Chapter Eight
"Colonel?" said a voice in Bryan's ear. He pressed his hand over the ear bud, trying to block out some of the noise and hear what his communications officer had to say.
"Yeah, Graham, what is it?" he replied.
"Spaceport control just called. They say that the dropships should be entering atmosphere in about twenty minutes and unless they make a last second course correction, they'll land right where you told them to. As near as they can tell they have a small fighter screen, and only the Unions are coming in."
Cochren glanced up at the cockpit of Graham Jordan's CP-10-Z Cyclops standing not twenty yards away. Even in the early dawn light, barely visible, the huge eye painted over the viewport made him laugh. He didn't think, even given years here on St. John, that he'd get used to the sun rising in the west. He waved, and the ninety-ton BattleMech returned the gesture. "Excellent, Graham. Give me a line to Patsy, then issue the alert to mount up."
"Yes, sir." A short buzz followed by a beep indicated his signal being routed to another line.
"Bee?"
"Yeah, Colonel?" came the immediate reply.
"Their dropships hit atmosphere in just under twenty minutes, Bee. Only the Unions, apparently, but they're bringing some smaller friends with them. Time for the Wings to hit the sky. Take care of the fighters first, then you can make a run on the dropships if you feel it's safe. Are the militia ready to go as well?"
"Yep."
"Have them wait another…five minutes after you light off, then head this way for some strafing runs."
"Wilco, Colonel. Happy hunting!"
"Go, Bee." He broke the connection. Already around him soldiers were running for their 'mechs and vehicles. Here, just south of the first foothills, Bryan had assembled his main force. The Command Lance stood nearby, with Graham and Sun Chin already saddled up. Major Mellert's massive black Atlas and the Colonel's own Victor stood mutely nearby as well. Beta lance of First Company were near the LRM Carriers of his fourth armor company. The Stalkers, Catapult, and Archer could, coupled with the tanks, lay down a barrage of long range missiles that few BattleMechs could withstand. Elements of Second and Third Companies rounded out this force. His heavy 'mechs and armor were scattered in the western woods as a flanking force, and the lighter ones were ready to jump into the enemy's rear from the east.
He took one last look around at the assembled war machines. As much as he hated the idea that people were going to die today, there was no denying the exhilaration he also felt. The be sitting in command of eighty tons of metal, myomer, and weaponry was to truly be alive. He walked over the to feet of Gabriel and stripped down to just shorts before climbing the chain ladder to the cockpit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his executive officer doing the same, scrambling up the chest of Death and looking for all the world as if he were using the ribs painted on there as his ladder.
Once in the cockpit, he shrugged on his cooling vest, and sat down in the command couch. He plugged in the power lines for the vest, then reached up and back and settled the neurohelmet onto his padded shoulders. He got it settled, then flipped the main for the assault 'mech, prompting the onboard computer to ask, "Final voice code, please?" Bryan smiled broadly and looked out the viewport at his assembled warriors before responding.
"In the beginning, God created the Angels, and he knew that they were the best." The fusion reactor below him in Gabriel's chest roared to full military power and the cockpit lit up. He went through a quick rundown, flexing the 'mech's arms and twisting at the waist.
"SRMs fully loaded, Pontiac green, lasers charged," he said to himself, checking his weaponry. The computer reported a minor glitch in the jump jet circuitry, but it quickly smoothed things out. "Excellent." He keyed the regimental frequency.
"All right, Angels, this is it. We should have company in twenty-five minutes or so." They had run land lines into both forests as soon as they'd arrived at their choice of battlefield. Cochren didn't want radio transmissions giving away his hidden unit's positions. "Remember the plan, think on your feet. We're going to show these guys why this planet doesn't fly the Draconis Combine banner today. First battalion, sound off."
"Iota plus, good to go." Iota had the light lance of the St. John Militia attached to it.
"Theta, all green."
"Third Company is ready, Colonel," his wife responded. The BattleMech battalion performed roll call in reverse order. After both Quix and Perry had reported ready status, he called for the armor battalion, then finally infantry.
"Command Lance is ready. God's got a lightning bolt in hand. You've all made me proud over the time we've served together. I know today you'll do so again. All quiet until I give the word."
With nothing left to do now but wait for the Wolf dropships to land, each soldier was alone with his thoughts. Bryan often wondered how the various men and women in his unit dealt with this part of warfare. He himself scanned the skies, looking for the flares of descending dropships and, he hoped, the burning wreckage of the enemy's fighter screen.
