[CHAPTER 5 – "The Taking of the King-side Rook": Eaton: April, 3061]
Cadence awoke with a start. The communications software was blinking for his attention. He cursed aloud and sat upright in his seat, hands flying over the controls as he brought up the comm log history. He checked the lance channel and saw a recording, drawing a second curse from his lips. He ran the playback and noted it was only thirty-some seconds old.
"Cadence, prepare for evac at prearranged location. ETA, twelve minutes."
He brought his mech to life and fired up all systems. He wondered silently to himself how the hell Vance and the rest of the lance had gotten things done so quickly. Putting his neurohelmet back on, he brought the Raven up to speed.
The two desert birds perched on the piece of driftwood on the bank screeched and alit as the comparatively massive Raven burst from the deeps of the river, water shearing off in great black sheets and pouring over the shoreline with a crash. The behemoth turned southwards adroitly and sprang forward, accelerating to flank speed.
Cadenece brought his radar up and switched to active mode. The threat indicator screamed at him as an enemy contact bore down on him from the southeast. He quickly scanned the target as his stomach bottomed out in fear and trepidation. Suddenly he laughed as he realized it was the airborne Leopard-class dropship heading straight for him. The enemy assault lance was not in the immediate vicinity. He hoped that Vance and the rest of the team was in that dropship, and not the enemy, but he was taking a terrible risk with the active sensor sweep anyway. Just then the comm crackled.
"Cadence, we've got you on scope. We'll be touching down soon – get the mechs out now because this LZ is about to get very hot." It was Vance's voice.
Cadence confirmed and pushed his Raven to reach the rendezvous point ahead of the dropship. Soon he could see the twin bluish plumes of its primary engines as it swept over the river and circled to land near the western bank.
He slowed to the point indicated on his navicomputer and ran the beacon recall script for the four submerged mechs. Wakes could be seen as they approached and then they burst through the surface, thrashing the placid river into churning foam with their metal bodies. They then came to a halt under the bright stars of the desert night as rivulets of water continued streaming off of them.
The dropship was now settling down about 200 meters west and the bright retrorockets and control thrusters were pulsing the night with many hues of light. The ship came roughly to the ground, the impact resounding on the hard-packed desert floor. The main mech hatches began to open and so did the side entrance hatch. Cadence assumed that time was critical and strode towards the mighty ship to stow his mech at the far rear mech bay, giving the main engines a wide berth. He got there as the ramp finished coming down and slowly worked the difficult task of docking his mech with the harness and gantry. He caught sight of the other mechs coming to life and making their way over as he completed the task himself. He climbed down to the dusty desert ground and crossed under the belly of the ship to watch the others.
His curious mind was well-rewarded for this effort, as he watched, for the first time in his life, a LAM convert before his very eyes. The hideous insectoid monstrosity that was Kith Sivar's custom battlemech/fighter folded and rotated, unfurling the wings and control surfaces in an amazing display of variable geometry. The legs of the mech came alive with a soft orange flame as the aerospace engines and their jump jet components lifted the custom fighter off the ground. The torso twisted 180 degrees as the arms folded and tucked in, revealing VTOL thrusters on the back of the mech which then also activated. The machine pitched 90 degrees towards the ground and began hovering on its VTOL drive as the legs came together and the aerotech fuselage and intakes were revealed. All the rough edges now blended together gracefully and seamlessly into the dagger-shape of the fightercraft. The elegant and deadly craft yawed a few degrees and hovered over to the portside aerospace fighter bay of the dropship. Kith forsook the ramp altogether, as if to proclaim the uselessness of ground to all, as he brought his fighter lightly to rest secure in its hangar.
Cadence scurried up the ramp to the personnel hatch and made his way to the bridge, frowning slightly at the unconscious man with bound hands lying in the middle of the command deck. He stepped over the man and sat down at the communications console, strapping himself in.
Just then Kith walked in. He smirked and nodded a greeting, drawing a mirrored expression from the now amused Cadence. Cadence was starting to realize that there was a great deal more to Kith Sivar than the fighter-jock stereotype would suggest, as Kith sat down comfortably at the control station. Not many men could pilot mechs, fighters, and spacecraft as well, and Cadence didn't doubt that that was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg of Kith's abilities. Here was a man to learn from, but be wary of all the same.
