Chapter Five: Along the False Path
*****
Conner shook his head at the destruction. A Black Hawk, the first Clan-technology machine he'd seen on Tranquil, lay in scraps next to the wreckage of one of his field bases. While it had helped him temporarily—the Omni concentrating on destroying the vehicle rather than his Bushwacker—in the long run it could only cause problems.
Sorenson couldn't be too pleased about losing the field base either, but he managed to put that aside. "We've picked up Dominic's Shadow Cat coming in."
As if on cue, the Damocles warrior's rough voice burst into the conversation. "This is Gunner. I'm moving in from the west. Where's my support?"
The lieutenant wheeled Guiding Light around, charging towards rendezvous with his lancemate. A Firefly appeared on his radar, followed seconds later an Owens and the Cat Dominic was piloting. He could see the smoking remains of a Strider lying on the ground a bit away from the battle, the gauss rifle the Clan Mech carried having smashed its reactor.
He locked onto the Owens with his missiles, though only five as the left-arm launcher had not been repaired yet. Three hit and tore armor off the Jaguar's blocky left arm. His laser melted more protection from the back of the Mech.
He'd gotten its attention, at least. The small Omni turned and answered his attack with both of its own LRM launchers, blasting a little armor off his right shoulder but nothing too serious. He fired his laser again but missed the rapidly moving Owens, nearly hitting the Firefly that Dominic was circling. His autocannon fared better, punching a line in the armor from the Owens' left leg to right flank.
Then Dominic's lasers melted the Firefly's gyro and the Shadow Cat also turned to Sinclair's target, which wisely decided it was time to leave. It turned and started running towards the island where the Mech factory was. Gunner was not about to let it get away so easily.
The Cat sprinted forward and kicked in its MASC, enabling it to keep pace with the smaller Mech if only for a few seconds. It was plenty of time for him to line up a shot with his gauss rifle that ripped the back of the Omni wide open.
He slowed down and shifted the Shadow Cat around to face his commander. "Nice of you to show up," he said lightly. "I've picked up an Orion near the factory, but it hasn't tried to come around the ridge. All the comm traffic I've picked up indicates that it's one of their Star Captains."
Star Captain Furey, Conner assumed from the transmissions he'd intercepted himself. And in an Orion... a 75-ton Mech, and though it was an older design, a 75-tonner was a 75-tonner.
A pair of laser towers flanked the bridge to the island. Sorenson had told him what they were—naval laser towers, meant to shoot down any DropShip which might try to attack the factory. Well, now they knew what had happened to the BlackHammer.
Luckily the towers weren't meant to target ground forces.
Probably they didn't work anyway, as Conner had been returning from blowing apart the island's power plant when the Black Hawk had surprised him. Several greenhouses also lay smashed, leaving the factory their last objective.
The factory with the Orion standing ready to defend it. Conner took a deep breath. "All right, Dominic. Let's go. Stay back a little, my armor's heavier." He wasn't sure if that was true at this point, but the Cat's armor at least did not look any better than his own.
Besides, after that disaster on Huntress, he had a bit of a phobia about putting his lancemates in danger.
~~~~~
"Didn't the boss say not
to start in yet?"
"It's only a Black Hawk," Conner scowled, trotting his Catapult forward a little. "And it's poking around. If it finds us, this mission's blasted to hell even worse than if we destroy it early. Come on."
He had little doubt about the outcome of the battle. It was a Clan Mech, sure, but it was a 50-ton machine against a heavy lance. Even their inferior Inner Sphere technology wasn't enough to bridge that gap. The Jaguar didn't have a chance.
He allowed his lancemates to go ahead of him a bit, his Catapult not suited for close-range fighting. The Avatar, Cestus, and Dragon Fire which made up the rest of his lance charged forward, opening fire on the Black Hawk with their ranged weapons. He added his own volley of LRMs.
The Hawk went down under the intense fire, though not before striking Jesse's Cestus with five of the six lasers in its left arm. The armor was thinned a bit, but the damage was not concentrated enough to breach it. Conner smiled. It was just as he'd said. No problem—
"I've got contacts!"
That was Kevin, in the Avatar. Conner's radar showed them too, just powering up: what the Clans called a Binary. He selected the nearest Mech and prepared to attack.
And froze as it came into his field of view. A Daishi. Seconds later Misty's Dragon Fire went down to rapid PPC fire, telling him there was also a Masakari in the area. More pressing, his warrior had not ejected.
Knowing the lance was no
match for even the two assaults, let alone the rest of the Binary, he fired
his LRMs at the Daishi anyway. He would go down fighting, and hope
to at least inflict some damage to make up for the mess he'd made.