"Be careful, Bee. Claim first blood for us."
Patsy "Bumblebee" Richards closed the communications link with Colonel Cochren and took a second to compose herself. She held a hand out in front of her and grinned. "Rock steady," she said to herself. Flying was a wondrous thing for her, even when going into combat. She never got the jitters, which was part of the reason she was a squadron commander. He fighters were already lined up on the tarmac for launch, at standby. She keyed a squadron frequency, which the Militia pilots were tuned into as well.
"All right, Wings, it's time to go. Bring 'em up, and we'll launch in lance order. There are three Unions up there with fighter support. We hit the birds first, the eggs later if we can. Got it?"
The chorus of, "Yes, sir!"s was followed a half second later by Loco's drawled, "Got it, little lady." Bee smiled. Loco was a bit unorthodox, and certifiably crazy, hence his name, but he was a great flier.
"Good. Lojtnant Roulf? You and your lance will wait five minutes, then launch. Loiter over grid alpha niner seven until called in for ground support by either myself or the Colonel. Go in hot, and it should only take you thirty seconds or so to get there. And be careful. You get hit, you break off. Those little Seydlitz's can't take much of a pounding."
"Ja, Captain."
Patsy made one last quick check of her instruments, then glanced over at Loco, who gave her the thumbs up. The lone figure of ground control standing between the two massive fighters waved once, twice, and then whirled and pointed down the runway. The Shilone and Lucifer, an odd pair if there ever was one, kicked in their afterburners and thundered down the runway. Her grin grew broader as the flying wing design bit the air and pulled up off the runway. She could imagine Loco letting go a rebel whoop, but thankfully he had the sense to keep it off the airwaves. She and her wingman heeled over on a heading for the battlefield and began a steep climb, and a look behind her showed the SL-15 Slayers of her second lance following, and the Stingray and Transgressor that completed the squadron just lifting off.
"Wings, vee formation." Raptor's Slayers pulled up off and behind her left wing, while Lightshow's flight matched on the right. She checked her scanners, which showed the dropships but couldn't make out the fighters at this range. "Sing out when you get a make on the birds." A minute later the enemy ships entered the atmosphere and her scanners picked up the smaller fighters escorting the dropships. It showed four, but couldn't decide what type of aerospace model they were. Two of them finally settled on SL-15 Slayers while the other two flipped back and forth between Corsairs, Stukas, and Lucifers.
Loco's voice piped into the comm, "Bee, my computer's going loco on me. It can't make up its mind on what they are. Says one pair are Slayers but it didn't seem too sure."
"Roger, Loco, same here. Lightshow, Raptor?"
"Ditto, Bee," came Marcus "Raptor" Freeman's reply.
"I knew we should have downloaded the latest patch before we left," said Milosovic.
"All right, all right. First lance has the closest Slayer, Second, the further. Lightshow, see if you can draw the other pair off the dropships and – wait, never mind, they saw us." Her scanners showed the fighters peeling off to engage her squadron. She waited while it painted their new formation, then continued. "Okay, same targets. Lightshow, pray those things are Corsairs or Lucifers."
"And just what's wrong with a Lucifer?" demanded Loco. Bee laughed.
"Nothing, Loco, with you at the controls. Break wide, everyone." The squadron pulled out of tight formation, then Bumblebee's threat indicator lit up and a screech informed her of target lock on. She juked down and left, followed by Loco, then checked her own display. "Impossible," she thought, "I'm still way out of range!" As if mocking her, the azure bolt of a PPC streaked through the space she'd just been in. "Those aren't Slayers!" she shouted into the squadron frequency.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" shouted Loco as a flight of long range missiles arrowed in on him. Most missed, but a handful shattered armor over the right wing of his fighter. An eyeblink later two cobalt particle projection cannon beams flashed past him, narrowly missing. Bee turned her attention back to her original target as her range indicator flashed green. She took a half-second to achieve lock on the enemy and let fly with her own LRMs and large laser, and Loco added his missiles and large beamers to the mix. The laser missed, as did one of Loco's, but the combined flight of forty missiles hammered the fighter, blowing armor into chaff even as the laser bit into the fuselage. Long range flashed to medium and short in an eyeblink as the fighters closed, but Bee and Loco held their fire, not wanting to overheat too badly. The enemy pilots, however, showed no such compunction.
