CHAPTER 22
TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS
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Jumpship FCS Cerulean City,
Alchiba System, Freedom Theater,
Lyran Alliance, Inner Sphere,
March 6, 3065
The jungle was lush and thick.
Trystan maneuvered his blocky Thunderbolt between battlemech-sized tree trunks, with muddy bog nearly ankle deep. He watched his heat tracker; the myomer action alone had pushed his heat level one-third way to shutdown. He couldn't imagine having to fight in this condition, with trees and muds hampering his movement and muggy air reducing the effectivity of his weapons.
But it had to be done, sooner or later.
Trystan turned his attention to his lance mates. Valen, a young man without any combat experience, struggled to keep his Hellspawn upright. The stocky mech bounced from tree to tree like a pinball. It was a miracle his weapons were still intact. Dee Dee, the veteran bogged down by 7 years of inactivity, maintained a steady trot but her all-energy Crab would suffer the most in this condition. Ronan, an arena gladiator with zero skill in real warfare, utilized his jump jets to get some clearance but with low ceiling of the jungle canopy, his Assassin wouldn't go far.
"Push forward, mechwarriors," Trystan tried to keep his lance together. "A few hundred meters more."
"Half a league, half a league, half a league onward," Dee Dee quipped through the comlink. "Into the Valley of The Death."
"Off the comlink, Bravo Two," Trystan snapped, but Dee Dee's reference to the ill-fated unit started to make him question himself. Their objective lied in a difficult spot with only 2 accessible routes for battlemechs: a long mountain pass, and a messy hike through this jungle. Trystan picked this route to minimize encounter with hostile units, but now he wasn't sure anymore.
"Dropship Command, this is Bravo Actual," he called his backup. "We are 2 clicks north of the dust off. Where is the objective?"
"Bravo Actual, this is Dropship Command," Saskia's voice sprang loud and clear. "Half an hour journey and you shall stand broadside. Two depots side by side, with but one lance of battlemechs and armored fighting vehicles. Men of little worth, with shriveled cocks as weapons. See them expired, yet aim with purpose. Labor comes to waste if objectives fall to friendly fire."
"Roger that," Trystan cut the comlink with a small grin. Saskia's annoying accent would make her the perfect person to man Dropship Command. Enemies trying to decipher their radio chatter would cringe at each other and said 'Did she just say…' with complete awkwardness on their faces.
"Bravo Lance, rally to me!" Trystan moved to maximize his hitting power. "Line abreast, 15 meters apart! Passive radars but go weapons hot!"
His lancemates responded quickly and changed formation, now lining up on his right and left flanks. He throttled down 50 percent to cool down his Thunderbolt, and put his autocannon ready as he was reaching the end of the jungle.
When they finally walked past the last tree, their designated targets popped up on their screen, but not as lightly-guarded as Saskia suggested. Two Bushwackers sat tightly sandwiching two large warehouses. Two Hunchbacks went on patrol at the perimeter of the supply depots, and a few Striker Combat Vehicles scattered around the area, covering the buildings from all angles.
"Shriveled cock my ass!" Trystan grimaced. "Bravo Three, Four, attack the Hunchbacks! Bravo Two, on me! Watch for the autocannons! Break formation and fire at will! Go go go!" He gunned his Thunderbolt, dashing through the bushes and small trees. His multi-barreled cannons roared, throwing uranium-depleted shells at the nearest Bushwacker. The cannon rounds molested the front hull, but did virtually nothing save for shredded armor.
Valen and Ronan quickly engaged the two Hunchbacks, but the Striker Combat Vehicles went to work and poured their armor-piercing warheads toward the mercenaries. Ronan was quick to get his Assassin out of the way, but a mix of long and short range missiles enveloped the Hellspawn like drones. The Hellspawn swayed for one second before toppled and skidded flat-faced.
Trystan bit his lips as two pure energy beams missed his cockpit by a mere centimeter. His crosshair lied on the left torso of the Bushwacker. He pressed the trigger, pouring his lasers at the medium mech. The lasers tacked the Bushwacker chest, failed to breach the armor as he predicted, but wiped out a great deal of armor. It staggered hard, and Trystan followed up with his UAC5. Molten armor flew every which way as the shells dug deep into the structure.
This maneuver spiked the heat level very close to shutdown sequence. As the Bushwacker staggered, Trystan backed up his mech to get some cool air. Unfortunately his eyes landed on Valen, struggling to get up while a Hunchback stalked him from the rear, aiming its monstrous autocannon at his delicate rear armor.
"Valen get out of there!" Trystan yelled as he twisted and pivoted his mech as swiftly as possible.
