[CHAPTER 6 – "Black's Rebuttal": Eaton: April, 3061]
I felt the cool breeze flutter over my body as I looked off to the distant starry horizon. I had Eltanin's running lights down to a minimum and the searchlight off so I could adjust my eyes to the darkness. The desert night was cold and deep, like a great black ocean, except much quieter.
After two hours of patrolling the canyon and perimeter I had staked out a number of good observation points that overlooked the most likely approach routes. This spot was probably the best of them all, with a tight enclave for a mech to rest in while crouched behind so I could stand on the top of it with just enough clearance to get a clear view all around.
I brought my rangefinder binoculars back up and looked to the tallest peak to the south. A valley led from the base of the peak nearly to our location and it seemed a vulnerable avenue of approach. On the other side of the eastern ridge of the valley, however, was a narrow and steep canyon, which had possibly once boasted running water, which would make a very good stealth route. I lowered the binoculars and prepared to remount my mech.
A flash of light caught my eye suddenly and I snapped back to search for it. There. Right in the valley something was moving and I could see running lights. Then they all went black again. I swung into the cockpit and landed heavily in the command couch, strapping in and closing the hatch all in one motion.
I bade Eltanin to stand fully upright and engaged my night scope, making a quick check to ensure my radar was off. Scanning the valley visually, I soon noticed the culprits. A column of tanks, four in view, was crawling through the dust and dirt, nearly obscured by the ridgeline. They looked like heavy tanks, but weren't Demolishers. I didn't recognize the design anyhow. I pulled up a target recognition table on my tac-grid and failed to find a good match. Each were driven by ten large wheels and mounted two rather large cannons on what seemed to be a central turret. They looked like modified troop carriers of some sort. Whatever they were doing here, we could assume they weren't friendly. I keyed my mic and checked in.
"Vance here. I've got four possible bandits on scope bearing 230 from your position at a range of about 20 clicks. Armor assets of some sort. Please advise." The comm was silent for a while before Terrance's voice came on.
"Right Vance. Kurato is sending a scout to check that out. Me, Huntress, and Diane are mostly repaired and will join you in the field in about ten minutes, so sit tight. Oh, here's Kurato."
"Good evening, Leftenant. Can you give me more details on the approaching enemy?"
"I don't recognize the design. Looks like a wheeled tank or artillery piece of some sort. They have massive cannons on them, here, I'm patching the view in, sorry for the resolution." I worked my command computer to send a visual link to the ship then.
"Most curious. I must speak with the Colonel. Also, I am finished with Cadence and am releasing him back to patrol. Kurato out."
I chuckled to myself. He didn't mince words much. I turned my attention back to the vehicles and followed their progress as best I could, counting two more of the same type. After a few minutes I got a sitrep from the recon element.
"This is recon five, I have visual on the armor. I count six artillery pieces. Looks like Leftenant Strovski is right. They are just below the ridgeline out of sight at times but are definitely closing on our position."
Just then the Colonel came on the comm.
"Vance, I want you to join Echo lance and Terrance who are heading your way. Run passive. Leftenant Jalastar will lead this raid. Huntress, you need to take out those pieces before they fire on our staging grounds. Lets hope they don't have our position marked yet because they are probably within range. Get out there and eliminate them asap."
I knew Leftenant Paula Jalastar was more experienced and probably skilled, but I still felt like a stallion tethered to an oxen. Happy to operate independently, but taking orders from someone the same rank as me was not my idea of a good time. I swallowed my pride and walked down the hill to meet Echo lance.
Huntress's Catapult was looking tarnished from the bombing run, but without or without scars a Catapult was a solid mech. They boasted excellent fire control systems and thick armor. Huntress has modified hers in a brilliant manner, having moved the Arrow IV artillery piece to the opposite shoulder and placed a fake Arrow piece where it was normally mounted, complete with fake steel missiles and the works, while the real system was hidden behind a missile rack door.
Diane Lawson in her new Locust seemed to huddle behind Huntress a bit. She didn't seem to like being in such a small and weak machine and noticing the slight limp, I recalled Solaria's shot to the leg that had won us this mech in the first engagement on planet.
Terrance, who went by the call sign Vigilante, seemed to itch under Huntress's command just like me in his Shadow Hawk, trying to stay shoulder to shoulder and not fall behind his leader. Huntress was ignoring the insinuation and I fell in behind and matched speeds as we pounded our way through the valley. A klick or two off it would turn and then we could close on and engage the armor. Terrance cleared his throat audibly on the comm and spoke.