The plane that had targeted Bee at long range almost disappeared behind a gout of flame as the massive autocannon in its nose belched a clip of depleted-uranium slugs that chewed into the armor of her left wing. She jerked up and right, throwing off the rest of the rounds, but a dozen short range missiles corkscrewed in on her, following her maneuver and blowing armor off all along her fuselage. The heavy fighter shook under the barrage, but flew on. Loco's opponent lit him up with two stuttering laser pulses, melting armor off of each wing of his ungainly fighter.
Having finally closed to an effective range, the twin Slayers of Second Lance unloaded on their target, and an impressive display it was. Tracers streamed from the eighty-ton fighters as they cut in their heavy autocannons, chewing into the fuselage and wing. Of the ten medium lasers, three missed, with the other seven melting armor from all over the beast, but still it came on. The two pairs flashed past so close Bee imagined that she could read the numbers of the tail. She popped a flight of SRMs from her aft launcher at the plane just to be spiteful, and was rewarded with a pair of hits, though they did little damage.
Pulling up and over to reverse her direction, she punched the burners. "Let's get on the tail of target one, Loco." She could see Raptor and Air Raid diving and rolling to come back the same direction. Lightshow and Stoop were nowhere to be seen in her quick scan, so she muttered a prayer for their safety. During a battle, most chatter was confined to wingmates, not the squadron, so she just had to hope they were handling the other pair all right on their own.
Gregor "Lightshow" Milosovic cursed. Whatever this thing was - and it wasn't a Corsair, Lucifer, or a Stuka - it was a royal pain in the ass. His Stingray wasn't having much of a problem staying behind it, and he'd managed to tag it a few times with his PPC and lasers, blowing a heatsink or two, but it just wouldn't quit. The flash of two lasers from an aft mounting slagged more armor from his nose and reminded him that even if he did stay behind it he wasn't safe.
Unlike the other pair that Bee and Raptor had engaged, this pair split as the two pilots arrowed in on them, one heading each way. Not wanting to leave one unengaged, Gregor had gone left, telling Stoop to take the one on the right. Carefully he lined his sights up on the ungainly-looking craft again and stroked the trigger, letting his entire weapons complement fly. A palpable wave of heat slammed into him as two heavy lasers, two mediums, and a PPC momentarily connected his fighter and the one he chased in a brilliant riot of color. The two mediums hit each wing, but the large lasers and PPC cored the engine housing, spitting molten pieces of the turbine out through a glowing hole his weapons had opened. The pilot ejected as the craft pitched up, almost as if in pain, then wrenched itself into two pieces aft of the midline. The wind resistance disintegrated the thing, with chunks of it breaking off for the long fall to St. John below. Lightshow gasped for breath at the horribly sluggish controls, having paid dearly for unleashing his namesake.
"Lightshow, help!" shouted Stoop over the radio, desperation apparent in his voice. Gregor heeled over on the controls, the overheated Stingray slowly responding and rotating up on its right wing to bank around.
"On my way, Jay," he responded breathily. He'd just turned around enough to get a visual on the pair, his controls returning almost to normal, and gasped again, this time in shock. Stoop's Transgressor was pockmarked with damage. The fighter trailing it had enough armor damage to prove that Jay had put up a good fight, but then it fired. A trio of lasers carved into Stoop's fighter, followed by over a half-dozen SRMs that battered the plane, opening more rents in its armor. One found a hole in the fuselage and detonated, blowing coolant out and marking the death of several heatsinks. Then the large-bore autocannon in the fighter's nose barked, and sparked erupted all along the fighter. A glow emerged from cracks and holes in the fuselage. "Stoop, eject, EJE -" he tried to warn his wingmate, but the heavy fighter erupted as its fusion reactor went critical, swallowing Jay Honnold and the plane he'd flown in a single blinding flash.
Lightshow growled a bit off oath and stood on the rudder to put himself behind the spindly fighter, but this one was better at the controls than his former wingmate. The unknown fighter and Gregor's Stingray spiraled down, down, each unable to turn inside the other.
"Damn it all, Raptor, get that second fighter off our tail!"
"Working on it, Bee, he doesn't seem too inclined to give us another poke at him," Marcus shot back. The staccato burst of his autocannon bled over the line before he shut the comm off. Out of the corner of her eye she spied tracers wing off into the sky, then Loco curse colorfully over their personal frequency.
Sparing a glance to her right at her wingman, she saw a gaping hole in one wing of his beloved Lucifer, probably from the twin PPCs the enemy behind them carried. Even as she watched a pair of stuttering laser pulses chewed into the fuselage, stripping all but the last armor from the aerospace fighter, but not doing further damage.
