CHAPTER 25
RUNNING SHORT ON OPTIONS
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jdoug4118: I hope this is worth the wait.
City of Starpad,
Chara III, Freedom Theater,
Lyran Alliance, Inner Sphere,
March 14, 3065
Saskia's most recent recon run confirmed Trystan's assumption about Humberto. The recon lance patrolled around the city of Starpad in a large circle but never at any point had it ventured too far from the city, let alone the wooded area. Any of the bivouacs would be able to support the recon lance within 5 minutes. The pattern led him to believe that Humberto's prime protocol was to paint the vicinity with long range radar from a safe distance.
Thus Trystan devised a plan to put two Commandos 750 meters from the farthest point of Humberto's patrol route, making sure Humberto picked up their heat signature. He instructed Lei Fong to mask the signature of the Blazing Inferno so the Commandos would appear as standard COM-2D on Humberto's radar. Then he hid his lance in a forest overhang, and the other two Commandos on the opposite side. If all went as planned, Humberto's lance would go through the pass between his lance and the two Commandos. It was a textbook ambush scheme.
"This is Bravo Actual," Trystan organized his troops. "Power down all mechs. Maintain radio silence."
"Roger Actual," the answers came in a flood before their heat signatures disappeared from his radar.
"Bravo to Lima," Trystan called Saskia from a different frequency. "What's the word from the wild blue yonder?"
"Lima to Bravo, enemies have not made appearance," Saskia responded. "Stand sheltered. I shall herd sheep toward snapping jaws."
Trystan glanced at his watch. He knew Humberto was not a creature of habit, so his timeframe could vary as widely as a few hours. Trystan didn't like divergence like this, but he knew there was nothing he could do. He just had to sit through it and sweat it out.
"Lima to Bravo, be advised, eyes lie upon 4 bogeys travelling your direction," Saskia chimed through comlink. "A Phoenix Hawk on point, followed by two Jenners and one Raven. Speed, 60 kph. Visual contact within 3 minutes."
"Bravo Actual to Delta, power up, active radar!" Trystan's heart jumped to his throat as he sent his order to the two Commandos in the open field. As ordered, the two Commandos came to life and painted the area with their radars, and soon enough Humberto's lance picked up the signal. So far his plan worked well, so well that he started getting nervous. If things seemed too good to be true, they probably were.
"Delta, retreat but keep them at range," Trystan shrugged off the anxiety and proceeded with his plan. "Let them chase you. Bravo, get ready to power up. Lima, keep an eye for their reinforcement."
"Negative Bravo Actual, recon lance makes attempt absent support. Hearts swell with confidence, along with chances to take their heads."
"Let them chase Delta," Trystan grimaced as the two Commandos dashed past his position. He could not watch Humberto's lance since his Thunderbolt was shut down, but from the corner of his canopy he could see four figures began to take shape. The lead mech was of humanoid form, obviously Humberto in his Phoenix Hawk. The other three were still vague but he didn't want to watch until they took shape. He focused on their position as his thumb rested on the start button, ready to start up his Thunderbolt.
As Trystan predicted, Humberto's lance chased the two Commandos full speed, unaware of the trap. Trystan let the lance pass his position, then signaled Saskia to jam the radio. The lance immediately slowed down and disarrayed, trying to figure out what was going on. The Phoenix Hawk attempted to take charge using hand signals, but the Jenners panicked and failed to follow the Phoenix Hawk's directions.
Trystan seized the opportunity. He powered up his mech and immediately went out of the forest, blocking Humberto's lance from the city. Valen and Deedee followed his maneuver, while Ronan and the Commandos boxed the recon lance from the other side.
"Remember me?" Trystan said through his external speaker. "Long time no see, Humberto."
"La Concha de tu Madre!" Humberto's voice echoed. "You're still alive, pinche cabron?"
"I am, and I am here to demand justice from Blitzie and Linc."
"Justice? Vete al infierno con tu madre!" Humberto yelled through his external speaker. "That's no justice! All you want is the Blazing Aces! You killed Chip for it, and now you come after Blitzie and Linc! You will kill anybody to get what you want!"
