CHAPTER 2
Review Corner
The Colonel: We'll get the answer to that question soon *wink*wink*
Ulquiorra9000: Unfortunately HPG link is too slow for Kayoko. She is already with a different unit, so Noloty's message is lost in cyberspace
Strantor,
Lyran Alliance
October 30, 3073
The ST-46 made the final taxi before coming to a complete stop a few dozen meters away from an Apocalypse Rover and a Bulldog truck. The shuttlecraft engines winded down as its door slowly unfurled into an airstair. Two men got out of the rover and waited at the bottom of the the airstair, waiting for the passengers to disembark.
After 8 months of drifting in space, Noloty was glad to finally walk on solid ground again. She followed Enrique as the 2nd mechwarrior coming out of the ST-46, duffle bag slung on her shoulder, one step after another until she came in contact with the pavement. Finding a spot on Enrique's left, she tipped her cap down to shield her eyes from Strantor's afternoon sun. The temperature was not that uncomfortable, but the humidity made her sweat, especially since she had been living in artificial atmosphere for 8 months. She felt rivulets of sweat streamed down her cheeks as the company finished up unloading.
"Welcome to Strantor," one of the men from the rover greeted them. "Call me Gryphon. I'm in charge of this Black Dragon cell. This is Harpy, our grease monkey. Harpy is the one that is responsible to keep our battlemechs in good condition."
"Chu-I Enrique, 2nd Sword of Light," Enrique snapped a salute. "I'm the CO. Is there a bivouac, preferably with roof and wall? Or are we going discuss mission parameters under the sun?"
"Certainly," the man who called himself Gryphon sneered. "That's why I bring in the rover and the truck."
"Right," Enrique nodded, then turned to the company. "Heishi Noloty, you come with me. The rest of you, take the truck."
Noloty followed Enrique as Gryphon and Harpy led them to the rover. Gryphon went behind the wheel as Enrique sat next to him. Harpy took the passenger seat behind Gryphon, and Noloty claimed the only seat left in the rover. She observed the rest of the company through the window. They tossed their duffle bags into the cargo bed then used them as cushions. She felt bad for them, considering she was sitting on a very comfortable seat in an air-conditioned interior. But being the acting 2IC had its benefits.
"So your mission is to blow up Strantor Academy," Gryphon said as he drove the rover, making sure the truck followed him. "Convenient, since you don't bring your battlemechs to do the job."
"We can't afford unwanted attention," Enrique muttered bitterly. "Twelve Kuritan mechs taking a trip deep inside Lyran Alliance… what would you think if you encounter such pretense? Might as well put a bullseye in our foreheads."
"Lucky we have what you need," Harpy chimed in for the first time. "Over the years we managed to accumulate 9 Chimera –C and 3 Daimyo -5K without detection. The Chimera –C is similar to the -1S with C3 Slave replacing the machine gun. The Daimyo -5K has C3 Master instead of SRM6. If you have been practicing with the prime configurations, you won't notice the difference, unless you are relying heavily on the Daimyo's short missiles. In exchange, you'll get more effective targeting/communicating systems with the C3 Network."
"We were not informed about the Daimyos," Noloty interjected.
"Doesn't matter. I'll take one, you take one, and I'll decide who among those clowns is good enough to get the last Daimyo," Enrique said. He turned to Gryphon, "How did you conceal those mechs from the Lyrans?"
"Old abandoned factory at the outskirt of Strantor's capital," Gryphon explained. "A few years ago there was a chemical leak on the factory that contaminated half of the complex. The Steiners deemed it too expensive to clean up and just evacuated. We occupied the complex where it is still safe to drink the water. We can pile up anything we want because no Steiners come and visit the place anymore."
"Smart move," Enrique turned his head to look at Noloty at the back seat. "Remember this next time we have to make an ambush."
"Yes Sir," Noloty replied nonchalantly.
The convoy went through different parts of the city until they arrived at an abandoned industrial complex. The machineries rusted heavily at some points, and the smell of waste chemicals was imminent. Heavy trucks and cargo cars were covered with dust and mud, lining up neatly next to dormant conveyor belts. Some smokestacks still puffed out smoke, although it was years since the furnaces burnt the last.