"Huntress, shouldn't we send Diane up to spot for your Arrow?"
"Not yet Terrance. We're not even sure these tanks are carrying artillery pieces. They haven't fired yet and they're well within range. If those cannons turn out to be Gauss rifles Diane won't last ten seconds against the armor."
Damn good point, I mused. She had a killer instinct, to be sure. I didn't feel half as bad about following anymore, since she definitely knew her job well. We were probably about four klicks from the armored column now and would have them in visual range in a minute or two when we rounded the bend in the valley.
"Alright then, what's our friggin' game plan?" asked Terrance, with a disrespectful tone.
"We close and destroy them, as ordered," she replied. I decided to jump in at this point.
"Leftenant, what kind of artillery weapon might they be carrying? They're only eight klicks from the dropship zone now. Doesn't a Long Tom have better range than that?"
"Much better. That's what I don't get. And we still haven't found their spotter, which they would have to have to get the exact telemetric data. It would probably be a light hovercraft or chopper, but so far we haven't seen it."
Spotter. Another damn good point. Of course. How could they direct the salvoes without a spotter? But the recon personnel were circled around the dropship at small intervals, so it hadn't gotten through. Odds are, it was just too small of a vehicle to be seen and was still hugging the ridgeline tight enough to stay hidden. But we were almost upon them and would soon find out.
We started hugging the ridgeline ourselves single file as we started making the turn, radar and running lights off. We were navigating by sight and night vision, and as we moved, I caught sight of the lead vehicle ahead, closer than anticipated. It looked a lot more like a large APC from the front angle, but the two massive cannons on top set it apart from any APC I'd ever seen.
"That's it team, close and engage! Vance, flank right and catch any runners while you fire, Terrance, dive straight in, Diane, spot the middle one for me as soon as you can," shouted Huntress.
I pushed Eltanin to top speed and broke formation as we fanned out to engage. Still they seemed to not have noticed us and I waited for a reaction before firing. Within PPC range but I held fire… held it… held it… every second counted.
A rumble sounded and I watched Huntress's Arrow IV missile guide in on a bright jet of orange fire for the center of the column. Terrance opened fire with lasers and autocannon, chewing up the line and filling the night with screaming energy and shells. I lined up my shot on the leader just as Huntress's missile struck home. The fireball seemed to completely engulf the middle three vehicles as I depressed the trigger.
The dark night suddenly illuminated by orange flame was now lit by my blue particle projection cannon as I vaporized the two massive cannons on top of the lead vehicle. The remnants crumbled into fragments as the blast passed completely through them unhindered and just then my stomach completely bottomed out. I slammed my hand on the console and shouted.
"SHIT! We've been had! Those cannons aren't real!"
We all came to a dead stop as the realization dawned on us. The final vehicle bringing up the rear continued to drive straight ahead and crashed into the burning wreckage of the fifth. Decoys!
"Son of a…! Lance form up now, we need to return to base! Command this is Huntress, the tanks are decoys, repeat decoys!"
"Are you sure Huntress?" called the Colonel.
"Yessir! They didn't evade, they just blew up like clay pigeons. The dropship is in immediate danger! Diane, you run ahead and help defend and spot for me." She was right… Why divert a lance if you're not planning an attack? We had precious little time. I pushed Eltanin to top speed and worked to catch up to the others as we made our way back. They were several hundred meters ahead of me due to my flanking move and I started to climb a ridge to take a shortcut, using my knowledge of the terrain to my advantage. I barely felt the sting to my thigh as my medipack shot me up with battle juice.
At the apex of the ridge, I froze. Five klicks southeast, a mech was perched on top of the ridge, just like me. A mech I had never seen before and could not identify. It was small, short and squat, with reverse legs like a Catapult. As I watched it, I knew we had both crested our ridges at the same time and that he saw me as well. Then he leapt forward and dissappeared into the valley before him, out of my sight.
"Command, this is Vance, I just saw a mech drop into the valley near your position, he is less than 2 klicks from the dropship, unknown type."
"Confirmed Leftenant. The scouts just saw him too. There's got to be more of them out there."
Piss. How had they found us? The dropship staging ground was littered with our damaged mechs, various components and salvage, and our company's vehicles and personnel. The dropship could probably hold it's own against a handful of mechs for a time. Unfortunately, all it took was a few lucky shots to ruin some vital system and then we'd be stranded on this rock, fighting a static defensive battle against overwhelming numbers of enemy troops while we tried to fix the critical component. And right now, only Kith and Cadence were operational to defend. We needed to hurry.