~~~~~
He'd never figured out why they had given him another command, only survivor or not. But, lessons were best learned the hard way, and he wasn't about to make the same mistake again. Nor was he going to sit here daydreaming. There was a mission to finish.
The flashback had only distracted him for the few seconds it'd taken to cross the bridge to the island. The Orion turned almost casually toward him, raised its left arm, and let off a flight of 20 long-ranged missiles.
Luckily, the Jaguar commander had fired too quickly, not allowing the missiles time to lock. Only half hit the Bushwacker and blew armor from the smaller machine's right leg and arm. It wasn't quite enough to upset the 'Wacker's gyro, however, or to throw off Conner's first shot.
The Orion was a big, slow target, and there wasn't a lot of room to manuever on the island. There was little chance for Conner to miss, and he didn't, the laser and LRMs combining to rip armor from the big Mech's right arm. Dominic's gauss rifle punched in a second later to smash the plates over the Orion's chest.
At the new intrusion Furey swung his torso around and fired his left torso-mounted autocannon, but luck again was with the Commando. The Orion's autocannon carried only cluster ammunition, which was rarely much good at breaching armor that hadn't already been compromised. The Shadow Cat did stumble under the assault, but held itself upright and returned fire with its lasers.
Then the Bushwacker was in range with its own autocannon. The slugs hammered in right behind the damage already done by Dominic's gauss rifle, though it still wasn't quite enough to penetrate the heavy Mech's tough protection.
Furey was nonetheless not pleased, and brought all his weapons to bear on the irritating little Bushwacker. The Orion's SRM launcher launched a quartet of missiles which blasted armor from Conner's right arm. LRMs followed despite his best efforts to get within minimum range, ripping off the arm completely, as well as the shoulder-mounted missile launcher.
He worked the controls frantically, trying to keep Guiding Light from falling, and might've succeeded if the Jaguar had not followed up with lasers and autocannon to shred the Bushwacker's internal structure. His LRM ammo went off, though between the CASE and the gaping hole in the BattleMech's side, it didn't do an awful lot more damage to the machine, not even quite enough to destroy the engine on that side.
Though crashing to the ground with a 75-ton BattleMech bearing down on him never exactly benefited a pilot.
*****
"Hey, hey! Why don't you pick on someone who can fight back?" Dominic snapped at the heavy BattleMech. Clearly, Star Captain Furey had (stupidly, in his mind) considered him a lesser target than the heavier but Inner Sphere-tech Bushwacker.
He'd just see about that. He kicked in Black Prospect's jump jets, rising over the big Orion and coming down directly at its rear. No time to waste as his commanders Bushwacker struggled to right itself before the Clanner's weapons recharged. He swung all his weapons in line with the Mech's rear armor and let Furey have it.
With typical Clanner arrogance, the commander hadn't even paid attention to the Shadow Cat flying over its head. Dominic snorted as the damn thing actually looked startled at the hit. Its back was completely stripped, and he'd also succeeded in destroying the SRM system housed in the Jaguar's left torso.
Pity it hadn't been the ammo, he mused as the Orion turned to face him.
He slammed on the jump jet pedals again, spoiling the Star Captain's shot with autocannon and lasers, but the Orion simply raised its LRM launcher and sent a full flight of missiles up towards the Shadow Cat.
He cut the jets, and the Cat fell, too quickly for the LRMs to track. Of course there was the possibility of crashing, but he was usually good about staying on his feet after a jump. Which was precisely why he figured this was his day to lose that fight with gravity.
Speaking of fights with gravity, Conner had fought himself upright. The Bushwacker's autocannon roared and slammed depleted-uranium shells into the breach Dominic had already made. The other Inner Sphere warrior had better luck at finding critical components, hitting the engine's heat shield as well as detonating the Narc beacon's ammo.
The Orion was too old to carry a CASE system. The explosion ripped it apart, but the Damocles Mechs didn't stand around watching. Conner turned his laser on the factory, and Dominic followed up with his own.
The first factory tower fell. Too easily. "What the hell?"
Conner's Bushwacker turned to face the Shadow Cat as the structure came crashing down. Wooden walls painted like steel fell and began burning in the fires rigged inside to give the impression on Mech manufacture.
Not a factory at all. "It's a fake."
Dominic nodded beneath his neurohelmet. It would be a fake. They would've wasted all this effort, wasted the lives of those aboard the BlackHammer. It figured.
"Guess that means we don't get off this rock yet."
He turned his lasers on the first tower. Conner did not answer him—nothing new, as admitting when Gunner was right seldom helped any unit's morale—but he wasn't an idiot. It didn't take a practically religious pessimist to realize that once the Eclipse heard about these towers, they wouldn't be seeing it any time soon.