Past this part, the convoy arrived at a large storage complex. The vehicles parked in front of a makeshift battlemech hangar, where Chimera and Daimyo mechs perched proudly, like a dozen karuta-gane waiting for their samurais to take them to war. Impromptu moorings and elevators helped the techs accessed parts of the mechs in attempts to keep them in nominal condition.
As the mechwarriors dismounted the truck, Gryphon and Harpy dragged Enrique and Noloty deeper into the storage building. Gryphon produced a folder full of pictures of a young blonde man, inspecting a bunch of teenagers that looked like Strantor's new recruits.
"We have a target of opportunity," Gryphon used a low voice so the rest of the Kuritans didn't hear him. "This is Kommandant Ras Farlow, Commanding Officer of Lyran's Striking Tigers Battalion. He is at Strantor Academy, along with some of his top lieutenants. Black Dragon Society wants Kommandant Farlow killed."
"My order is to attack Strantor Academy," Enrique said. "I did not receive superseding orders to kill a Lyran officer."
"Like I said, it's a target of opportunity. We don't know how long Kommandant Farlow is staying at Strantor. If you attack in the next few days, you may accomplish both objectives."
"That soon?" Enrique cringed. "I don't even know the terrain!"
"Why does Black Dragon Society want to kill the CO of Striking Tigers Battalion?" Noloty tuned in.
"Black Dragon Society has its reason, Heishi," Gryphon said. "We're only soldiers. We do what we're told."
"No, not without common sense!" Noloty pulled Enrique aside. "Lyran high-ranking officer is expected to be heavily guarded. We are not prepared to make a surgical attack. This is not our primary objective. Rushing to meet this objective will end in disaster. I'd say we disregard this objective and focus on our original order."
Enrique looked at the folder for some time. "I want to scout the terrain first," he said. He returned to the rest of the mechwarriors. "I want to do some recon. Heishi Noloty is in charge while I'm gone." He looked at every single mechwarrior, Noloty being the last. "Her order is my order. Disobeying her means mutiny, and mutiny is punishable by death. Do you get me?"
"Yes Sir," the mechwarriors replied almost in unison.
"Carry on," Enrique nodded. He looked at Noloty, giving her a reassuring stare, then turned toward the Apocalypse rover. "Gryphon! Take me around Strantor Academy!"
Noloty didn't like it that Enrique was considering killing a Lyran high-ranking officer. Attacking an academy was one thing, killing a high-ranking officer was a different animal. A high-ranking officer didn't travel alone. He must have been protected by his best guards. The young and inexperienced 2nd Sword of Light company was in no condition to take on such force.
And why did the Black Dragon Society want him dead? What could possibly it benefit from the death of the CO of Striking Tigers Battalion? If anything, the Word of Blake would take advantage of the assassination, and the Draconis-Lyran conflict that followed. Whatever it was the Black Dragon Society tried to achieve, the Word of Blake would get it first.
But of course, Enrique was the CO. If he wanted to do it, who was Noloty to complain?
"So what do you want us to do, Ma'am?" one of the Kuritan mechwarriors asked, with imminent venom in his voice.
Noloty sighed. Traditional Kuritan units were built upon old Japanese chauvinism where warriors were identical to men. Even the more modern DCMS units were still dominated by males. She didn't know what Enrique was thinking when he put her in charge. It created a lot of friction among the mechwarriors. Especially in the 2nd Sword of Light, a unit with heavy influence from the Black Dragon traditionalists.
But Enrique put her in that position because of her standing, and she would not disappoint him. "Inspect your mechs. Make yourself familiar with the controls. Report any glitches and bugs. We want them ready for our mission."
The atmosphere suddenly shifted for the brighter. The mechwarriors enthusiastically clambered up the mechs and turned them on. They were mechwarriors, and they had been itching for operating real battlemechs for months (no, simulator pods did not count). Noloty caught some gratification in the eyes of a few mechwarriors that 'accidentally' looked at her direction. They wouldn't say it out loud. But knowing that she improved their morale, even for a short while, was an accomplishment on its own.
Noloty was about to climb a Daimyo when her eyes caught a weird shadow in the far corner of the storage building. It was a battlemech, a big one, but she had never seen anything like it.
"What is that?" she asked Harpy.
"Oh, you don't want that one," Harpy shrugged. "It's cursed."
"Cursed?" Noloty shot an incredulous look at Harpy. "This is the 31st Century, not Middle Age."