Now the other three strode onboard and took three of the other four chairs on the command deck. Solaria sat to his left greeting him with a smile, which he returned. Vance sat in the Captain's chair to his right, and Zanshin on the far station, but both had grim faces and Cadence realized he wasn't going to be getting much information anytime soon, so he turned his attention to the display in front of him.
I was far too preoccupied with the mission to give Cadence any attention, though he was deserving of praise for his exemplary work. I brought up the tactical screen and although we still had a clear scope, I didn't doubt for a moment that the region would soon be swarming with hostiles.
"Kith, get us airborne and take off on a northeast heading. Stay low and behind hills if you can, but let's try not to clip any mountains." I joked.
Kith was not in the least bit amused and responded by slamming the now-hovering ship into a hard portside turn and energizing the mains. Our craft catapulted forwards and the unconscious crewman rolled aft and slammed into the bridge door. Now bearing northeast Kith weaved in and out of narrow valleys, the elephantine vessel making the turns clumsily but adequately. We were airborne nearly two minutes when a pair of conventional fighters burned in from the south and realigned themselves on an intercept vector. Dozens of rockets streaked in and impacted along the keel of the ship, causing minimal damage, but shaking us hard in our seats.
Kith targeted them with the dorsal weapons blister and fired, cutting the leader down in seconds and firing again at the wingman. The pilot dodged by breaking off and falling to beyond effective weapon range, shadowing us just on the edge of sensors for a few seconds before we realized what he was doing. Cadence spoke up.
"That son of a clanner is ghosting us! He's giving our position to every loyalist on the planet! I can't decrypt his communications but he's gotta be!" Cadence pounded his fist on the console and cursed in a language I was unfamiliar with. Kith unbuckled and leapt from his seat suddenly.
"I'll take him. I put the ship on autopilot. One of you will have to man the weapons."
So shocked was I, that I didn't have time to command him to come back or do anything else. It annoyed me to no end to not have made the decision myself, even if I agreed with it. He was off the bridge before any of us could raise protest. I motioned for Solaria to take the seat and she reluctantly unbuckled and made her way to the station, gingerly touching the controls and keeping her hands far from the dropship yoke.
Three agonizing minutes later, Kith came on the comm.
"This is Kith, I'm set to launch, pop the portside fighter bay open and hold your course, launching is tricky enough without any maneuvering to compensate for."
Solaria, who wasn't even beginning to think about touching the yoke or disengaging the autopilot, ran her right hand over the controls to open the bay, and after one misstep, got the bay open. I watched on the tac-grid as his sleek fightercraft shot from the bay like a dart and closed on the pursuer. The loyalist pilot must have been extremely surprised, and responded by breaking into a hard turn and dive while moving to flank speed, with Kith hot in pursuit like a peregrine diving on a sparrow. Compared to aerospace fighters, conventional atmospheric craft were cheap and flimsy, with weak armor and weaponry, but usually far quicker and maneuverable. However, in this case Kith had every advantage by virtue of technology and power. I watched in amazement as the two birds dove into a narrow canyon and disappeared from scope, Kith gaining rapidly in the final seconds.
"Looks like we have some new contacts bearing in sir," called Kith over a rather static filled comm frequency. He was probably getting some interference from the canyon and surroundings.
"Solaria, get that weapons firing control figured out just in case anyone gets within range," I said. "but lets let Kith do the work. I don't want to risk altering our course." She responded with a quick affirmative and carefully brought up the system and worked it with her right hand. Dedicated gunnery officers usually ran dropship fire control systems, but none of us were sure how to set that up right now, having only seen Kith work the controls from the station a few minutes earlier. Later we would learn that Cadence could have managed that portion of the system from the other pilot chair beside Solaria, but for now we were in the dark. The gloom of the desert night seemed to reach into our artificially lit command room and increase our confusion at our unfamiliar surroundings.
About a minute later Kith reappeared on radar, and came hurtling towards us. We felt the ship sway slightly with his fighter entering the bay before the autonav system corrected for the new load. He paced through the bridge doors a minute later and relieved Solaria of her position at the helm.
