CHAPTER 8

Author's Note: Noloty's stunt in this chapter, and the next 2 chapters, are loosely based on the heroics of several Medal of Honor recipients, namely Audie Murphy, John Basilone, Paul Ray Smith, Gary Gordon, and Randy Shughart. I'd love Noloty to be a hero, but not Mary-Sue hero where she can stride into battles with cold face and slaughter her enemies just by breathing on them. I'd like my heroine to have leadership and compassion like those men. Their sacrifice is what makes them heroes.

Review Corner:

The Colonel: Agreed. But it takes time to get to that point. Stay tuned for more.


Strantor Military Academy,
Strantor, Lyran Alliance,
November 8, 3073

When they returned to the abandoned factory, paramedics put the injured mechwarrior on a stretcher and hauled him away. Other operatives brought clothes for Noloty and the other mechwarrior who, despite the bulletproof vests, were still naked. The base was frenetic with every Black Dragon operative running about, mostly carrying weapons of some sort.

"Every man to your post!" Gryphon orchestrated the base defense. "I need double protection on Sector 8. Get the mortar squad to back up Sector 3. The Lyrans will come from the north east. They're coming in hard and fast from the northeast. But if we have to give these bastards our lives, we'll give them hell before we do!"

Noloty watched the faces of the Black Dragon operatives. Their young faces were full of determination. She knew where everything was going, and she didn't like it. So many talents would be wasted. And for what, exactly. She came to realize that Black Dragon Society had no respect towards their own assets. Most, if not all, of these men would be slaughtered by the Lyrans and forgotten by the Black Dragon Society.

She wouldn't have it that way.

Noloty came by Gryphon and grabbed his arm. "Do you have any other exit strategy?"

"What exit strategy?" Gryphon shot a nasty glare at Noloty. "You mean 'retreat'?"

"Don't waste these lives," she looked at him in the earnest. "They are too young to die in this place."

"It's the Bushido's way!" Gryphon sneered.

"No! It's the Black Dragon's way!" Noloty lashed out. "They put us in this situation to do their will without regards of our lives! Have you ever thought why they want you to risk your life deep inside enemy line with no exit strategy? Did you ever stop and think of what they would benefit from your death and the death of these loyal operatives? I did, and I can't find a reason why we should give our lives for them! All I know it's not for Draconis Combine because DCMS doesn't even know we are here! We are being used!"

Gryphon grabbed Noloty's collar and pulled her to him. "I don't have time for this shit! Now if you can hold a weapon, grab one and reinforce the defense! If you don't want to, go to a corner and kill yourself in honor! Either way, get the hell out of my way!"

"Do you have any means of escape?" Noloty wasn't intimidated. "We have some time before the Lyrans arrive. Please, I beg you, get your men out of here before it's too late."

"We are not running away from battle like dogs with tails between their legs!" Gryphon pushed Noloty harshly. "This is our last stand! We'd rather die here with honor instead of living with shame!"

"You risked your life to save me!" Noloty roared.

"So you can die fighting with guns in your hands instead of their torture chamber!" Gryphon roared back. "Did the Black Dragon teach you anything about honor? I started to regret I pulled you out of the Lyran's teeth!"

"Sir!" one of the Black Dragon operatives called interjected. "Lyran light lance is coming inbound, ETA 5 minutes. Two Commandos and two Sentinels!"

Noloty shook her head. "You can't win this. Your defense will not hold against 4 battlemechs. Your men will get slaughtered and the Black Dragon will not do anything. They will just perish and be forgotten."

"It is the way of Bushido!" Gryphon put a fresh clip into his rifle. "Now do something useful! I don't have time to listen to your pestering!"

"Noloty, let's just do what we can to help these guys," the other mechwarrior grabbed her hand. "Gryphon is right. We are warriors of Bushido. There is only one way for us to die: fighting until our last breath."

But Noloty's interpretation of Bushido was not the same as everybody else's. She studied the DCMS reformation by Theodore Kurita, and she supported his point of view. Too much blood had been spilled in the name of honor, which hurt DCMS in the long run. Bushido was not blind loyalty. Wasting people's lives in the name of honor would not give them any advantage in whatever warfare they were waging.

One must know when to fight and when not to fight. The Art of War.

Her peripheral vision caught the familiar hulking mass at the far end of the building, and she had an idea. "Hook me up with Hamlet!"

"What?!" Gryphon looked at her, then at the shadow, then at her again. "You want to drive that thing? It doesn't even work!"

"That thing is the only one that has a chance against Lyran battlemechs!" Noloty argued. "I'll hold the Lyrans while you take your men to get out of here."

"So now you wanna be a hero?" Gryphon muttered unbelievingly. "One minute you're shoving that disgraceful philosophy up my ass, and now you're talking about taking the bullets for everybody else? Did the Lyran torture you so hard you're losing your mind?"

"If I don't do this, I will die, and so will you, along with your men," Noloty said. "If I do this, I will still die, but you don't have to. I said I owed you my life. I'm paying my debt."

