CHAPTER 9

Review Corner:

The Colonel: I always enjoy the product of S.T.a.R.S., for both the good and the bad guys *wink*wink*

Ulquiorra9000: Agreed. Noloty likes to jump and the Sagittaire has jump jets so they are a good match.

cklammer: Thank you. I hope enjoy it as much as I write it.


Strantor, Lyran Alliance,
November 8, 3073

Noloty set the Sagittaire in the middle of the road to get a clear shot at the Commando. She let the crosshair danced around the Commando until it burnt solid yellow on the Commando's center mass, then pulled the trigger. Blue charge whipped from the left torso, lashing the Commando right on the spot where the crosshair fell. The Commando jerked and veered off course, leaning against a warehouse for support. Its arms thrashed about, clawing the wall as its knees buckled.

Noloty hadn't forgotten about the 'curse' the Sagittaire was branded with. It had the knack of killing its mechwarrior through internal explosion. A -9D Sagittaire wasn't supposed to carry UAC-10. She suspected it might have had something to do with the wiring or ammo feeding mechanism. As long as she stayed away from the autocannons, she might be okay.

But the Commando was a sitting duck, and she just couldn't resist. She linked both autocannons together and sent a barrage of armor-piercing shells 500 meters across the field. Everything inside the cockpit pulsed as the cannons belched fire. The Commando engulfed in flames as fragmented armor flew in every direction, followed by mech body parts. What was left slowly slumped against the wall, still operational, but with not much left to offer.

Noloty didn't have time to marvel her handiwork. The Sentinels came into range and fired their cannons. Depleted-uranium shells whizzed left and right, and a few of them ricocheted off the Sagittaire armor in thunderous blasts. She gritted her teeth and pushed the joystick to the left until it touched her inner thigh. The Sagittaire responded in a slow but smooth gait. She fired her jets, and the metal beast took flight, jumping over a squat warehouse and landed on the other side, away from the Sentinel's line of fire.

The other Commando swung around the warehouse to sneak behind the Sagittaire. A sadistic smile escaped Noloty's lips as she watched the rearview camera, waiting for the Commando to foolishly harass her thin rear armor. A -5S variant, the Commando cleared the building and rained down its missiles. Noloty sidestepped the assault, missing all but three, then hammered her rear-firing lasers. The twin laser bolts gored the Commando's armor, leaving its right torso a drooping mess. The Commando broke into a sprint, but Noloty twisted her mech as far left as she could, and fired her forward-firing lasers. Two bolts missed the target, but the other one burnt another slab of right torso armor. Smoke twirled from the gash.

More missiles came from the right. Noloty went airborne again, aligning with a Sentinel taking the cheap shot, then pummeled the medium mech with cannon bursts while flying over another warehouse. The Sentinel staggered; its armor blunted Noloty's onslaught but was shredded in the process, to the point the internal structure was left exposed. Noloty overrode the shutdown sequence and send her PPC bolt into the big gash. The bolt incinerated the ammunition bins, and the Sentinel erupted in a geyser of burning metal.

All the erratic jumping and shooting pushed the temperature inside the cockpit well past tolerable level, and Noloty was drenched in sweat. She knew if she kept up her fighting style, she would blow up or shut down. She had to change her strategy. She brought the Sagittaire to a jog, zigzagging between buildings and abandoned structures, until the temperature dropped to the more manageable level.

Noloty cleared a warehouse and came face to face with the first Commando she engaged. Both arms were gone, and one of the legs was left nothing but titanium beams. All the myomer bundles had been shredded to bits. Noloty set her mech on a collision course with the Commando. The Sagittaire's trunk-like leg, as bulky as the Commando's torso, smashed into the 25-ton mech. It pirouetted before crashing into an abandoned cargo train. The Sagittaire wobbled, losing a few layers of armor from the hit, but remained in control of its course.

Four more heat signatures appeared on the radar, two more Commandos and two more Sentinels, followed by a big one, a Crockett 5004-1. There was no doubt in Noloty's mind that the quintessential assault training mech was piloted by the lead instructor, presumably Kommandant Nachtschatten. Adrenaline surged through her veins. Back then, she was at the mercy of the pervert. Now they were in equal footing, and suddenly her sacrifice mission turned into vengeance.

But first she had to get rid of the pesky Commandos and Sentinels.

The newly-arrived lance took a loop on her left, aiming for her rear armor, while the Commando and Sentinel double-teamed her from the front. Noloty fired her jets again, bringing the Sagittaire to fly over a row of conveyor belts. Missiles and ballistics went trailed her, but she landed and ducked behind a conveyor belt. The missiles swept the conveyor belts in a series of explosions, while the armor-piercing shells set up major fire along what remained. The inadvertent firewall separated the Commando and the Sentinel from the newly-arrived lance.

Noloty took a quick sprint and jumped to an open area, right behind the Commando and Sentinel. She trained her forward-firing weaons at the Sentinel then unleashed a volley fire, starting with the UAC10, then the lasers. The Sentinel rocked back and forth. Gear fluid and coolant bled from deep gashes. It returned fire, but the rushed shot missed the Sagittaire in spectacular fashion. Noloty thumbed her trigger, and her particle beam decked the Sentinel at the midriff. It slumped to its knees, writhing and squirming, using its long-barreled cannon as support.