"I seen no sign of pursuers Kith, looks like you drove them off," I stated simply.
"Yeah, but he got away alive. So did the other two who were pursuing, I'm a little puzzled at their reaction, sir. But we're clear."
There wasn't much more we could do except get off their search vector and then work on doubling back to the Poseidon. We had some other items of business, such as the captives and bodies onboard, and after a quick discussion we came to a conclusion and found a small sub-polar village of perhaps several hundred residents to ditch our human cargo, living or otherwise.
The locals had come outside in the dark night, awoken by our massive vessel and it's roaring engines. We couldn't see the stares and expressions on their groggy faces but it must have been a night to remember for the sleepy hamlet. We set down just outside of town, piled the people and bodies on the ground, left a satchel with a thousand c-bills and some gear and blasted off before anyone could get up the courage to approach us.
Kith ran nape of the earth all the way to the Poseidon's drop zone and slowed the Leopard down so we didn't surprise them too badly. I ordered Cadence to patch me through on a short range encrypted frequency.
"This to Leftenant Strovski to Captain Siampa, am currently closing on intercept vector to your position. Do you copy?" The speaker was quiet for several long moments before I got a response.
"Alvaria here. Good to hear you're enroute Leftenant. Did you manage to achieve your mission objectives?"
"Affirmative Captain. We have a new ride for you here." I looked at my lance and grinned, eliciting smiles in return.
"Then don't bother to set down Leftenant. You are needed immediately at the firebase battle. Alpha lance is pinned down and is under heavy enemy fire. I was called to come evacuate them but will not be able to get airborne for thirty minutes." I heard Zanshin swear in Kuritan and Solaria sigh audibly. We certainly didn't need a toe-to-toe pitched battle with a lance of heavies, and we had been up all night, but there was no choice in the matter.
"Affirmative Captain, we will head there immediately. Send us an upload of navigational data and send a coded message to Alpha lance that we're coming, and in an enemy dropship so our IFF transponder will show us as a hostile. We don't need to get shot down by our own troops." Ideas swirled in my head… Broadcasting on an enemy IFF frequency would show us as a friendly to the opposing mechs, even if they had been informed about the dropship seizure. If they hadn't, they would assume we were reinforcements and we could get in a few cheap shots in the ensuing confusion…
"Wait, Alvaria, tell Alpha to fire at us, but not hit, or only with minor weaponry, just enough to make it convincing that we are not Grenadiers. That could be used against the loyalists pretty effectively." Kith turned in his seat and gave me an evil grin. I could tell immediately that this idea was very much to his liking.
"Good idea, Leftenant. I will send that message. You have about ten minutes flight time. Good luck." I heard Kith mumble out of the side of his mouth 'eight' as he veered the ship to starboard and pushed us to full throttle.
"Alright mechwarriors. Get to your mechs and power up. Turn off your IFF transponder until they figure out the ruse, and concentrate all firepower on the flanking mechs and then get clear to the side. Kith and I will stay onboard and strafe them. Try to pick off whichever mechs we damage the heaviest in the first pass. Kith, are you going to be able to operate port and starboard weapons simultaneously?" I asked amongst my flurry of instructions.
"No, not while flying at the same time, here," he said as he reached over with his left hand, taking the yoke in his right, as he brought the co-pilot gunnery terminal to life, his hand flying over the controls deftly, "use this station, it's the gunner station. I'll control the fore, port, and dorsal cannons, you can control starboard, aft, and ventral weapons."
I stood and moved to the station. Zanshin, Cadence and Solaria had already moved to the bridge door but halted when I called out.
"Team, this is going to be a big battle, but remember the objectives, distract and flank them to help Alpha get out from cover, but do not try to fight toe-to-toe with these heavies. Hit and fade, then back up Alpha and take orders from the Colonel, alright?" Good pep talk. Zanshin looked eager.
"Yes sir, we'll finish this up quickly" affirmed Zanshin. Solaria looked at Cadence, who had a grim look and then at me and nodded. His light Raven was not in it's element doing close-quarters combat with heavy mechs, and I could bet he'd be travelling at top speed the whole time.