"It's Blitzie and Linc who murdered my mother for control of the Blazing Aces!" Trystan replied harshly. "You've been serving the wrong men, Humberto!"
"I am serving the Blazing Aces! You kill me, the rest of the Blazing Aces will kill you!"
"I don't want to kill you, Humberto. My grudge is not with you. But I cannot let you return to the main unit. Exit your mech and I promise you, you will not be harmed."
"Words from a pirate and a murderer!"
"You're outnumbered, outgunned, and cut off from the main units. Your situation is not good and you know it, Humberto. You can't get out of this. Be smart and surrender."
"I have enough of this shit! All hands, open fire at the Thunderbolt!" Humberto blasted his jets and fired all weapons at Trystan. Trystan winced as laser bolts cored his front armor. The mech staggered from loss of mass, but he held his joystick steady, keeping the Thunderbolt on its feet. He traced the Phoenix Hawk and let his ultra-autocannon roar with abandon. Traces of light slammed into the Phoenix Hawk's leg, stripping a layer of Ferro Fibrous, and caught the attention of Humberto.
The two Jenners and the Raven joined the fray and launched everything they had at the Thunderbolt. The Raven's missiles sailed past the heavy mech but the lasers found their marks on the right torso. Trystan ignored the warning sign and started moving in circle, taking pot shots at Humberto's Phoenix Hawk with his medium lasers while waiting for an opportunity to deliver a crippling punch with his large pulse laser.
The rest of Trystan's crews jumped in and immediately traded punches with Humberto's lance. Dee Dee dove headlong and engaged a Jenner in point blank range. Her large lasers stabbed the Jenner in the midst, melting a ton of armor. Ronan and Valen ganged up on the other Jenner, and the Commandos boxed the Raven in a crossfire.
Unfortunately Valen's lack of experience took a wrong turn. His missiles, intended for the Jenner's right flank, missed and pounded Ronan's Assassin instead. Ronan took a few steps back to compensate the blasts, while Valen just froze, stunned by his misfire. The Jenner used the opportunity to slip away from the two predators and sneak behind Dee Dee's Crab which was busy trading blows with the other Jenner. Four laser strands and four armor-piercing warheads tore the Crab's thin rear armor.
"Goddammit, where the hell is everybody?" Dee Dee screamed amidst blarring alarms. "Can somebody get that creep off my back?"
But Saskia's disruptive signal jammed communication from all battlemechs, so Dee Dee's distress call was lost. The Jenner continued its assault, thrusting volleys after volleys into the Crab's unprotected rear. Before long thick black smoke wafted from the rear, a sure sign of critical damage.
Trystan finally noticed the trouble and disengaged Humberto. He lined up his crosshair with the Jenner and fired everything he had. Globules of molten armor sprayed in the air as the Jenner wobbled, teetering on its heels to offset the assault and the loss of mass.
But as Trystan switched target, Humberto was left unattended. He swung behind Trystan and let loose a deadly salvo of laser and bullets, exploiting the Crab's critical damage. A yellow fireball ripped the Crab's fuselage. Half of its body disintegrated in a cloud of debris and smoke. Whatever remained of the 50-ton mech slumped to the ground.
Trystan could only look in horror as tongues of fire engulfed the Crab. He disengaged the Jenner to stall Humberto, but the Phoenix Hawk was out of his firing arc. The Phoenix Hawk made a hard right turn and sank a brutal shot from its pulse laser cannon. The Crab detonated in a tremendous explosion, sending burning debris into the air like brimstones.
"Oh crap! Dee Dee!" Trystan lamented. It was almost surreal; his team held all the advantages but Humberto's lance drew the first blood. The number advantage and firepower didn't seem to make an impact in combat, because Humberto's team had better skill and experience. They were real mechwarriors, forged in blood and sweat through many battles. Trystan's team consisted of greenhorns who had never seen real combat.
"Turn head towards foreseeable future! There is nothing you can do for Dee Dee!" Saskia blurted through an unscrambled frequency.
