Thanks again to Triptych for picking the Clan for me, whether it was intentional or not :D
On the outer-rim world Populus-V, a splinter Inner-Sphere Militia group and a Smoke Jaguar task force battle for control of rich mineral resources. The small war has continued unmolested by the politics of off-world forces for almost a year to date. The planet is hot and arid, and most 'Mechs have been stripped out and mounted with heat-saving weaponry due to pilot request; its very uncomfortable in a confined 'Mech cockpit in thirty-degree heat. Battlemechs are combat ready at all times. Ironically, combat is rare, as a strange cease-fire has come into being; with each group keeping to 'his side of the bench', following a series of bloody clashes from which no victors emerged.
The Inner-Sphere mechwarriors are nervous. The Clans are trecherous and bound to attack at any time. Forces are stretched thin at the borders, and enemy 'contacts' are being reported more and more often. Command is less inclined to believe these reports, as a complete lack of evidence is often the case. But High-Alert orders have been placed nonetheless.
This dosen't help the pilots on the frontlines much at all.
A Rifleman-Class battlemech stands alone in the bottom of the Araman Pass, the entry to a dropsite regularly used by the Inner-Sphere. Its pilot, a newblood Inner-Sphere Mechwarrior named Markus Jansen, was waiting for the heatsinks to shed the excess heat that had formed during his sprint to the narrow gulley. He had made the trip when he registered eleven contacts on his long-range radar, one of which immediately broke off to intercept him. He had cursed violently and brought round his medium-tonnage 'Mech as fast as he could, but the contact (as he later found out) was a Cougar, a light-weight combat 'Mech, and closed fast. Only a M.A.S.C boost of the mech's myomer 'muscles', dangerous on such a hot planet, allowed him to get to the pass first.
The narrow-minded radar computer had announced the contact 'lost' as soon as he entered the gully. But Jansen knew better. To the computer, the contact was just another blip on the radar. But Jansen knew he faced a living, breathing, hating enemy; sealed within the protecting layers of plasteel and ceramic armourplate. Jansen trained his sights on the start of the pass, and a bead of sweat rolled down his nose, dropped onto his lips, and he licked away the saltly persperation moments later.
The Cougar pilot completely outgunned his slower opponent at close-range. The Rifleman was built for long-range combat; and it showed. The massive 'hat' on the Riflemans 'shoulders' was in fact a high-power sensor array, abandoned on 'Mechs such as the Cougar to save weight. The Rifleman's only weapons were a pair of Gauss Rifles, and being designed for combat at range, these had a very slow refire rate. The Cougar pilot slowed his 'Mech to a leisurely stroll as he entered Araman Pass, and it was perhaps this which ultimately lead to his downfall.
Jansen saw his opportunity immediately. The cougar entered his sights side-on and came round slowly, bringing its weapons smoothly to bear. But Jansen tracked the movement, and at such point-blank range easily placed his sights directly over the Cockpit. The Cougar was less than a hundred meters away.He touched the trigger on his right-hand control stick. The small movement sent a command to the processer controlling three hundred high-power electromagnets mounted in the barrel of his right-hand gauss rifle. The capicitors released their charge and the magnets immediately grabbed the only thing they could, a metal slug two feet long comprised of melted scrap, and flung it forward at three times the speed if sound. It was travelling far faster when it reached the end of the barrel. The slug would persist for well over three hundred kilometers, given only air to slow it down, but something large was directly in its path, and the shot impacted with it well before a second was over.
The slug passed with painful accuracy into the cockpit of the battlemech, travelled soundlessly through the pilot and through the back of the chair. The fusion reactor, mounted in a lead-lined chamber directly behind the pilot, was ruptured just as easily, and the core immediately went into meltdown. It finally ended its destructive journey at the back of the reactor, burying itself in a nonchalant sort of way in the lead lining. The reactor caught fire, and this slowly spread through to the cockpit; engulfing the pilots body and melting the plastic components of the control interface.
Six seconds after firing, the gauss rifle finished its charge cycle and a new slug passed into the chamber where it was grabbed by the clamps and automatically aligned with the barrel. Jansen was unaware of this cold, efficient mechanical process, developed by scientists in a lab away from the front; all he saw was the merciless fire spreading out of the cockpit and through the torso of the dead battlemech, spreading quickly whilst it sankslowly to the ground as the power to its legs vanished and the myomer bundles released: the hard-locks designed to keep the mech upright whilst in shut-down only partially engaged because of the sudden energy loss. Soon the fire would reach the rockets in their firing racks, and the machine-gun arrays in the lower torso. But he had expected this, he had seen it four times previously, and was becoming unfortunately used to it...at least he never saw his enemy, not properly.
Just another blip on the radar.
Jansen spun the mech roughly, and begun a quick, harried run through the pass; away from the contacts. He was sweating profusely; this was the closest encounter he had ever had with an enemy, and he'd never been alone before. The sweat made the neural-net contacts on his bald head slippery, and he quickly mopped it away with his shirt and slid the contacts back into position. The heat monitor on one of his control panels began to bleep again, but he didnt care, he wanted to get to the dropship as fast as possible. Those contacts would be closing in fast and looking for blood.
An unusual thought slid itself quietly into his consciousness when he reached the dropship and the 'Smokies' failed to show; he remembered his mechanic saying something about the Riflemans IFF system, and to check for clan colours..
The Inner-Sphere convoy now comprises of six Heavy Transports and only four Battlemech escorts. The fifth 'Mech disappeared almost an hour ago, whilst investigating a breif contact near Aramans Pass, probably just a friendly patrol according to the computers. The Lance Commanders' first thought was to write up an AWOL report. His pilot was likely to be smoking something with a friend in the Pass, getting high was a good way to relieve the stress.
It happened occasionally.