They turned and exited the bridge, and Kith got down to giving me a crash course on the weapons terminal. I'm a quick study when it comes to fire control systems, and I felt pretty confident by the time were were closing on the battlefield. Kith retracted the foreward bridge blast shield and we got our first glimpse of the firefight raging before us.
Alpha and Echo lances were in the middle of a deep valley which was steep on the eastern edge from which we were approaching, but more weathered and rounded on the western edge, where five heavy loyalist mechs were camped out. The opposing forces were outside of effective weapon range of all but LRMs and PPCs, and at extreme range for even those. The Grenadiers would have to cross a killing field with no cover to reach the entrenched loyalist positions, or come under lengthy long-range assault if they tried to backtrack and climb back up the steep cliff. Either plan would lead to the loss of several mechs, so the call for dropship fire support would have been the only way out without casualties.
As we closed the distance rapidly I saw Kith pop the mech bay doors and prepare to make his strafing run. After the shock of the first pass we'd have precious little time to unload Bravo under enemy fire, but hopefully the enemy had not yet been informed of the capture of our new vessel. Alpha and the enemy mechs were exchanging flurries of PPC fire when we roared over the cliff face and into range, quieting their engagement briefly before brilliant green laser bursts began reaching up to meet us from Alpha and Echo lances on the ground. Mostly ineffectual light and medium laser fire touched our ship, the bulk of it blinking harmlessly by but lighting the night spectacularly. In the scattered light I caught sight of the enemy Warhammer, possibly the same one from the first fight, waving or motioning with it's left-hand cannon. Suckers.
"NOW!" shouted Kith as his right hand worked the weapon controls. He banked the ship slightly to allow the dorsal weapons to bear north with the starboard guns and let loose with the full fury of the ship's weaponry. I lagged behind, selecting the flanking enemy Rifleman for a target, and fired my weapons as well. The fullisades knocked the enemy mechwarriors down amidst a flurry of explosions and debris. Kith kept his guns hot as we shot overhead, training his guns on the Axeman now as it scattered for cover. The enemy Warhammer was the only one to react in time, pulsing two searing PPC blasts into our fuselage that rocked the ship. Bravo team let loose with a full barrage out the open mech bay doors and the damage they did was considerable.
I lurched forward in my seat as Kith banked and brought us in for a hot landing about 300 meters northwest of the enemy mechs. He managed to continue firing his weaponry the whole time, forcing the loyalists to keep their heads down while Bravo team unloaded and swept north.
Suddenly a hail of rockets and shells rained down on our position as the enemy lance recovered and focused fire on our stolen Leopard. The ship rocked under the successive blasts and Kith worked to get us airborne as quickly as possible. With my guns not in a useful firing arc, I fixed my attention on the external cameras to see the progress of Bravo lance. It took me several seconds to switch the cameras to light amplification so I could see in the black night beyond our vessel.
Solaria and Zanshin were firing all their weaponry at the Catapult that Kith had knocked down earlier, and as the mech turned to flee the beam of Solaria's PPC cut into and through its cockpit. The mech crashed headlong into the dune at it's feet, sending grains of desert sand up in a dense cloud.
Kith worked the controls furiously and brought the Leopard into the air again as lasers and rockets rocked the vessel and sent our answering fire astray. I focused my reticle on the Warhammer, which seemed to be the commander, as Kith sent us back on our approach vector. Suddenly I was thrown hard against my restraints as the 'Hammer hit us again with a dual PPC blast. Klaxons sounded and the bridge lights flickered as we listed violently to port and started losing altitude. My display screamed a dozen alerts at me that I couldn't interpret.
"We just lost all lateral thruster controls! Damn he's good!" swore Kith as we headed for the edge of the cliff and the northernmost enemy mech. We would almost clip him… suddenly I realized with a horror that the enemy Axeman had us exactly where he wanted us…
"Kith! Evade the Axeman now!" I shouted above the battle sirens and warning alerts.
But it was too late, as our momentum had taken us on our course and at just the right altitude for the Axeman to capitalize on. Like Zanshin's Hatchetman, it wielded a huge titanium blade in its right hand, only the Axeman was half-again the weight of a Hatchetman. The pilot took two steps and lifted the axe high above his head with both arms, then brought the axe down our portside engine mount. I was thrown again hard in my seat from the impact and winced at the wrenching wail of the spine of the ship being wracked and warped. Kith lost all control and before we could respond the ship hurtled down into the valley and plowed into the ground, leaving a hundred-meter long trench of melted glass and debris.