Trystan realized he had to step up his game against Humberto's team. Relying on numbers and firepower would not be enough against the battle-hardened recon lance. He directed the Commandos to mug the Phoenix Hawk while he engaged the Raven, bleeding fire and smoke from getting ganged up by the Commandos. Trystan's UAC5 shells cut through the internal structures, torching the ammunition bins. The CASE thwarted the ammo explosion from destroying the Raven's vital organs, but the resulting damage turned the Raven into a staggering charred hulk. Trystan sent his missiles into the Raven's midst, followed by his medium lasers to finish it off. A chain explosion ripped the Raven apart, and the remaining structure crumbled in a plume of smoke.
The fall of the Raven shifted the momentum toward Trystan's team. Ronan used his speed to outmaneuver a Jenner while Valen shrugged off his distress and engaged the other Jenner. His pulse lasers peeled the Jenner's armor layer by layer. The Jenner stood its ground, trading Valen's lasers with its own. The Hellspawn's fresh-from-the-factory armor platings quickly turned grotesque, and a few missile salvoes pulled a crack on the center torso, dangerously exposing the electronics inside.
Not wanting to lose another lance mate, Trystan bore down on the Jenner and poured his autocannon rounds on the 35-ton mech. The Jenner lurched to the side as depleted-uranium slugs ripped armor and myomer apart. It blasted its jets, but Trystan fired his pulse laser, scoring a few good hits while the Jenner was still airborne. The entire left torso erupted, and the Jenner reeled to its right. It crash-landed on its right torso, crushing its right arm under its own bodyweight. The mechwarrior knew his mech was in no condition to continue fighting. He opened the canopy and ran away on foot.
Meanwhile the Commandos managed to score critical hits on Humberto's Phoenix Hawk. Molten slag drooped down the Phoenix Hawk's leg, and black smoke began to swirl from several sections. But the Commando's severe lack of cooling system to support 10 laser cannons, doubled by the cadets' ineptitude in heat management, made their attack ineffective. The Commandos could only perform 2 cycles before having to retreat to get rid of the massive waste heat.
Humberto took advantage of the situation. He moved in circle, taking pot shots at a Commando that was in heat trouble, then moved on to another one. One Commando staggered hard to keep afloat. Its internal components started melting from the intense heat. The mechwarrior dumped a large amount of coolant as a desperate gambit to control the heat, but Humberto fired his machine guns at it. The coolant caught fire, and the Commando blazed in a tower of flame.
Trystan knew that, left alone, Humberto could slaughter the entire lance of cadets. So he motioned to Valen to support the Commandos. The Hellspawn assumed position and launched its missiles. The missiles whistled through air and smashed the Phoenix Hawk on its chest. The Phoenix Hawk dropped to its knees. Trystan followed up Valen's salvo with his own. Laser and ballistics took turns hammering the Phoenix Hawk's left side, turning its left arm and torso into useless pieces of metal.
Humberto knew he was badly outnumbered, and the only chance of survival was reinforcement from the main Blazing Aces unit. But with his comm unit disabled, he had no means to send distress signal to the rest of the team. Running out of option, he fired his jump jets, clearing the battlefield, then engaged his MASC pushing his Phoenix Hawk to 120 kph. Trystan and Valen fired their long range weapons in vain hope to slow down the Phoenix Hawk, but Humberto quickly went out of their way.
Trystan knew if Humberto made it back to the Blazing Aces, his plan would go to the drain. He had to stop Humberto, but the only one who could keep up with the Phoenix Hawk was Ronan's Assassin. Trystan was reluctant to send Ronan to go after Humberto alone, but it was his only choice.
"Ronan!" Trystan called for his ex Solaris gladiator. "Ronan! Stop Humberto!"
Ronan, who was engaging the remaining Jenner, heard Trystan's voice through the external speaker, and immediately broke contact. He fired his own jets and broke into a sprint. The Jenner tried to take advantage to shoot Ronan from the back, but Trystan and Valen quickly overwhelmed the Jenner with saturated fire. It didn't take long for the Jenner to disintegrate under heavy bombardment.