I finally caught up to Huntress and Terrance and realized I knew a shortcut from our location.
"Follow me, this route is quicker." I called out and broke for a heading just south of the dropship. We could perhaps come in behind them.
Ahead of us the night sky brightened as battle was joined. It frustrated me to not see it as I pounded my way down the valley. Soon though, the Colonel satisfied my curiosity.
"Echo lance, we are engaging one lance of hostiles at our base of operations, Thunderbolt, Phoenix Hawk, Hunchback, and a Crab plus one more unknown. Concentrate fire! Echo we need you here now!"
Just then Diane came in on the channel.
"I'm in range, spotting for the Arrow…" she excitedly announced.
Huntress tilted and lofted a missile high into the sky, and I lost sight of it as it arced down behind the wall ahead of us and brightly lit the night ahead of us. We ran on, pushing our mechs to top speed and squeezing just a little more out, Huntress lagging behind to occasionally tilt and launch another missile.
I hit the slope at a full run, nearly losing my balance and clawed my way to the top. Terrance was right behind me and we crested the ridge together and ran headlong into the firefight raging below.
The enemy Thunderbolt fired a rack of missiles as we closed on it, swarming Diane's locust with concussions and she punched out a split second before the machine blew apart beneath her, taking several light vehicles with it. I cursed as I aimed and fired off my own missiles, striking him all over the chest and then aligned my PPC and added the massive blast to his chest wounds. Terrance joined me with his chattering autocannon and lasers, knocking the enemy mech back several steps.
A blinding laser blast struck me in the shoulder just then from across the burning wreckage of our staging grounds, but I ignored the shot as Terrance and I closed on the now backpedaling Thunderbolt. He leveled his launcher at me and my threat radar screamed at me as the rockets leapt up to ruin the armor all over my left side. Hellfire. Die you rebel piece of…
I fired again in tandem with Terrance, our beams crisscrossing and opening the Thunderbolt's chest up, and it flashed brightly as the ammo bin overheated and blew. The mech fell to the ground in a burning wreck as we reached it, flames and heat washing over us as we split and flowed around our downed quarry.
We passed through the raging inferno of our burning supply vehicles and stepped over various salvage pieces on our way. The enemy Hunchback was crushed and legless in the center of it all, and we ran past the wreckage, intent on the three remaining enemy mechs. An Arrow cruised by us and struck the enemy Crab in the left thigh as it fired its lasers at me. My mech was thrown off balance as his lasers struck my arm and in my concentration to keep from falling, I missed the result of the Arrow, but as I realigned and aimed on him, I saw him crash to the ground from the blast. His leg was mangled and torn.
He seemed to look up and reached outwards with both arms, filling the valley with laser fire at all of us as Terrance, Kith and I concentrated fire on him.
He didn't eject when his mech blew, instead he jerked forward attempting to grab Kith's LAM. Kith evaded but as the Crab erupted in a massive fireball it threw Kith's machine downhill onto the ground. I turned to face the two remaining mechs who stood uphill of us, the Phoenix Hawk and the short squat mech.
Terrance and I opened up, but hit only air as the two mechs burst skyward and backwards on jump jets. I aimed and locked my missiles on the smaller one and fired, watching with a grin as they soared in. Pull. I thought with a smile, which disappeared as he abruptly shot his side jets and the entire flight of missiles flew right past him. Frag. Terrance was similarly unsuccessful and before we could get off a second shot, they were behind the ridge.
"Echo lance, pursue now," commanded the Colonel over the comm, "I want their heads." I wanted their heads too. Partially I was pissed that they had duped us in the first place, but I was also mad about the mess they had made of all our equipment. Terrance and I were starting up the hill when Huntress yelled into the comm.
"Negative! Do not pursue! They are trying to lead us off again!"
"And why would they do that?" asked the Colonel, with a tone of great annoyance.
"I don't know but they are definitely baiting us again."
Cadence appeared from out of nowhere, his Raven completely untouched, near the top of the hill as he came on the comm.
"I know why. There are three inbound enemy bombers bearing 182." Oh bloody hell.
"Echo, you get on the south ridge and shoot them down! We're sitting ducks like this and there is still an awful lot of good equipment down there we could recover. Kith, get airborne now and bring them down!" commanded the Colonel, now sounding absolutely livid.