Kith, swearing violently, worked to cutoff the engines and stabilize the now-beached vessel. Emergency venting was hissing all around us and we had depressurized the cabin in the crash. Meanwhile the klaxons continued and I shouted to Kith over the din.
"I'm going out there, you lock this down and get your fighter clear when you can, don't be long."
He nodded and I sprinted from the room and down the corridor to my mech bay. I mounted Eltanin and rushed the startup process. Luckily we were far enough away and out of line of sight to the enemy mechs, so I wasn't under fire. I impatiently slammed on my tac grid to come to life to report on the status of the battle. Had Alpha and Echo lances taken the chance to get out of the valley and joined with Bravo? What was going on out there?
Finally the screens came to life and I burst from my mech harness and leapt off the ship, feeling it sway underneath me. Seeing little but blackness outside I switched to my light amplification module and continued on my course. I broke into a run and brought up the radar and assessed the situation.
Alpha and Echo lances had indeed broken away and climbed the wall, and were close to joining battle with the loyalists. Bravo was north of them and fighting closely with one enemy contact. I crested the rise just in time to get my first sight of the night combat.
Zanshin was right on the Axeman, and ducked a terrific swipe of the other mech's massive blade. The Axeman was smoking and nearly glowing from his wounds, but that made him appear all the fiercer. Zanshin's shoulder-mounted autocannon lit the night brightly as it raked the ethereal giant's chest, knocking him off-balance and preventing a second swipe. Just then in streaked Solaria's LRMs, striking him all over the left side. The Axeman then fired his cannon, blasting Zanshin's left hip and nearly severing it. This seemed to enrage Zanshin all the more who advanced on the larger Axeman and furiously rammed it head on. The massive machine tottered for a brief moment before crashing to its back with arms splayed. The Axeman raised his axe in defense against Zanshin as he advanced another step and brought his hatchet across to knock the axe aside, and then down with both hands, cutting completely through the now outstretched arm and into the chest of the mech.
The cockpit seal popped and blew as the pilot ejected rearward in a low arc, abandoning his now useless mech. Zanshin leapt his Hatchetman to his feet and grabbed the axe, taking off at a run, and none too soon as the Axeman's self-destruct went off, vaporizing the remnants of the mighty machine.
I reached the battlefield just then and my mechwarriors turned to face me. Zanshin's mech looked positively menacing holding the duel melee weapons, silhouetted by flaming backdrop of the burning Axeman behind him.
"Two down sir, three to go," he rumbled into his comm, "but my hip joint is damaged, I'm not going to be able to make top speed."
"Alright team, good work so far, lets give Alpha some covering fire now."
We skirted the burning wreckage of the Axeman and topped the hill, giving us a clear vantage point on the situation on the top of the plateau. The Warhammer was still standing, backpedaling westward while keeping up a steady barrage of PPC blasts. The Rifleman was crouched behind a boulder, bracing it's quadruple cannons on the boulder like a machine gunner and chattering off a steady stream of high explosive ammunition towards Alpha lance, raking the entire team as they advanced.
The last enemy mech was unidentifiable, so mangled was it, and caught in the half-moon crossfire of the heavy Alpha lance. Sara's PPC blasts reached it in tandem with heavy lasers from Terrance's Shadow Hawk and it blew apart in a smoldering cloud of gas and burning fluids.
"All units engage the Warhammer, Zanshin, I'll leave it to you to turn off that lead hose." I quipped, meaning the Rifleman.
Solaria and I broke into a run, with Cadence skirting far around and behind and moving at nearly unsafe velocities. I saw the Warhammer's PPCs lance out and strike Kellie's Thunderbolt, knocking her flat on her back, off-balanced as she was from the Rifleman's fullisade. The Rifleman turned his cannons on Terrance now as fire from Alpha struck all around him and shattered his cover.