The Phoenix Hawk was more than a kilometer away from the Assassin, but soon its MASC dropped, allowing the Assassin to get into range. Ronan waited until his LRM5 rang, then fired the missiles. Humberto rolled his shoulder and activated his AMS. Bullets filled the air. Three missiles exploded before they came to the the target. The other two, however, slipped past the defense and slammed into the Phoenix Hawk's right torso.
Thinking that his high-performance Phoenix Hawk could outperform the standard Assassin, Humberto turned around and launched a murderous volley fire at the Assassin. His pulse laser cannon belched erratically, spitting laser bolts at blinding rate, while his medium lasers and machine guns complemented the intermittent shots. The Assassin fired its jets to slide, dodging the laser bolts, but absorbed some debilitating shots to the torso. Molten slag dripped like blood, and parts of internal structures started to get exposed.
The Assassin used its speed to get into range, then fired its long and short-ranged missiles simultaneously. The Phoenix Hawk's AMS ate up the majority of the missiles, but a few warheads sneaked past the defense and tore the torso armor, getting dangerously close to the machinery. As the Phoenix Hawk wobbled, the Assassin followed up the attack with its sole laser cannon. The medium laser burnt a slab off the Phoenix Hawk torso armor, making a glowing patch on its already disfigured platings.
The Phoenix Hawk backpedaled to regain footing, then launched another pulse laser salvo from its right arm. The Assassin bobbed and weaved, but the Phoenix Hawk anticipated the maneuver. Laser strands and machine gun shells peppered the Assassin's right torso. The Assassin rolled shoulder to avoid punishment, but the Phoenix Hawk caught it with its large pulse laser. Beam strands incised the Assassin's right arm right under the shoulder. The barrel-like arm spun in the air as the Assassin stumbled backward, waving its remaining arm in desperate attempt not to fall on its butt.
Stripped from its reliable medium laser, the Assassin attacked with new urgency, knowing that its launchers would run out of ammunition soon. It fired its long range missiles without a hard lock. The Phoenix Hawk countered it with its AMS, but the Assassin took a few steps aside and fired its short range missile. The Phoenix Hawk shifted its AMS but it was too late. The twin warheads carved the Phoenix Hawk's left arm, already mangled by the Commandos. The missiles cut through damaged armor and exploded behind myomer bundles. Sparks burst from the incision, and the arm breached, suspended by mere strands of myomer.
The Phoenix Hawk retaliated with its pulse laser, but the Assassin used its speed to get out of the Phoenix Hawk's firing arc. The Phoenix Hawk jumped and rotated its arm as far as it could, but the Assassin used its own jets to keep out of the Phoenix Hawk's reach. Its short range missiles repeatedly cored the back of the Phoenix Hawk, ripping armor apart and knocking out one power line after another.
Meanwhile Trystan's band had closed in on the duel, and Humberto realized that his only chance of survival was to kill the Assassin quickly. But it was not an easy task; whoever piloted the Assassin proved to be a highly-skilled mechwarrior. Runing out of time, the Phoenix Hawk fired everything it had left and blasted its jets to get away from the Assassin. It engaged its MASC as it landed, quickly widening the gap from the Assassin and the rest of Trystan's battlemechs.
But the Assassin launched its long range missiles and stabbed the Phoenix Hawk in the back. Severed power lines disrupted the power generator of the 45-ton mech. The Phoenix Hawk turned and raised its arm in a desperate attempt to fight the Assassin, but the small mech jumped and fired its short ranged missiles, straight at the Phoenix Hawk's head. Its AMS flashed like crazy, trying to take down the missiles, but they went through the hail and drilled the Phoenix Hawk's cockpit. Two fireballs destroyed the cockpit and anything inside, including Humberto.
Trystan stopped his mech short of the headless Phoenix Hawk. The acrid smell of burning myomer and flesh made his stomach churned.
"Saskia," he called for his support. "We destroyed Humberto's recon lance. I wish it didn't have to end this way, but whatever happened happened. Stop the jam and have Osiris escort Lei Fong. We have a lot of work to do."