"Forget this," her wingman drawled. "Raptor, Air Raid, break off, NOW!" he commanded into the squadron band.
"Loco, what the hell are you up to?" Bee demanded as she tried to get a lock on the juking opponent in front of her. She got it, biting into its right wing with the large laser, but both mediums missed.
"Oh, nothing, little lady." The innocence in his voice made Bumblebee look over again, just in time to see him drift left and pop his air brakes.
The large flaps set into the wings and top of the Lucifer's fuselage snapped open, slowing the big fighter over a hundred kilometers per hour in the blink of an eye. The trailing pilot, which had drawn a little too close in their zeal for the kill, tried to pull up and over the Lucifer, but only partially succeeded.
Bee screamed in inarticulate rage as the left wing of the craft hit the right tail of Loco's fighter, shearing both off. The other plane flipped over to the left, barely missing the Lucifer, and then arrowed straight for the ground in a tight barrel roll. The pilot ejected rather than ride his craft to the ground. Loco went into a flat spin.
Still watching her wingmate's fall to St. John, Bee was treated to Air Raid's Slayer flashing by her cockpit two hundred meters off her right wing. She twisted to follow her pilot's flight, and saw the end result of a beautiful scissors maneuver that ended with her opponent being caught in a crossfire of heavy autocannon shells and a plethora of medium lasers. Something touched off an ammo explosion, and the fighter disintegrated in a fireball.
"Good riddance," she muttered, then rolled her Shilone and dove. "Loco? LOCO!" she called over her ship to ship band, to no avail. Either he was out cold from the impact or the Lucifer's ever balky communications system had failed in the collision. Bee kept one eye on the altimeter, watching as she plummeted through ten thousand feet following her wingmate. As she passed five thousand feet, almost ready to break off herself, the afterburners on the Lucifer flared to life, giving it enough of a kick to break the spin. The ungainly craft began a slow climb as she sighed in relief.
"Lightshow? How are you and Stoop doing with that pair?" she asked. Gregor's weary voice responded after a moment.
"Stoop bought it, Bee." She cursed silently. "But I got the bastard after Raptor and Air Raid distracted him for me."
Bee took a few deep breaths to steady herself. As much as she wanted to rage at the death of her pilot, watching Loco's crazy stunt nearly take him out as well had sapped her emotional reserve for the moment.
"Form up. We'll get some strafing runs in on them before we have to return to the spaceport to refuel." Way off in the distance, she could make out three drive flares as the dropships braked for landing.
Loco's battered Lucifer pulled up off her right wing, and she gave it a good look. It still seemed airworthy, though she doubted it had even a semblance of the already poor maneuverability it began with. With his radio out, she couldn't even tell him to return to port. She pointed at him, then at the ground, her sign language perfectly clear. He waved at her. She did it again, then belatedly realized that he was pulling her leg. He knew exactly what she wanted, he just wasn't going to do it.
She gave him the finger.
"God, Bumblebee here," buzzed a voice through his radio. Snug in the cockpit of his Victor, Gabriel, Bryan was on edge, waiting for word from his aerospace forces as well as the infantry deployed in the eastern forest. The enemy dropships should be hitting the ground soon. He smacked the comm to open a two way channel with his fighter captain.
"This is God, status, Bee?"
"Four enemies downed, in fighters I've never seen before. We won't be able to hit the dropships before they make planet fall, looks like less than a minute before they touch down. We'll get a couple runs in on the ground forces before we have to head back to refuel." The normally outgoing pilot seemed subdued, and since she didn't volunteer the information, Cochren had to ask.
"Casualties?"
There was a slight pause before she answered. "We lost Stoop. He didn't punch out. Loco…well, he's still here." Bryan slammed a fist into the armrest of his command couch. Yes, he knew this was war and people died, but that didn't mean he had to like it, especially when it was his people. As angry and sad as he felt, though, he knew it would be much worse on the pilots, who were a very close-knit bunch.
"There'll be time to grieve later, Bee. If you guys aren't in shape for passes, forget it, otherwise, wait for the infantry to give the word. The Old Man will let you know when they're in a good position."
"Roger, Colonel. We'll make sure we leave some standing for you."
"You do that, Bee. God out." Closing the frequency, he snarled in anger. In his mind he knew taking on four fighters and only losing one was a definite victory for his pilots. Stoop had been next in line for a flight command when the Angels upgraded their aerospace forces. Now that would never happen.
