CHAPTER 3
Pummelo, Outworlds Alliance,
August 26, 3074
To believe or not to believe? That was the question that had been bugging Mogami about Neptune's warning. His assessment about Commander Korra was unanticipated to say the least. Why did he speak ill about his own CO? Perhaps he had grievance against his boss. It might have something to do with the Kuritan prisoner. Neptune seemed to pay quite a bit of attention to the prisoner, which didn't surprise Mogami. The POW was a young woman at the ripe age of 20's, and sat high on the Kuritan's noble hierarchy. Perhaps it was Neptune who had an ulterior motive. He didn't look like it, but once a mercenary, always a mercenary.
But then, everybody that came to Pummelo wanted a piece of the elusive Brian's Cache, a pit of technological marvel. Maybe Korra was in the race too. Besides, Korra did come off as a snake. The aura Mogami had around Korra was that of treachery.
Regardless, the intelligence-gathering mission to Langmore-Navarro border was indispensable. So Mogami took her entire lance to recon the border. She ordered the techs to remove one heat sink off Clover's Assassin and install a Beagle Active Probe. Clover played along with the decision although she was not entirely happy with it.
"If we got into a skirmish, I would be less effective, you know," she complained.
"This is an intelligence gathering mission. No shooting is required," Mogami replied crossly. "I want this by the numbers. We move in, find out what's going on, take hard evidence so the engineers can analyze, then move out. I told you during the briefing, and I'll repeat it now: when in doubt, run home. Use your weapons when there is no other choice."
"Why are we so wary of the Redfield Renegades, Sarge?" Sam pondered.
"We don't know how many they are. That's the objective of this mission, to have an idea of how strong they are so we can initiate effective countermeasure."
"Do you think we can survive if they drop regiment-size force?" Alex mused.
"Anything is possible. Old saying states that it's not the size of a dog in a fight that matters. Now maintain radio silence and eyes on me. Open your ears and watch out for hostiles. Mogami out."
But things didn't go well for the Davion loyalists. Visibility dropped to 50 meters out when they got close to the spot where Mogami and Alex made visual contact with a pursuit lance 2 days ago. Mogami made hand gesture to keep the formation tight, and toggled her radar to sweep the area. But whatever was in the air hampered her signals, and reduced the range of her radar to mere 150 meters.
Keep it tight, Mogami ordered through hand signal. Her lance mates responded by regrouping in diamond formation, covering all directions. Her radar still didn't pick up anything except her 3 lance mates. She started to think she should just abort the mission rather than risking being ambushed.
Just when she was making a turn, missiles streaked inches away from her cockpit.
"Hostiles! Break formation! Attack your closest target!" Mogami barked. She flicked her radar but nothing came out on her screen. She couldn't even detect her lance mates. It didn't take long for her to realize that her comlink had been jammed.
"Sam! Alex! Clover! Can you hear me?!" she hollered. Her comset only spat out garbled messages. Two more missiles came whizzed from her right flank, followed by half a dozen from the opposite direction. One slammed Alex's Clint at the back, forcing the lanky mech to arch like a bow.
"Abort! Abort! Get out of here!" Mogami tried everything she could to save her lance. But the communication system had been disabled, and her messages were drowned by missiles and explosions. Instead of following her directive and ran home like she said earlier, her lance mates spread out and opened fire at phantom targets, not exactly knowing what to do. "Abort mission! Do not engage! Get out of here!"
Mogami tried to get her lance mates' attention but a laser streak slugged her from the right flank. The hit vaporized half of her right arm armor and threatened the myomer bundles and the internal structure underneath. Mogami grimaced as her console went haywire, filling her in with information she'd rather not hear.
"Abort mission! Retreat to Nav Point Zeta! I'll cover you!" Mogami tried a last-ditched effort to communicate with her lance mates through external speaker. Her radar still didn't show anything, but she spotted some shadows coming toward her direction. One of them was a Nightsky, one that presumably scored a hit on her right arm. The grotesque-looking mech charged her full speed, obviously trying to bring its 4-ton hatchet to bear, while softening her up with her laser.
Mogami didn't like fighting without electronics, but she could if the situation demanded it. She twisted and fired her ER Large Laser, one at a time, and turned the Nightsky's center torso into superheated mush. The Nightsky careened but quickly regained footing. Its blinding speed closed the gap with the Ostroc. Mogami moved in circle – a standard maneuver of battlemech engagement – then hammered the trigger as soon as the Nightsky fell into range. One of her rushed shots flew above the Nightsky's head, but the other one stabbed the 50-tonner on the shoulder. The armor dulled the attack, with the cost of a slab of plating.
The Nightsky pumped its pulse lasers, drilling the Ostroc's center torso with razor-sharp bolts. The Ostroc's center platings turned into bubbling smelter. The Nightsky capitalized with its large laser, but Mogami strained forward as far as her actuators allowed. The large laser bolts failed to connect. Irked, the Nightsky swung its hatchet, but Mogami pushed her mech out of the way. The tip of the hatchet grazed the Ostroc's left arm, tearing a deep gash on the thin armor a mere inch from the myomer bundles, but failed to do harm.
The Nightsky retracted its arm and lunged for another physical attack but Mogami fired her missiles at point blank range. Two of the missiles struck the Nightsky just under the cockpit. It was not a devastating hit, but it was so close to the cockpit that the blow stunned the mechwarrior. As the Nightsky reeled, Mogami took a hard lock and launched a vicious laser volley at the Nightsky's midsection. All but one gored the medium mech on the sternum. A wave of heat washed over Mogami's cockpit, coercing her to take a sharp gasp. But the Nightsky's protective carapace drooped and dripped, leaving the front part of the center torso grotesquely open.