"I got this Bravo One," Valen pulled his mech up but another wave of missiles knocked him back down.
"Dee Dee, disengage and assist Valen!"
"No can do Boss, I'm tied up with a Bushwacker here!"
"Ronan!"
"Me out of position, Sir! Five minutes! Hang on!"
Running out of option, Trystan turned his mech around and hammered the Hunchback with his autocannon. Most of his rushed attack missed but a few lucky shots peppered the left torso of the Hunchback. He followed up with his large lasers, boiling a layer of its right torso armor. Assessing the new threat, the Huncback retaliated, and its massive cannon blasted. Hot, sizzling shards splattered everywhere, and a large crater opened up at the Thunderbolt's waist. Trystan gripped his joystick tightly, fighting the sudden loss of balance, just as the Hunchback's medium laser drilled another hole on the Thunderbolt's belly.
Trystan fired his SRM2 to keep the Hunchback on its heels, but now the Bushwacker joined the fray and unleashed everything it got. He clenched his arms around the joystick as the Thunderbolt rocked back and forth to sustain the assault. The calibrating signal on his neurohelmet made his head throbbing. One good salvo from the Bushwacker breached his left arm, leaving the whole structure dangling by just several strands of myomer. Trystan let the Bushwacker harass his left side, protecting his Pulse-Laser-laden right arm. The Buschwacker hurled another wave of missiles that stripped the leg of armor, then took a stunted break to deal with its almost unbearable heat. Trystan pivoted back and put the crosshair squarely on the Bushwacker cockpit, but the Hunchback spat out its deadly shell, and Trystan's Large Pulse Laser came off flying a few dozen meters.
It was never a good idea to put himself in a crossfire. But Trystan didn't know what else to do. Valen was in a big trouble. If he didn't attack the Hunchback, Valen would surely die. He thought, as the lance leader, he bore the responsibility to see each member of his lance survive. But if the cost of the life of his lance mate was his own, he didn't know if it was worth doing. What would Valen do without him as the leader? Could the rest of his lance mates survive, let alone accomplish the mission?
Trystan wished Sheila Arla-Vlataa was there.
Losing 40 percent of armor and internal structures on its left torso, Trystan brought his mech upright and ran in circle, trying to put the Bushwacker and Hunchback on a straight line so he only had to engage one. But the two mechs continued their assault at close range. The Thunderbolt carried enough armor to slug it out against a light assault mech, but the Hunchback's dreaded autocannon proved to be too much even for the Thunderbolt's thick skin. A perfectly-placed salvo ripped myomer bundles on its leg. Trystan winced at the loss of agility, and for what felt like hours he could only wait as lasers and missiles swarmed his mech from every direction.
"I'm in trouble here!" he called for his lance mates.
"Me cum, Sir! Me cum!" Ronan tried to rescue him but his lightly-armed Assassin couldn't give Trystan the much-needed break. The Hunchback Ronan was engaging ignored the speedy Assassin for a more lucrative target. Its AC20 mutilated the Thunderbolt's left arm, leaving it virtually defenseless. The other Hunchback and the Bushwacker simultaneously landed their autocannon salvos, and the Thunderbolt crumbled in a fireball.
Without their leader, the rest of the lance could not do anything. Valen managed to get his mech going but not for long. Under intense bombardment from the Striker Combat Vehicles, the Hellspawn's legs snapped, and the blocky mech thudded to the ground. The Striker Combat Vehicles turned their attention to the Assassin which, despite Ronan's superior agility, didn't have enough punch to destroy even a single vehicle. They trapped the Assassin in crossfire similar to one with the Thunderbolt, then tore it apart with saturated fire. The mechs ganged up on Dee Dee's Crab, which didn't stand very long.
Trystan pulled the canopy lever in frustration, letting the cold air flow into the simulator pod. He pulled his neurohelmet off, soaked with his sweat, and watched as the other simulator pods hissed open. Valen jumped out carrying a totally confused expression in his face. Dee Dee rested her head on the command couch and closed her eyes for a while before slowly climbing out. And Ronan's long bang hid his expression, but his body language exuded the fact that he was as pissed as Trystan for being massacred by a computer's AI.
"Fall in, Aces!" Trystan yelled. "Two things: Number one, I am the ranking officer of this lance. When I say disengage your opponent, you disengage your opponent!"
"Dude, when I'm engaging another mech, you can't bail me out," Dee Dee immediately interjected. "If I turn around, he'll shoot me in the back. My back is not as protected as my front side."
"I know how battlemechs are designed, Dee Dee, but your lance mate was in serious trouble!"
"So you'll trade his life with mine?" Dee Dee raised her voice.
