. Or even worse, hanging for his life while clamped for dear life to the back of a command couch. But he got off his old horse and jogged to the ladder anyway. Human instincts for survival trumped any existential thoughts at this point, and he climbed up and crawled behind the pilot, who was even sweatier than he was at this point.

"Just hang on. I'm Mowgli. Coyotes."

"Rapier, RoughRiders."

"We saw your landing. Looked like it hurt. All set?"

He replied "almost," ignoring the pain in his ribs and did the "Bronco Brace," as the RoughRiders called it. A half-squat, legs clamped around the couch and elbows firm against the back of the seat, butt in the air slightly. All their cockpits even had hand straps they custom-sewed into the seats, but this Jav didn't have any, so he obliged to do it the old-fashioned way.

Hanging on for dear life.

"Ready!"

"And we're off." One thing the civilian simulators never really seemed to include was the sheer amount of bucking every pilot dealt with as the 'mech bounced up and down in a rapid run. Light 'mech pilots needed a special kind of constitution to handle that. Times like this he was grateful he wasn't used to the slower, lumbering gait of his father's Battlemaster.

A muscle group that was unusually strong in most smaller MechWarrior pilots were the neck muscles in back that dealt with the up-down motions, sometimes more than one hundred per minute, while wearing the helmet and looking around.

All he could do was hang on and let the pilot do his job while they ran for their lives. PPC fire from the nearest Overlord several kilometers away crystalized the dirt that had previously been underneath the dropship, now around the feet of the two Fire Javs. Mowgli ignored it, keeping focused on leaning them left and right while shaking the two of them like beans in a can.

"New contacts, bearing two-eight-zero. Another company, probably more. The Jenner's coming back, too," Mowgli reported, but Jean couldn't hear the reply in his neurohelmet or the steady rhythm of the 'mech's movements.

Time seemed to accelerate for Jean, focused on one thing, hanging on. But eventually the 'mech did slow and when he looked over Mowgli's shoulder, he saw the streets of Kevilston had reached out to swallow them whole, providing temporary safety behind the buildings.