He flipped another toggle, activating one of the land lines that snaked off into the eastern woods.
"Packard, God, acknowledge," said the voice in Kelly's helmet headset. He tapped the button to activate his mike. His headsets were short-range, no chance of detection, and all communications were routed through the Maxim and its land line some hundred meters away.
"And the voice boomed from the Heavens," drawled the Old Man. "I read you, Colonel."
"You're going to have company real soon, Kelly." The Master Sergeant raised the binoculars to his face again and peered out through the northern edge of the woods at the enormous drive flares of braking dropships and the grounded behind some hills and just out of sight. One of them already had its bay doors open.
"I can see that, God. Looks like they're right where you asked them to be."
"Awful nice of them. Kelly, make sure your spotters are in place and will fall back under fire. You guys won't stand a chance if the 'mechs decide to play."
"Noted. Are we gonna to get air strike support?" he asked, mentally crossing his fingers.
"Yes, one bird down, Bee will lead them in when you call." Packard sighed in relief that his friend was ok. He knew better than to ask who'd bought it right then.
"Good. We'll keep you appraised, God. Old Man out." He tapped the mike off, and then bellowed, "Lopez! Get your butt up here!" PFC Lopez appeared at his side in a flash, grinning ear to ear under a too-large combat helmet, his assault rifle held across his chest.
"Yeah, boss?"
"Run over to Sergeant McNichols and tell him I want him to pull the Goblins in another two hundred meters. We'll bring the heavy end of the hammer down on us if they get spotted. With these big-assed trees they'll still have time to bug out before 'mechs can tunnel in here." The Goblins, though much, much slower on open terrain than his new Maxim heavy APCs, were actually faster and more maneuverable in the forest than the nimble hovercraft. If pressed, the spotting foot soldiers would fade back, climb into their transports, and book it back to the waiting Right Hand of God. "And tell him to keep his eyes peeled and get the birds and arty rolling as soon as he gets a good view of them."
"Got it, sir. McNichols is to order the Goblins back another two hundred meters. As soon as he has confirmed ID of the enemy he's to call in air strikes and artillery support," Lopez repeated, proving he'd heard his superior correctly. Packard nodded.
"Go." The private, first class took off in a low, hunched run parallel to the tree line and further east. McNichols was in charge of the foot platoon that had spotting duties today, the men scattered amongst the trees and brush just inside the tree line. Packard could just make out one of the Goblin tanks through the massive trees, his own Maxim blocking part of it. Within that APC were his 'boys', the anti-mech trained First Platoon. He beamed at the though of once again leading his beloved PBIs into combat, then turned back to the hills where the enemy dropships had grounded and raised his binoculars once more. BattleMech began to crest the hill, moving in small groups. He couldn't recognize the designs, but they were all big, medium weight at least. He silently began to count, but his headset buzzed again moments later, interrupting him.
"Packard, this is Epsilon One, copy?" said the cultured voice of Mara Toyama, the lance's commander. He tapped his mike.
"Roger, Epsilon. What?" he growled. Epsilon was the Angels' dedicated reconnaissance lance, stationed a bit farther east than the spotters
"Corporal Griegor's Mongoose is picking up something moving in the woods a little over half a klick east of here. None of the rest of us have it, but he insists they're there and he's got that newfangled scanning equipment in there. We're going to sidle that way and check it out, which means the land lines get cut. Please relay to God, and any further communications from us will be via standard frequencies."
"Got it, Epsilon. I'll tell the boss. Out."
Another glance showed the Goblin gone from view, and he turned back to the drop zone to see the unidentified 'mechs moving down off the hills. He tapped his mike again.
"God, Packard, update. Epsilon is moving to recon unknown contact in the woods five hundred meters east of them. They are cutting the land lines. I count thirty, that is, three-zero BattleMechs of unknown design. Weights are medium plus, lots of heavies and assaults. Strikes to commence soon."
Even as he finished his communication to the Colonel, he could just make out the telltale whistle of an incoming artillery round, a sound over a millennium old and still feared. Looking through the binoculars, he could see the round hit, but too far north. "Damn it all," he muttered, "Correct, correct!" Then there was an ear-splitting boom from overhead as the Angels' aerospace fighters began their strafing runs.