But the Nightsky still had a lot of fight left in it. It regained grit and fired its pulse lasers. The right side of the Ostroc's body was scourged. The Riese-475 armor platings absorbed the heat but the right arm didn't have enough slab to completely stop the attack. Mogami yelped as the alarm blared in her ears. The laser beams cut through the armor and sliced half of the myomer bundles. Sparks and smoke wafted from the upper right arm.
Mogami knew the Ostroc's right arm was lost. Any attempt to salvage it would make the other parts vulnerable. At this point it was best to just use it as a shield or a bait to obtain better striking position. Lucky for her, the Ostroc's arm did not sport any weapon.
So when the Nightsky swung its hatchet again, Mogami shifted left. She raised her arm, and as expected, the hatchet hacked the structure. A sickening screech of metal echoed through the plain, and Mogami jerked forward as the hatchet force pulled the Ostroc toward the Nightsky. But she was expecting that. As the Ostroc leaned forward, she cocked the Ostroc's left arm and fired a cross punch at the Nightsky's head. The Nightsky reeled backward, and Mogami volley-fired her lasers at the Nightsky's damaged torso. Her large lasers stripped the remaining armor of the Nightsky, and her mediums found home on the gyro and the power generator. Black smoke indicated internal damage, and the Nightsky slowly keeled over, slumping to the ground with its face. The trickle of smoke turned into a black cloud, a sure sign the medium mech would not get back up.
Mogami was so engrossed in fighting the Nightsky she lost track of her lance mates. When she observed the plain, it was empty. Her radar didn't register any heat signature except the fallen Nightsky a mere 20 meters from her position. Her lance mates, and other units in the area, were nowhere to be seen.
"Sam! Alex! Clover! Can you hear me?" Mogami tried to establish comlink.
Her lance mates didn't answer. Instead, a gruff voice responded to her calling. "Attention all Davion units! You are surrounded! There is no way out! You have 10 seconds to shut down and exit your mechs, or you will be destroyed!"
Mogami didn't know if it was a bluffing or a real ultimatum. Her radar didn't pick up anything. She didn't know what happened to her lance mates, and she couldn't pick up enemy's positions. One thing she knew: whoever broadcast that message didn't have her lance mates. Sam, Alex, and Clover were still out there. And that was a good thing.
"Show your face and fight me like a man!" Mogami taunted.
"You have 5 seconds!" the man was unmoved. "Surrender, and your lives will be spared. Resist, and you will be destroyed!"
"Come on out and fight, coward!" Mogami yelled back. She twisted and turned to find a hint of where her enemies could be, but she was practically blind and deaf inside her mech.
Five seconds passed and suddenly a pair of laser beams struck her on the right shoulder. The remaining arm breached at the rotator cuff, and the stub came off flying in the air before thudding on the ground a few dozen meter behind. Mogami strained to compensate the loss of mass, and the Ostroc painfully lurched to the left, anchoring on its left leg, before settling on both legs.
"Bastard!" Mogami growled as she tracked down the source of the shot. She saw the shadow of a mech, but it was too far and too obscured to make out the model. It was a large mech, probably in the range of 65-75 tons, with 2 jutting cannons on both shoulders and multi-barreled auto-cannon on each arm. It was nothing like anything she had seen before. The cannons flashed and depleted-uranium shells staggered the Ostroc. Armor shards sprayed into the air as the cockpit walls clattered.
Reengaging the circle of death, Mogami fired her large lasers in quick succession. The first one missed, but the second one decked the enemy mech in the shoulder. The mech wobbled, but quickly regained footing and continued its course. Its arms flashed again, and Mogami felt every single hit and explosion that flogged her mech. Warning LEDs flashed in furious fashion. The right torso of the Ostroc was full of holes as armor-piercing shells continued to hammer it.
Running out of option, Mogami engaged in a large left turn but ran into two other mechs, obviously set up to flush her toward the bruiser mechs with twin autocannons. Easily identified as a Trebuchet and a Dervish, the missile boats launched a hail of missiles. Mogami crisscrossed her mech as erratically as she could, but she got clubbed by half a dozen warheads. Her ears rang as explosions ravaged the armored skin of the Ostroc. The torso armor dropped down to orange level, and the legs started to turn yellow.
Mogami knew she was outgunned and outnumbered, so her best chance of survival was the Ostroc's speed. She fired her large lasers at the missile boats then turned sideways, cutting through the gap between the 3 mechs. Missiles whistled in the air and ballistic tracers zipped dangerously close to her cockpit, but she brought her mech to run zigzag, trying desperately to miss the shots. One stray laser shot burnt half a ton of armor on the Ostroc's rear torso, but lucky for her, none of the subsequent ballistics and missile shots could exploit the wound. She rerouted all power output to the myomer bundles and zipped across the plain.
She did just that for a while, until the shots stopped. She continued her course for some time until her radar went back online. She hooked up with the satellite to bring up the overhead map of the area. She was way off her original course, in a desolated area, far away from civilization. She switched to broad range of signal, but she couldn't see anything. She was practically cut off from her lance mates.
"Sam! Alex! Clover! Can you hear me?" she tried to call them, but she got no response. "Oh shit," she sighed. She plotted her course, then started the long jog back to base.