"That's not what I'm saying Dee Dee, but…"
"Sir, I'm trying my best!" Valen tuned in. "Don't tell me I'm not good enough for the team!"
"Oh, me cum for you Sir, me cum for you!" Ronan cockily paraded his good conduct, or so he thought.
"No, dammit! You brought the other Hunchback to gang up on me!" Trystan groused. "Look, guys, we need to work more on our communication! This is just a practice swing. Don't let it get under your skin. We'll get better next time. Dismissed and get rest. Chow at six hundred hours, and we'll talk more about this."
Unintelligible moans and groans followed Dee Dee, Valen and Ronan as they went back to their quarter. Trystan let out a long labored breath, then dragged his feet to return to his place when Saskia blocked his path. He knew what she was going to say.
"It tears heart to see opportunities wasted by foolish hands," Saskia mumbled.
"First of all, I lead a group of handicaps!" Trystan unleashed his frustration. "Second of all, you gave me bad intel! Shriveled cocks, you said? We got massacred by your shriveled cocks! Does that sound like shriveled cocks to you?"
"So everyone is at fault, except you?" Saskia's voice became more intense. "An angry boy who can barely piss absent splashing everyone about him?"
"You could have divulged the size of the oppositions, so I can prepare my strategy!"
"Would that it makes a difference!" Saskia huffed. "Your strategy would see you fallen to another crossfire."
"Hey, Valen was in trouble and nobody was interested in helping him!"
"Valen was already dead! How could eyes not to purpose? He was dead as soon as you set him to take arms against the Hunchback!"
"Oh, now you question my leadership!" Trystan bared his teeth. "You think you can do any better? Oh, right, you can, because you own that almighty thing that can fly Mach 4 and spit fire from all holes!"
"The fault lies not in your leadership, you preening shit!" Saskia erupted, goaded by Trystan's arrogance. "You attacked absent head! Pride replaced common sense in the moving of feet, and all who follow!"
"It wouldn't happen if you tell me the strength of the opposition!" Trystan replied just as intense.
"Eyes lied upon Hunchbacks, strength close to heart, yet you dove headlong into their killing range. 'Fire at Will'?! Hunchbacks are close-quarter combatants! What fever gripped mind, coming into their striking zone?! It was but a wonder Ronan and Valen stood long enough to see you fall!"
"What else could I have done? I don't have large-bored cannons to counter the Hunchback's AC20, I don't have PPC's and LRM's to harass them from a distance. Speed is all I have, and I rely on Ronan's and Valen's speed to overcome the Hunchbacks! Once they dispatch the Hunchback, we should be OK!"
"And what of the jungle?" Saskia turned on the overhead map of the engagement area and highlighted the jungle Trystan spent 2 hours to cross before he arrived at the depots. "It is where you shine! Let them chase you into the jungle, where you can set traps and skin them piece by piece until none of them are left."
"What if they don't bite it?"
"What if they do? You never know because you did not try!"
Trystan pondered a minute, trying to counter Saskia's reasoning, but in the end he couldn't argue with her. "I didn't see it that way."
"I told you, a beast strikes hardest when backed against wall. By attacking them head on, you put their backs against wall. You fought for mission, they fought for lives. Result glows as rainbow after storm."
"Yeah but, but…" Trystan was at the loss of words. "I'm not ready for this, am I?"
"No," Saskia let out a long sigh. "You will never be Sheila Arla-Vlataa in the coming days. But it will not deny your chances, if set on the proper path. What is your most powerful weapon?"
"Discipline and respect among mechwarriors. The willingness to suffer and die for a common goal."
"No, silly boy!" Saskia knocked Trystan's forehead hard, forcing him to wince. "Your brain. It is the most powerful weapon blessed upon men. Put it to work, and see yourself elevated to heavens."
Trystan watched as Saskia walked passed him, supposedly toward her quarter. He was still upset that Saskia 'held back' crucial information, and he still thought his team could've done better if he had that information. But he couldn't deny the fact that he made a grave oversight, and that he could've done just as fine even without that information. And then, guilt started to creep in when he realized he had blamed his shortcoming on his teammates. Major Chip Taylor, his former commander that he unknowingly killed, had never blamed a botched mission on his subordinates.
"Argh, Trystan, you're blowing it big," he whispered to himself as he walked to his quarter.
Dropship NaruHina,
CharaIII, Freedom Theater,
Lyran Alliance, Inner Sphere,
March 7, 3065
Caelia Vandenberg stood in the briefing room with the rest of the Blazing Aces, waiting for a briefing from their contact. In her mother's and brother's absent, Blitzie and Linc acted as the commanding officers of the Blazing Aces Mercenary Unit. Blitzie, a rich boy with no perception on running a mercenary unit, and Linc, an equally-clueless communication junkie that she briefly had a relationship with, had taken the Blazing Aces to the lowest point possible since it was founded by her grandfather, Duke Gideon Braver Vandenberg.