"Noloty…" the other mechwarrior grabbed her shoulder.

"You stay with Gryphon," Noloty turned and looked at the mechwarrior. "I should've been dead with the rest of our comrades. If any of us has to die, it should be me."

"That thing can't fight worth a shit," Gryphon groused. "You can't even kill a Commando with it!"

"Then I'll draw fire," Noloty replied. "I'll get their eyes fixed on me while you take your men out of this planet, back to Kuritan space. Give yourselves a chance to fight and die with purpose. Not like this one."

"ETA 3 minutes," the Black Dragon operative yelled from the distance. "It's now or never, Sir!"

Gryphon looked at Noloty as if he couldn't make a decision. But somehow Noloty's logic got into his head. "Harpy! Set up Heishi Noloty with the Sagittaire!"

"Are you out of your mind?!" Harpy protested hard. "We don't have time for this absurd…"

"That is an order, Soldier!" Gryphon screamed form the top of his lung. "I've had enough of people questioning my decision! Get her to the Sagittaire or I'll cut your head off!" He drew his comset. "All units, abort mission! Everybody to the dropship, on the double! Now! Now! Now!"

Noloty started running toward the Sagittaire when the other mechwarrior pulled her. He took a perfect stance and snapped a salute. "Thank you," he said, beaming with respect.

Noloty forced herself to smile. "When you manage to return to Kuritan space, get yourself a better Kuritan unit to serve. The 2nd Sword of Light has too much Black Dragon influence in it. Sooner or later you'll get into the same situation, and I won't be there to cover you up."

"Noted," the mechwarrior nodded. "Good luck."

"You too," Noloty tossed a quick salute then sprinted toward the Sagittaire. Harpy was already there, waiting for her with a cooling vest and neurohelmet in his hands.

"I don't know what kind of fetish you have with this mech," Harpy griped as he handed the mechwarrior gear to Noloty. "This is nuts. You would just waste your time."

"I'll take that chance," Noloty exchanged her clothes with the cooling vest. "We should've used this mech the first time around, to add firepower against the Lyrans. We might have succeeded if we did." She gave Harpy a long soulful look as the elevator brought them to the cockpit level. "If it explodes, it explodes. In my eyes, it won't make a difference than dying in the hands of the Lyrans. But I won't just die not knowing what I can do differently if I don't give this a try. So here's for nothing."

The elevator stopped at the upper platform and Noloty eagerly jumped to the rail toward the cockpit, but Harpy didn't move. "This is as far as I go," he said, handing Noloty a screwdriver. "There's a security password sequence. Open the panel on the left bottom side. Bypass chip no.2 and it should start without password."

"Thank you," Noloty got the screwdriver then jogged toward the cockpit. Normally a tech would open the hatch and help her settle in a battlemech, but this time she had to do it on her own. She pulled the hatch open then slid inside the Sagittaire. She rushed to press the start button. A much too familiar rumble emanated from under the cockpit, music to her ears. She found the panel on the left bottom side of the console and didn't bother to unscrew the door. She just jammed the screwdriver to the door and pried it open. She had rudimentary tech skill from her training with the 2nd Sword of Light, not enough to override the security password sequence, but good enough to figure out how to follow Harpy's instruction. She made a bridge to one connector to another one with the screwdriver. The circuit burst with sparks and the light dimmed for a second, and when Noloty thought everything would lit up in a blaze, the console turned back on with all weapons lit up in green.

"Reactor… online. Sensors… online. Weapons… online. All systems nominal. Welcome aboard, Mechwarrior Balthazar."

"The name's Malche. Noloty Malche." She hooked up her neurohelmet with the console, and whistled as she read an ERPPC and two UAC-10 cannons with one ton of ammunition to spare. Her backup weapons were 5 ER Medium lasers, three of which shooting forward, the others facing the rear to discourage flankers. Three jump jets added extra agility to the 95-ton assault mech. She couldn't hold her smile. She loved to jump. She wondered how 'Highlander Burial' would feel from the cockpit. Now she had a chance to know.

"Alright, Hamlet, let's see what you can do," she said as she pushed the throttle. The joints creaked and squealed, a sure sign that it hadn't been maintained properly (or recently), but the Sagittaire followed her lead regardless. The front window was covered with dust but the movement cleared it up. She had the full grasp of what it felt to pilot an assault battlemech for the first time, and the feeling was exquisite. She felt immortal, like a goddess of war, as if nothing in this planet could take her.

The Black Dragon operatives moved to give her a swath of clear passage and Noloty led her mech gently through the cramped building, until she arrived at the exit door. She kicked her mech in high gear, amazed that she hadn't blown up, and turned on her active radar to attract the Lyrans. Four heat signatures appeared in her radar. One of them, a Commando, was coming straight at her through the open field. There was no doubt that the mechwarrior was a Lyran trainee with minimal combat skill.

"Rookie mistake," Noloty hissed as her finger rubbed the PPC trigger. "And you'll pay for that. "