Kith worked to transform his mech as the rest of us got into position and they showed up on our radar just as Kith took to the sky like a bird of prey. The bombers screamed in as we sent a hail of rockets and energy fire their way, nicely masking Kith's advance. Two of them were burning before Kith even fired on the now-smoking leader, blowing the craft into fragments. The undamaged one dove and veered off the bombing run as the other damaged bomber struggled to turn and gain altitude. I sighted in and snapped off a quick shot and was delighted to see my PPC beam snip it in the tail and ruin it's rudder.
The enemy bomber crashed headlong into the canyon as we turned our fire on the last fleeing target and we all scored several hits as it smoked and exploded, the remains hurtling end over end out of sight to explode in some lonely valley.
I checked my damage indicator. Right shoulder damaged, right arm nearly destroyed, left side thrashed up, and a few rocket hits to the legs as well. This would take some work. Cadence was undamaged, Terrance and Huntress almost undamaged, but Kith's fighter didn't look very good. He had taken a lot of hits holding them off it seemed. Diane had lost her newly acquired Locust as well. The fortunes of war rise and fall…I did a scan of the ground and saw the pieces of Kellie's Thunderbolt declaring its fate as well. I hoped the enemy Thunderbolt would yield enough salvage to repair hers.
"Excellent work team. We're gonna need to relocate yet again though. All mechs fall back for repair while we load as much as we can save into the dropship. Get any salvage you can and we'll sort it all out later. Someone look for Diane too." The Colonel sounded very tired, and I could understand why. It was many long hours now into the night and many of us had had no sleep and several engagements.
I hit the wall just about then as I started to come down from my adrenaline and stimulants. I was blasted tired. The techs were out with the firefighting vehicles and soon doused the worst of it, but I didn't doubt that things would be hot for hours yet. I helped as I could by picking up good salvage pieces and placing them in the dropship, and after my first trip caught sight of Cadence entering the bay with Diane perched on his mech's shoulder. His Raven, without hand acuators, was fairly useless in the cleanup process. He and I went back out to watch the south ridge as the tech crews got to work. We followed the tracks of the two mechs for some distance but turned back before we got too far away.
Time moved as a blur as we patrolled and assisted as called, but I was past caring at this point and wouldn't have really been too much use against enemy patrols due to my tiredness. It had been well over thirty grueling hours since I had slept and no end was in sight. To pass the time, the other mechwarriors and I conducted a field debriefing over the comm.
"Its like we thought Vance," remarked Terrance, "They's good alright. Every group has three or four who aren't sure what to do and one leader who's a pro. Cadence had it nailed down last debriefing." Cadence jumped in.
"And Kurato has been analyzing that recording of their comm log. I don't know what all he's found, but from what I can tell, there are six to eight pros running the resistance. We've made a pretty good dent in their mech capability now, but there's still two or three lances unaccounted for, mostly pros. One assault lance, the warhammer, the two here that got away, and possibly one more that was alluded to."
"How much do we think they still have for air assets?" I asked, to no one in particular.
"Can't be much now, as we've downed four aerospace fighters and six conventional ones," said Kith, "but really we can't be certain." The comm was silent for a bit then a new question jumped into my head.
"Can anyone ID that lead mech from the last battle? I've never seen one like that. It had impressive jump capability and seemed to have good lasers too." Just then, Kurato came on the comm for the first time.
"That, my friends, was a clan Dragonfly, which we call the Viper."
Several profane comments followed this newest revelation as the stats and specifications of the Viper were pieced together by some of the veterans. Very good speed, excellent jump capability, and a number of weapons pods made it one of the most versatile mechs I'd heard of. This one had mostly lasers mounted but also a missile rank. More than that, we were unable to be sure of.
We continued discussing the engagement and reviewing our tactics, which we felt were exemplary minus the trick we had fallen for. Then we noticed a band of light starting to appear on the horizon. Dawn was coming. It had been more than six hours since the fight and still the tech crews worked. We had lost plenty of ammo and one-third of the salvage and workhorse vehicles, but were recovering the rest. My patience was starting to wear thin when the Colonel got on the comm.
"Alright mechwarriors, load up. We're relocating from this sand-blasted wasteland to someplace even less hospitable. This time we know we won't be found, as Kurato discovered how they found us – a beacon attached to the salvaged Uziel. We've removed it." Very sneaky of the Uziel pilot. Glad I killed him. "Get onboard and I'll meet you in the mech bay."
We were grateful to follow the order to return to base and noticed the dropship powering up. The staging ground was mostly clean, save some worthless debris and wreckage, but nearly every good part had been snapped up by the hungry techs. We'd need all that salvage to repair our machines.