Zanshin though, should have been his target, as suddenly the Rifleman realized the Hatchetman was nearly on him and swung to face his attacker. Zanshin chose that moment to activate his mech's searchlight directly on his quarry, blinding him, and realizing that he would not close the distance to the mech in time, reached back with both hands and flung the dual blades into the night air. The weapons hurtled end over end and the hatchet glanced harmlessly aside, but the axe struck home and the keen edge bit deeply into the Rifleman's chest, down into the ammo bins, and the mech blew in half from the explosion that followed.
The Warhammer was now at a full run, having let off one last series of blasts and turned. Our lasers and PPCs found his backside and dug deep scars. He couldn't outrun us all, and I thought for sure that we had him when my threat indicator screamed at me. I checked the scope and caught a brief glimpse of four enemy fighters closing at top speed. Before I could utter a command, they were on us.
They must have been called in by the loyalists to bomb Alpha lance while they were pinned down. Suddenly it made sense to me why those fighters had disengaged with us so suddenly half an hour earlier. They had been recalled here for a bombing run. All this flashed through my mind in the split second before the bombs dropped all around us. Luckily, they were dumb-bombs and not very accurate, but all the same I took one to the right shoulder and found myself laying on the ground with gravel and sand raining down on me from the dozens of blasts all around. Cadence was the only one who returned fire, lighting up the one that lagged behind and destroying it in midair by hitting the bomb rack.
I checked my damage assessment and saw that it was bad, but my arm was still functional. Alpha lance was scattered on the ground and a few columns of smoke were climbing into the dark sky. The fighters swung around for a second pass but instead made for the dropship.
Here they met a rude surprise. Kith leapt up to meet them, his custom LAM boring straight for the leader with PPCs ablaze. The wingmen maintained course as their leader disintegrated, Kith blasting nearly through the debris cloud and climbing high to swing in behind. The other two pilots kept remarkable discipline as they made their bombing run without changing heading, despite the predator closing in. I watched in dismay as the bombs struck home on the Leopard, completely obliterating the ship as the hydrogen fuel cells ignited and took the Leopard and its surrounding earth up to heaven on a pyre of light and vapor.
The enemy fighters, now relieved of their bomb load, shot off for parts unknown as Kith pursued at top speed. Within seconds they were nearly over the horizon and out of radar range.
I checked the scope for the Warhammer. He had escaped us in the chaos the fighters had created. Escaped us again, I realized. I secretly wished the Leopard hadn't been demolished so that I could have checked the records to discover who he was, as he was obviously no rookie pilot. But I also was secretly thankful that the Leopard, and any evidence on it, was now vaporized.
"Bravo lance, report your status." I commanded into my mic.
"Cadence here, undamaged," he reported.
"I have to find my hatchet, and have to limp, but I'm okay," called Zanshin.
Silence.
"Solaria?" I scanned the area… where was she? I found her Griffin facedown a hundred meters behind me, smoke rising from its back and shoulder. The missile rack was crushed and laying to the side.
"Solaria, do you copy?" I heard the comm finally respond and breathed a sigh of relief.
"I… I'm here sir. I'm in the red pretty much everywhere," she responded with a shaking voice.
The Colonel came on the comm just then.
"Vance, that was a helluva nice job with the Leopard. Do you have the Warhammer on scope?"
"No sir, he's gone."
"Frag. What's your lance status?"
"Zanshin disabled and Solaria crippled, but all pilots accounted for."
"Alright, Alvaria will be here in fifteen minutes, we're going to salvage what we can and get the frag out of here. I want you and Cadence on perimeter patrol while I clean up here."
"Yessir. Cadence, let's scout west and try to locate that Hammer."
We spent the next few hours providing a roving patrol. Alvaria was down before we even got to the perimeter but there was a lot of salvage to take care of and I soon lost count of the number of times we circled the Poseidon's drop zone. About an hour into it Kith returned, his fighter looking a little worse for the wear, with dozens of hits on it. He trailed smoke as he soared overhead but I didn't get on the comm to ask him anything. I got the chance to practice some good detail scouting with Cadence, and discovered how thorough and good he was at it. We had started developing a complicated series of hand signals and gestures to avoid using the comm when we were recalled to the ship.