Not much had been going on since she parted ways with his brother. Blitzie and Linc took easy contracts, mostly from dictators and conglomerates across the Inner Sphere, which paid well but never put the reputation of the unit to the higher level. She couldn't remember the last time she was challenged in an intense battlemech fight. Most of the time she was to utilize her Griffin, a Star-League-era high-performance battlemech, against light targets and cannon fodders.
Many times Caelia thought of leaving. Considering her 'relationship' with Kristoffer Hasek Davion, the leader of the 15th Avalon Hussars, she could've easily transferred to the unit. Her Griffin would see much use in the FedCom Civil War. But she couldn't do it. She was the last living member – that she knew of – of the Vandenberg, the founder of the Blazing Aces. Leaving the unit would cheat her grandfather, her mother, and her brother from their family heirloom.
So when this contract popped up, she accepted it with much anticipation. However, there was something fishy about the contract. Chara III was the home of Pacifica Training Academy, led by Katrina Steiner's wonderboy, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Youngblood. Why couldn't Jason Youngblood call for the Crescent Hawks, his elite former unit? Why did they need a low-cost mercenary unit like the Blazing Aces to do the job?
Nevertheless, Blitzie and Linc didn't care about it, so here they were, on Chara III. A man with shaggy dark hair and dark sunglasses appeared on the screen. He was in mid-forties, and Caelia swore she saw that man before. She just couldn't remember where she saw him, let alone who he was.
"Welcome to Chara III," the man said. "The situation is out of control. A rogue separatist unit had threatened to invade and hold the city of Starpad for ransom. We cannot let it happen. We need the Blazing Aces to set up a perimeter defense around the city of Starpad to hold off the invasion of the separatists."
The screen switched to an overhead map of Starpad and the surrounding area. "Intelligence report from Starpad indicated that the separatists had started building pockets around Starpad. Your first mission will be to search and destroy these separatist pockets. When Starpad is cleaned, build a defense perimeter around the city. The separatists will try to invade the city again. Hold the defense until you are relieved.
"Opposition force is mostly light with some medium-size forces scattered here and there. Expect to see light to medium battlemechs, and fast armored units with airborne cover. We offer compensation for target of opportunities, 100,000 c-bills for a separatist leader, 250,000 for the seize of a separatist battlemech. The rest is commensurate upon their function in their unit. Any question?"
"Sir," Caelia boldly raised her hand. "Do we get support from Pacifica Training Academy?"
"Negative," the man harshly replied. "Under no circumstances can Jason Youngblood and Pacifica Training Academy be involved in this campaign. Failure to comply with this parameter will result in immediate termination of the contract without compensation. Is that understood?"
"We are the Blazing Aces, we don't need any support," Blitzie said cockily.
"We know we have come to the fight place. Good luck mercenaries."
As the screen turned dark and the crowd dismissed, Caelia turned to Linc, trying to put sense in his head. "Linc, Linc, I need to talk to you. Privately."
"Talk?" Linc shot a dirty look at her. "I see you have a change of heart about me. Miss me already? We can do more than talk privately."
"Linc, I am serious," Caelia held the urge to slap Linc in the face. "I feel bad about this campaign."
"Let me take your bad mood away privately…"
"Linc!" Caelia came close to bust Linc's face out of rage. "I know that man. I have seen him before."
"Where?"
"I don't know, and that makes me nervous. I don't like the way he briefed us. I can feel he was holding back information. Why can't we make contact with Jason Youngblood? He is a respectable leader."
"We don't need no Jason Youngblood. We can take care of the separatists ourselves."
"The reason is still not making sense."
"Look, the man pays us a lot of money to stay away from Jason Youngblood," Linc grabbed Caelia's arms and held her against his face. "We have not had a contract this lucrative before. This is our chance to bank. Just do what he said and don't screw this up, OK Babe?"
"What if…" Caelia mused. "What if this is a trap? What if we are fighting Jason Youngblood?"
"Then we'll kill Jason Youngblood. End of discussion."
"Linc, Jason Youngblood is Katrina Steiner's wonderboy. You think we have enough to kill him?"
"Katrina Steiner is dead!" Linc started to lose patience. "We'll get the money, that's what I care about. Now unless if you want to talk and do other things with me privately, you're dismissed."
Caelia could only exhale sharply. Things like this made her miss her brother.