The Commando tried to cut Noloty's path but inadvertently put itself in front of the Sagittaire. Noloty braved the missile rain and rammed her Sagittaire into the Commando. The 25-ton mech tumbled backward, falling on its butt in a burning conveyor belt. The blistering heat made the Commando moved in slow motion, crawling out of the furnace at snail pace.

The newly-arrived lance split to trap her in yet another crossfire. The Commandos swung wide left while the Sentinels came straight at the Sagittaire from its 2 o'clock direction. Noloty swiveled her joystick and jumped, bypassing the conveyor belts, and landed next to a few containers for raw materials. She busted through the containers, and cut the path of the sneaking Commandos. Missiles and lasers leapt from their tubes, and the Sagittaire's left torso took the brunt of it. Noloty groaned as the explosions threw her around in her seat. Her head throbbed and her vision cartwheeled into a shade of grey. Spark and smoke gushed from the Sagittaire's left torso. Her console went livid with warnings. She knew she suffered critical hits, and she knew she couldn't afford another one like that.

But the Sagittaire had not blown up or incinerated her in the cockpit.

"My turn!" she yelled as she pulled 'Walking Fire', firing her automatic cannons in a wide arc to hit both Commandos simultaneously. The muzzle flash of the multi-barreled cannons made her squint while the gunfire burst drowned the warning klaxons inside the cockpit. Her depleted-uranium slugs swiped the area with murderous intention, chewing everything within sight, including the two Lyran Commandos.

As the Commandos strained to stand, Noloty trained all energy weapons at the closest Commando and let them rip. Her laser trio weakened the armor, softening the path for the particle bolt to dig deep into the mech core. The Commando lurched as molten armor dripped like blood gushing from gutted torso. Noloty paused briefly, waiting for the autocannons to reload, then fired a controlled burst at the Commando. The armor-piercing slugs shredded the engine and a fireball tore the Commando from inside. A big chunk of burning metal pelted the other Commando which foolishly stood too close to the exploding mech. It damaged the foot actuator, forcing the Commando to limp away to safety.

The two Sentinels found a clear passage toward the Sagittaire and took the shot. Noloty grimaced as the slugs ripped the rear armor of the Sagittaire, already weakened by numerous pot shots during the course of the battle. She twisted right to expose her nigh-pristine right torso armor to the incoming shots. The depleted-uranium slugs brutalized the armor, digging gorges and craters from the flat top down to the joint where the body met the legs. But the armor held fast blunting the onslaught to protect the machinery inside.

Noloty maxed out the throttle and swung around an old rusty mill to take cover. The engine critical damage dropped the running speed to 40 kph, but it was enough to keep her out of trouble. The Sentinels quickly caught up with her, spraying missiles and cannon rounds every time they had a clear shot. But Noloty bobbed and weaved her way around facilities, placing covers between her and her attacker, increasingly agitated her attackers.

One Sentinel ran out of patience and came too close to the Sagittaire, and Noloty punished it with her rear-firing lasers. The twin bolts peppered the Sentinels' right torso, threatening the missile box and its ammunition stored underneath. Discombobulated, the Sentinel changed course to deal with the Sagittaire rear batteries, and inadvertently gave Noloty a much needed room to maneuver. She fired her jets to pivot, twisted left until the Sentinel fell into her firing arc, then blasted all weapons on her left 'arm'. Half of the cannon slugs hit the dirt, but the rest struck home, the indent between the center and right torso. Shards gushed from the impact, and the Sentinel teetered on its heels. Noloty continued to pivot and brought her PPC to bear. The blue bolt stunned the Sentinel. She aligned her crosshair with the bulbous hull of the Sentinel and brought down another hail of depleted-uranium slugs. The Sentinel's cannon-laden arm twisted under the intense pressure. Sparks burst from the shoulder where the arm joined the body. Robbed from its primary weapon, the Sentinel chose not to contest the Sagittaire's superiority.

The last Sentinel wisely turned around and left the battlefield.

Noloty quickly assessed the damage. The Sagittaire's left torso fared the worst, with most of the armor plates gone. Its front torso armor was mangled from hitting one Commando. Its rear armor was ground beyond measure. The ammunition was critically low. Its damaged engine could only put out 80-percent power, and that was being optimistic. Her wild guess was the Sagittaire was only 40-percent combat effective.

That was what she had against the Crockett, who was coming straight at her.

"If my cadets had half your heart, I would take them to Arc Royal for a showdown with the 13th Wolf Guards," a familiar voice reverberated through the Crockett's external speaker. "Instead I am left with dim-witted cowards who ran away from a single battlemech." The Crockett trained all weapons at the Sagittaire. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Remember me?" Noloty hissed on her comset.

"Well well, it's the Kuritan bitch," Nachtschatten chuckled wryly. "Then maybe I won't kill you. I'll keep you in my lab as experiment for my favorite subject!"

"I had my hands behind my back and you still hid behind your trainees. You called your cadets cowards? Let's see how much courage you actually have, now that we stand on equal ground!"

"Equal? You beat up my coward cadets and have the guts to say that we're equal? Your skill is far beneath mine! Your mech is a Davion piece of shit! I'll have you on your knees in no time! Then I'll enjoy your screaming and squirming for as long as you live!"

"Insult me anyway you want but never… ever… insult my battlemech!" Noloty's thumb grazed the alpha-strike button. "You'd be surprised!"