I made my way up the ramp and loaded Eltanin into the mech bay. It wasn't until I got out that I realized how bad the bombing run had hit us. Alpha lance was blasted and blackened, and missing weapons and limbs here and there. Kellie's Thunderbolt was lying on the floor sans the left leg, and Sara's new Uziel was minus its missile launcher. Cadence and I were the only two operational mechs most likely. Had the Warhammer returned with us on patrol, it may have been the end of the Grenadiers.
Cadence was already down and waiting for me at Eltanin's feet. His expression matched my attitude as I drew out a smoke and lit up. He tilted his head and smiled a bit.
"Sir, we really need to find an easier assignment."
We both laughed and made our way for the debriefing. The ship shuddered underneath us as the main drives came online and techs scurried to secure all the mechs and spare parts with myomer cinches. We weren't quite to the lift when the launch warning sounded so we just grabbed a nearby handhold and waited it out. Once fully airborne we continued to the SitRep room and admitted ourselves.
The warriors looked weary and dazed. Cadence, having had some sleep, and me with my adrenal injecting medipack, were both bright and alert. This seemed to annoy the others somewhat. I noticed that Kellie and Solaria were absent, and Terrance's head was bandaged. Sara's shoulder wound showed signs of new bleeding.
We took our seats and the debriefing began.
"First off, we all owe Vance and his team for the rescue tonight. I think we all know what the result would have been had they not showed up just then. Vance, you'll be getting a fat bonus off of this one. We're heading for nav Rho now to do some repair work. Oh, and Solaria is fine. She's having her shoulder operated on right now and has a minor concussion as well."
I nodded and Cadence breathed a sigh of relief. I shot him a quizzical look and then returned my attention to the Colonel.
"Why don't you fill us in on your side of the op and include any relevant details."
So I launched into the story, the heavy lance we encountered, how we tricked them, the highway heist, the inflitration of the airfield and our capture by the Wasps, and then a carefully crafted version of my escape and seizure of the dropship. Kith interjected occasional comments about the enemy's fighting prowess and organizational methods. I mentioned about the 'Baron', but not his full name and about how we fled with the ship and dumped the bodies near the pole.
Then the Colonel filled me in on his side of it, how they had engaged and tracked the Warhammer, which had then led them into the trap in the valley after a long chase through the desert canyons. I interrupted and mused aloud.
"Whoever that Warhammer is, he is very good." All eyes came to me. "He escaped the first encounter, then lured you into the bombing trap, he was the one who knocked Kith and I out of the sky by hitting us precisely on our lateral thrusters, and I don't think I saw him miss once in that whole firefight." All eyes were getting wider and eyebrows going up as they all recalled the accuracy and realized that I was right.
"What's more, did you notice that he could make better speed than your average Warhammer? And that he had clan PPCs mounted? He's modified that thing very heavily. That doesn't sound like a rebel to me. He's a professional, whoever he is."
I knew I had to be right. He was a mercenary or infiltrator. Had to be. Commander or not, he was a pro. Terrance cut in.
"S'right. And did you see how his ride didn't match the others? They's all gray and he's got his done up all in hoity toity arctic camoflauge, like he didn't have time to repaint it." He gave me an approving nod. That got me thinking
"Who has time and money enough to bring a modified clan-teched Warhammer from some mission on an ice planet, a pro, to this rock to command a bunch of rebels loyal to Steiner?" I asked.
Just then Cadence piped in for the first time.
"Well, when I was waiting for the rest of Bravo at the river, I sliced their comm frequency and listened in, I recorded the entire conversation. It's about two hours worth of chatter. One of them was an academy graduate and the rest of them were newbies. What if they brought in one elite lance and split them up to command all the various rebel lances?" Nice thinking kid. Glad you're on my team. The Colonel concluded the discussion.
"Alright, Cadence I want you to get that tape with the intel people ASAP. Kurato, see what you can pick out of it." At this he gestured to the Recon element leader, who would have also been assigned to intel. A nod was all that he responded with.
"For now, we repair our machines and get some rest. Vance, you and Kith are on standby. I want you to take first shift out patrolling and Kith you be ready to launch if we get any enemy contacts."
Kith and I met eyes, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. No rest for the weary. And as the dropship set down in the rugged polar terrain, I realized that this long night was about to get a whole lot longer. I noticed my pack of cigarettes was nearly empty. This is going to be a very, very long night…