I guided my mech into the bay and docked with the mech harness. I ran the shutdown procedure and climbed down, noting the great rents in my left torso armor and right shoulder damage. It'd need a lot of work to be sure. I leapt to the bay floor and walked to the gathering warriors.
We all circled around the Colonel as he explained the situation.
"We're dusting off soon and heading for the arctic circle. We're going to repair and rearm for a day or two. We still need to hit that firebase if we want to get paid for that portion of the contract, and the Governor is offering two more missions and will soon have improved recon for us so we can go back on the offensive. For now, you're on call but you can do as you will, which I'm thinking will mean you'll sleep. Good work out there today. Check with the unit financier to check your balances if you're curious what all this risk is getting you in your bankroll. Dismissed."
I stumbled to my quarters and grabbed some cash. Before I could sleep, I had a few things to take care of. As the ship took to the skies I headed to the officers lounge and purchased more cigarettes. I smoked several and ordered a few drinks while I sat back and tried to relax. Too much combat. It reminded me of the academy with the long hours and the grueling time in the cockpit, only at the academy it was all just practice and you couldn't really be killed unless you were grossly negligent. The ship soon landed and I was able to set my drink on the table now and kick my chair back. I was musing on my own mortality when Huntress and Diane strolled into the lounge and decided to join me.
"Leftenant." She nodded and made a pointing motion to the chair. I nodded that I would like company and took a nice long drag, doing them the courtesy of blowing my smoke the other way.
"Can't sleep?" Huntress was to the point. Everything about her was to the point. Simple combat fatigues with interwoven cooling pockets, one sidearm, combat knife, hair pulled back into a short pony tail. She was tall. As tall as me, and in fact her good posture made her appear taller than I, with my aloof slouching demeanor. She was in good shape, as most mechwarriors are, and actually seemed to be far more muscular than most female mechwarriors, sporting an almost stocky build, for a woman.
"Not without proper amounts of nicotine in my blood, no." I responded. Huntress smirked and Diane smiled. "What about you?"
"We already got some sleep earlier. Plus we need to be down in the mech bay in twenty," she replied. I shot my eyebrows up quizzically and Diane spoke up.
"A: All those good parts we salvaged are really messed up now. We might be lucky to get anything at all out of them, which leads to B: I need to find out if I'm gonna have a new mech or not." She sounded hopeful, but also resigned. Dispossessed mechwarriors had to rely on luck and a good deal of charm to get a new ride as quickly as possible. You made less pay when you didn't own your own mech, but it was still very lucrative. However, if you didn't get a new mech quickly, it was possible you'd be forgotten, and end up in a desk job or doing technician work. Or, even worse, infantry. Huntress nodded and looked at Diane as she mentioned her troubles as well.
"And now that I've used up all of the Arrow IV ammunition that I had, and the raiders destroyed the rest, I need to change out weapon systems on my Cat, or sit the rest of this mission out. It will take a lot of work. Hence, we need to try to fix the Cat parts we salvaged earlier. But the rebels messed them up good. Damn them."
I smirked and agreed. We spent the next few minutes discussing the materiel losses and I discovered we had ended up losing quite a bit. Besides the Catapult, most of the parts to the other salvaged mechs were ruined, and our ammunition was now critically low. The good news was that we did earn half of a Hunchback and had managed to avoid personnel casualties altogether.
After a time we all agreed that we needed to go and I saw them to the lift and then headed to my quarters for some much needed rest. Locking the hatch behind me, I washed up as best I could in the tight cramped space available and then laid out my combat gear for easy access. I reloaded my pistols, and replaced them in my tactical webbing on my flak vest. I forced myself to finish the job, resealing a new package of chloroformed cloth in the airtight plastic pouch and added a few smoke grenades to the vest from my duffel. Then I turned off my medipack and removed it, setting it next to my vest. Finally, exhausted, I collapsed into my bunk.
As I exhaled purposefully slowly and tried to relax the knot in my back, I realized that I hadn't actually slept in this bunk yet. Last sleep I had gotten was in the medical wing. Such is the life of a warrior. Most warriors could go for days without sleep, and fall asleep or wake up in seconds, but I had yet to develop this ability, and so I lay there for many long minutes. I turned the battles over and over in my head, reviewed my actions, berated myself, envisioned myself fighting them again, scoring all head hits and coming away the hero. The rich hero.
Today I had killed five men or women in cold blood, and helped kill six or seven more, and earned three and a half million c-bills. So what is that, about 300,000 per person? So that's how much a life is worth. I wonder who'll get paid 300,000 to kill me?
Dark thoughts led to darker dreams as sleep overtook me.