"It killed more mechwarriors than enemy battlemechs," Harpy scoffed. "3063, its maiden voyage. Something caused fire inside the cockpit. It took RSBW engineers 2 days to scrape off the remains of the test pilot. Then it switched owners a few times without ever walked in battlefields, until 3066, a wealthy sheik from Sarna March bought it to suppress those who opposed him. Again, the cockpit caught fire. The sheik never came out of the cockpit... in one piece. Then some Solaris jock bought it and used it in the arena, and finally, it made its first kill, a Highlander. But some lucky bastard scored a head shot. It was rebuilt by VEST then sold to some pirates from periphery. Ammo explosion this time. Killed the sorry bum who thought he would conquer a backwater planet with it. Then somehow it ended up here. People started calling it 'Hamlet'."
"And it's a bad thing?" Noloty winced.
"Oh come on! Hamlet? Shakespeare? The Prince of Denmark? Everybody close to him ends up dead?" Harpy grimaced. "What high school did you go to?"
"I know who Hamlet is," Noloty snorted. "But I don't believe in superstition. I'm going to take a look."
"Alright, but don't touch anything," Harpy followed Noloty two steps behind.
The closer Noloty got to the mech, the more she could figure out its true nature. But the weapon configuration still escaped her. She knew it was a Sagittaire, a FedSun battlemech. But the two autocannons hanging low on its 'arms' had never appeared in any reference she read during her tenure at Buckminster.
"What is this, a custom?" she cocked her brows.
"I think it was, at some point," Harpy replied halfheartedly. "The paperworks say it is a SGT-9D, but there are some missing parts, wrong electrical connections, wrong parts being installed. See the UAC-10? The paperworks never mentioned that the original LB10X had been swapped with those. C3 computer is gone, probably sold by the pirates in the black market. You know how it goes. The thing had more owners than Hanse Davion had children. It is a mess, Heishi Noloty. It really is not worth your time."
Noloty let out an involuntary chortle. But the intimidating appearance of the Sagittaire intrigued her. She had never seen an assault-class battlemech until now. Of course, Draconis Combine's doctrine of warfare leaned heavily toward lighter battlemechs, and frowned upon slow cumbersome beasts like this, but Noloty had never been a true Kuritan to begin with.
"Hook me up with it," Noloty said as she went to the platform.
"Now Heishi…"
"Chu-I Enrique said that I was the 'ranking' officer in this complex, did he not? Come on, hook me up with it. I just want to take a look."
"Alright, it's your ass," Harpy operated the elevator platform to bring them to the Sagittaire's cockpit. Noloty jerked the hatch open, and the dust burst into a cloud. She waited until it dissipated, then slid inside the cockpit. The interior was so wide she could stretch her arms without touching the walls. The canopy was completely covered with dust, so she couldn't see through. But the cockpit was surprisingly in good condition, like a battlemech that had been maintained regularly.
"For the deathbed of 4 mechwarriors, the cockpit seemed clean," Noloty remarked. "I expected to see a few bones scattered around here."
"It's been rebuilt at least 4 times," Harpy stuck his head inside but keep his body outside the cockpit. "God knows what happened in between."
"If it's been rebuilt 4 times, at least, don't you think somebody fixed the fire problem? There's no way it still has the same glitch that killed the first test pilot, is there?" Noloty observed the dashboard. There was an unbearable itch to stick her finger on the start button. "Do you think it still runs?"
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Stay away from it! This mech is a ticking time bomb!" Harpy yelled nervously.
But Noloty was beyond control. "You know, I'll take a jab." She pushed the start button, slightly, but before she pushed the button all the way through, Harpy yanked her arm back.
"You may be the ranking officer but I am the chief tech!" Harpy blurted. His eyes bled anger. "You shouldn't be here in the first place!"
Noloty was taken aback by Harpy's sudden outburst. She opened her mouth to bite back, but she realized she may have overstepped. "I'm sorry," she said, freeing her arm from Harpy's death grip. "I crossed the line. I will inspect the Daimyo's. Chu-I Enrique said that I should be piloting one."
"I'll lead you to it," Harpy huffed, then walked toward the hatch. "Stay away from this mech!"
Noloty threw one last glance at the cockpit before climbing up the hatch.