A bright flash of laser fire shot from the Shilone's nose and wings as Patsy "Bumblebee" Richards whipped overhead, followed closely by Loco in his Lucifer, which appeared to be missing most of its armor and a tail. Both fighters were wreathed in smoke as two score missiles leapt from the racks, reaching out to pepper one of the more humanoid-looking 'mechs that was marching down the hill. It toppled, but immediately began to get back up as its comrades returned fire, missing the supersonic fighters by a good margin.
"Gotcha, you bastards," said the veteran infantryman, as a huge grin split his weathered face.
Leah "Air Raid" Shoeman grinned inside her flight helmet. Only twenty-three years old, this was her first combat since joining the Angels. If pressed, she'd admit that it was her first combat, period. Leah was the daughter of one of the original Angels pilots, Arthur Shoeman, and the SL-15 Slayer heavy aerospace fighter she piloted had once belonged to her father. He had died in this cockpit. Though most would take that as a bad omen, it only increased Leah's resolve not to follow in her father's final footsteps.
Her first true sortie and she already had one confirmed kill and an assist. It bothered her that she had no idea what it was she'd shot down, though. The fighter had looked rather like her own, with a large delta-wing configuration, but it definitely had more bite, packing a heavy autocannon, PPC, and short range missiles. It had also, she found out, had a large laser to cover its aft arc that the pilot had proved remarkably accurate with, lasing armor from her nose even as she and Raptor had combined fire to burn him down.
Glancing to her left, she could see her wingmate's Slayer dancing just above the tree line. Nap o' the earth flying, NOE, was some of the most mentally and physically demanding flying a pilot could perform. She and Raptor skimmed a mere fifty meters above the landscape below, juking up and down to avoid hills, sometimes swerving around them. If she hadn't been concentrating so hard on not running into the foothills of St. John, she'd probably have thought the sights beautiful.
"Air Raid," said Raptor through their ship-to-ship line.
"Yeah, Raptor?"
"We're going to shift left and come in more from the west. It'll give us a good corridor to walk the A/Cs down, and the sun at our backs. ETA is one five zero seconds. Follow me."
"Got it, one hundred fifty seconds." He hazel eyes lit up in anticipation. Slight pressure on the flight stick brought her eighty-ton machine up a bit as it banked and slid left, passing over a small lake that glistened in the rising sun's glow. An old man in a rowboat looked up at the roaring fighters as they passed, then put the cigarette back between his lips and cast again, unconcerned and unaware of the battle brewing kilometers away.
Another nudge of the stick lined her up for the run in on the opposing forces, still tucked in behind and to the right of her lance leader. She glanced at her chronometer.
"Thirty seconds, Air Raid. Hit whatever you can, Bee softened them up for us. Be careful."
"Roger, Marcus."
The paired fighters flashed over the two dropships of the Angels, the massive Overlord-class vessels looking like out of place skyscrapers set in the middle of a small plain. In another eye blink they were passing by the Colonel's main battle force. She could have sworn she saw the Colonel's Victor waving as they went past. Her HUD lit up with enemy BattleMechs, and she squeezed her main target interlock circuit's trigger, sending a hail of depleted uranium slugs walking down the field, preceded by the emerald flare of her medium lasers. The show ripped across several 'mechs, their return fire coming sporadically, apparently having been thrown off-kilter by Bumblebee and Loco's run just moments before. A single laser hit rocked her fighter as she bore in on them, following her wingman's lead. Flashing perpendicular to their flight path came the trio of Militia fighters, their large lasers stabbing down and boiling armor from the rank of BattleMechs.
Then it happened. One enemy near the rear of their formation wrestled itself back to its feet. Even as she watched it leveled its right arm at them. Twin cobalt spears of PPCs leapt from the 'mech's wrist, one flashing harmlessly past Raptor's swooping fighter. The other impacted squarely on the cockpit canopy, melting instantly through the armored glass and exploding her Lieutenant into a pale mist. Leah screamed in horror as the fighter slowly rolled over onto its back and arced into the ground.
It hit a mere fifty meters in front of the enemy machines and skipped like a rock off of water, then nailed a bizarre-looking headless 'mech to the left of the one that had fried the pilot. The BattleMech disintegrated under the impact of eighty tons of steel, its limbs flying off in every direction. The combined weight of the two machines carried on into another like 'mech behind it. The fusion engines of all three lit off, looking like a small atomic bomb exploding and sending the three closest enemies sprawling on the ground from the force.
Pulling up and left, she barrel rolled over the trio of dropships that had delivered the enemy machines to St. John and bit back tears. Raptor had taken her in when her dad had died in the cockpit some ten years ago. He'd trained her, and agreed to take her as his wingman when he'd made Lieutenant. Now she'd lost not one, but two fathers.
She keyed her mike. "Bee, this is Air Raid." She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Raptor's down, took two more with him. I'm heading home."
Lieutenant Mara Toyama stepped around the bole of an enormous tree, weaving her way closer to the anomalous contact that her lancemate's Mongoose had picked up. Manipulating the controls of her SDR-5V Spider, she patted the trunk affectionately. Her BattleMech was nearly two hundred and seventy years old, but she guessed that this tree was at least that if not more. Suddenly the ground shook from the Angels' arty battery, and the screaming wail of aerospace fighters rocketed by overhead. She smiled. "Well, they know we mean business now," she mumbled to herself. Keying a button, she opened a lance communications frequency and dialed the power down, hoping that the forest would mask the radio usage. She had her own things to tend to at the moment.
"Nikolai, what have you got?"
"The Beagle still insists that they're there, Lieutenant. Two hundred and fifty meters and closing, but I don't see anything. Readings don't coincide with anything I've ever seen, or the computer," Griegor replied, his Slavic accent showing through as it always did under stress.
"Me either, Lieut," chimed in Victor Cortez, her lance's Jenner pilot.
"Well, just keep your eyes peeled, guys." Mara was a little worried, but also wondering if that weird Beagle thing wasn't leading them on the proverbial wild goose chase. She glanced at her passive scanners, again seeing nothing, and then something caught her eye. "Bearing oh-eight-oh, anyone else see that?" She strained her eyes again in that direction, taking a few steps towards it. Griegor's Mongoose was a good hundred meters in front of her Spider, hidden by the trees, with Cortez's Jenner and Jennifer Kilgore's Hermes completing the box, left forward and right forward of her position respectively. Maybe Nikolai's –
"Son of a bitch! What the hell?" Nikolai Griegor's panic-ridden Slavic voice burst over the lance radio frequency.
Mara instantly kicked her 'mech into as much of a run as she could manage. The nimble Spider dodged trees wider than it was left and right. "Everyone converge on Nikolai, now!" she barked into the radio. Shouldering aside one of the rare younger trees, she stepped around a last wide bole and gasped. "You'd better hurry up, Lieutenant," her heretofore silent lancemate said over the comm.
Jennifer had beaten her to her beleaguered lancemate, and the pair of 'mechs were firing their medium lasers impotently at a swarm of small machines bustling around them. Mara was stunned. She'd never seen anything like them in her entire life. They stood perhaps a third as tall as the 'mechs they beset, and if it weren't for the metallic gleam of sunlight glinting off steel hides she'd have sworn they were a pair of humans being pestered by the wood sprites of lore. At least fifteen of the beasts were in sight, and the Mongoose's armor showed melted scars and shattered plates.
As if to confirm her flight of fancy, four of the little bipedal machines took to the air, flames erupting from their feet as they angled for the Mongoose and Hermes. Midway through their flight, the brief flare of lasers connected the four sprites with the BattleMechs. The Hermes' left arm came up, and it loosed its most fearsome weapon, sending a gout of flame at the one sprite coming towards it. The little monster lit up spectacularly, then clanged into the Hermes' chest where it clung for a moment before dropping to the ground and getting stepped on by the light BattleMech.
Mara heard the whoosh-crack of short-ranged missiles through her armored canopy, and at first through that Victor and his Jenner had arrived, but then her Spider rocked forward from impact explosions. Snapped from her reverie, she suddenly realized that at least two of the sprites were behind her, and another trio were running towards her 'mech at a speed no infantry could hope to match. Even as she watched, two stopped, and smoky contrails briefly concealed them as SRMs leapt from their shoulders to impact on her chest. One missiles rang off the side of her 'mech's head, tossing her around in the cockpit. The third took off, heading straight for her. Getting hold of herself, she quickly brought her crosshairs up and snapped off shots from her paired medium lasers. One flashed low, but the other connected square on the sprite's chest. Unbelievably, it kept coming, so she swatted it out of the air with a backhand, sending the little pest careening into a tree, where it slid to the ground, broken.
"Mara, help!" Griegor again yelled through the radio. Pressing the foot pedals, Mara jogged forward to the beleaguered Mongoose, which was flailing about. As she neared, it tagged one of the sprites with a emerald laser, the smaller machine simply ceasing to exist under the megajoules of energy. As it spun, she saw that the Mongoose had two of the little things clinging to its back. As she watched, the pair fired red lasers into the back of the 'mech, stripping the rest of the already thin armor there. She strode the last few steps, crushing another beneath her 'mech's feet and reached out to pluck one off the Mongoose's back and fling it away.
"What the hell ARE these things?" she asked out loud. Nikolai spun his 'mech around, foiling her grab for the other sprite clinging to its back. "Damn it, Nikolai, hold still!"
"Beats the hell out of me, Lieut," came Victor's voice over the radio. In the background she could hear the trilling discharge of his 'mechs lasers, followed by the launch of his SRMs. "But they take a helluva lot of killing. At least two laser shots – shit, hold on," There was an odd crashing sound, almost as if he'd ran into something, before he spoke again. "Had one on my back, he's paste now. I'm still a good fifty meters away, almost there."
"Hurry up, Vic, or there won't be a lance left to come home to."
Nikolai's Mongoose turned back to where she could swat at the thing clinging to its back, and her Spider's fist caught it against the Mongoose's back armor, turning it into a crushed pulp. Alarms wailed for her attention as her armor outline updated to show angry red scars all over her 'mech. Motion on her view strip caught her eye as Victor's Jenner burst around a tree and into view. Lasers flashed from the stubby wing of its left arm, tagging a sprite that had just fired into the Hermes' left knee. The Jenner's right arm was gone, and a smoking rent was torn in its right torso.
"Everybody move! Back to the dust-off point, NOW!" Mara barked into to radio. A sprite landed on the Jenner's wide, forward thrust head and fired an SRM into the hole in its right torso. Mara gasped in horror as the warhead touched off Victor's ammunition supplies. In a single blinding flash, the thirty-five ton BattleMech ceased to exist, bits and pieces of it flying off in every direction and taking three more of the sprites with it. Victor didn't punch out. Screaming in rage, she pushed Nikolai's Mongoose to get him moving. "RUN, damn it!"
Jennifer Killgore's voice sounded in Mara's cockpit then. Her lancemate was always quiet, but now she sounded deathly calm. "I don't think I'm going anywhere, Mara." Turning to follow her own order, Mara's eye alighted on the supine form of Jennifer's Hermes, its left leg amputated at the knee. Three of the sprites stood on the 'mech's chest, gleefully stripping armor sheets off with their claws and pumping laser bolts into it. "You two go." The Hermes sat up and scraped a pair of the sprites off its chest, then set them alight. They promptly dropped and rolled, trying in vain to smother the flames.
Nikolai's 'mech began running, even with a pronounced limp and having to dodge trees faster than heavier machines. Two of the sprites bounded after it, leaving at least a handful more still within striking distance.
"I don't think so, Jenny. You're coming, too."
"No, Mara. Go, now." The flamer belched liquid fire again, missing the sprites but setting more of the forest alight. The remaining beast on her chest fired again, coring through the last of the Hermes' armor and piercing the physical shielding of the fusion reactor in its breast. Emergency shutdown controls activated, dampening the reaction before it could rage uncontrolled, and the 'mech flopped over backwards again. The four sprites on her sensors now had only one target – Mara. She did the only sensible thing left to her.
She ran. She'd only made it a few steps when she felt and heard a pair of the sprites land on her back. She toggled the command lance frequency, speaking quickly. "Epsilon to God, Epsilon to God. Contact with enemy in northern woods. Unknown designs, they took out Two and Three." She slapped a button to transmit some of her battleROM footage to her Colonel. "I'm calling them sprites, we destroyed at least a dozen -" An alarm cut her off, warning of a breach in her rear torso armor.
Knowing it was a bad idea, she hit her Spider's jump jets, hoping to dislodge the pair. A SDR-5V could jump over two hundred and forty meters a clip. It also included another, rare feature that made the jump slightly less than the suicide it would have been for any other BattleMech jumping in these thick trees. Mara feathered the jets' controls, banking her mech around trees older and wider than her thirty-ton machine and she rose above the canopy.
"- but there are plenty more. Get Packard out of the -" Suddenly her Spider pitched left crazily, the sprite clinging to her back having burrowed into her torso and destroyed several jump jets. She released the jets, hoping the machine's gyro could bring it upright again, but the damage was done. She watched, horrified, as the tree canopy rushed towards her.
"Oh, shit," she muttered. Then she struck the first branch, pain lancing through her chest as the restraints cracked ribs, and another, and then Lieutenant Mara Toyama knew nothing.
