CHAPTER 29

RIDE THE LIGHTNING, PART II

Review Corner

The Colonel: Then I hope you like this chapter.

Pacifica,
Chara III, Freedom Theater,
Lyran Alliance, Inner Sphere,
March 16, 3065

The Avatar was a fine craft, armed with bristling firepower and enough armor to go toe-to-toe with a small assault battlemech. Trystan endured every hit, and it was not easy. Each salvo made his ears ring. Trystan was never a physical combatant, but the ferocity of its volleys coaxed him to take a more drastic measure. The crash sent him spiraling into darkness. His console screamed in objection, turning his vision into a blur of night and day. He had to bite his lips to keep him from losing composure.

Fortunately, the Avatar was terminally intimidated by Trystan's audacity, and quit not long after.

"Trystan, two battlemechs are moving toward foreseeable exit!" Saskia's voice rang on his comset. "Give voice to desire and I shall see it done!"

With his Thunderbolt shot up and his head throbbing out of control, Trystan was tempted to bring Saskia and her zoid into the fray. But what kind of commander he would be if he let his mates do the dirty work all the time? How would his crew see him if Saskia kept carrying the brunt of the work? And how could he look at himself in the mirror knowing somebody else avenged his mother for him? No, it was not her job to get Blitzie and Linc. It was his.

"No, Babe. Just sit tight. You've done your work. Now I'm doing mine."

A few seconds passed before Saskia's spirited reply burst, "What did you just call me?"

"Uhm, nothing," Trystan shot a foolish grin, then cut his comlink with Saskia. He turned to a different frequency, "Ronan! Round up the survivors! Osiris, Vicky, assist Ronan! I'm going after Blitzie and Linc! Caelia, I need you! Are you with me?"

Caelia froze. She knew the consequences of taking Trystan's side: she would conduct mutiny against the Blazing Aces, punishable by death. But it was clear to her that Blitzie and Linc abandoned the Blazing Aces. They had been, for a long time. What happened here was just the cream of the crop, the epitome of their ineptitude as leaders of a military unit. Perhaps mutiny was the only way to bring the Blazing Aces back on track.

"Caelia!" Trystan yelled on the comlink, startling her. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you!" Caelia finally made her decision and throttled up behind Trystan. Blitzie had already had a 700-meter head start, and Linc was even farther away, since his Centurion could make 95 kph. So she passed the Thunderbolt and closed the gap with Blitzie's Victor. At 500 meters she lit up her PPC and scourged the Victor's back. The assault mech arched its back and staggered. It read Caelia's message and turned around, lining up its monstrous Gauss cannon with the Griffin. Caelia violently reversed the throttle, coming into a screeching halt. The hypersonic Gauss ball swished inches away from her cockpit. Her heart skipped a beat, knowing that if she was a second too late, that nickel-ferrous ball would wipe out her entire cockpit.

As Blitzie maneuvered to deal with Caelia, Trystan bolstered his Thunderbolt to full speed. His crosshair soon burned gold and he let loose a long salvo of UAC5. The cannon shells charged the Victor like mindless drones and hammered its right shoulder. The Victor shrugged off the attack and prepared another volley for the Griffin, But Trystan quickly came into range and fired his pulse laser. Multiple light strands cored the Victor in the abs, not enough to breach the armor, but strong enough to get Blitzie's attention.

"So this is how we're going to play the game, huh?" Blitzie growled as he lined up his Gauss cannon with the Thunderbolt. "You are too coward to fight me alone that you have to gang up on me!"

"I get this, Caelia," Trystan said. "Go get Linc."

"You sure?" Caelia replied.

"Yeah, sure," Trystan started circling the Victor. "Kill Linc for me."

"Be careful!" Caelia took off, leaving Trystan and Blitzie to square off.

As the Griffin continued its course, the Victor took the opportunity to shoot the Griffin in the back, but Trystan anticipated Blitzie's maneuver. As soon as the Victor twisted to take the chance, he fired the last rounds of his autocannon, followed by a string of pulse lasers. His shots foiled the Victor's plan to backstab the Griffin. With his autocannon depleted, Trystan jettison the multi-barreled cannon and went with his plethora of lasers to duel the Victor.

Frustrated, the Victor turned around and fired everything. The Gauss slug stopped the Thunderbolt right on its track. The laser bolts stripped what was left on the left torso, and the missiles drilled the right torso, forcing the Thunderbolt to fold.

Trystan grimaced as his console screamed a litany of damage reports into his ears, yet he already knew the sum: his Thunderbolt was dying. Fighting the Avatar had reduced the Thunderbolt to less than 65-percent combat effectiveness. There was no way he could overcome Blitzie's Victor, not with shredded armor, empty autocannon, and 15-ton disadvantage. He needed some radical adjustment, something that Blitzie wouldn't be able to answer.

The Victor came again, eager to finish the duel as soon as possible. Lasers and missiles pounded the Thunderbolt relentlessly. Trystan twisted right, sacrificing the Thunderbolt's left arm while waiting for a break in the Victor's rain of fire. The Victor launched another Gauss salvo, breaching the Thunderbolt left arm in violent explosion. Trystan screamed in agony as the neurohelmet shocked his nerve system, sending feedback signal from the sudden loss of weight. The Thunderbolt swayed and staggered as if it lost the will to live.

But multiple salvos had caused the Victor a problem of its own. Firing its weapons in reckless abandon, the Victor found itself with all weapons in reload, without anything to keep the Thunderbolt at bay. It was the break Trystan was looking for. He fired his medium lasers off balance, striking the cannon on the Victor's arm. The Victor pivoted to protect its Gauss cannon, but Trystan unleashed a deadly pulse laser volley at the arm. A lucky shot burnt the capacitor. The right arm exploded in brilliant color, sending the Victor reeling.

Just as Trystan scored his critical hit, Caelia maxed out her reactor output but she had no chance to keep up with Linc. The Centurion was more than10 kph faster than her Griffin. She had to find a way to get Linc into her firing range, or else she might as well quit.

"Linc, stop!" she desperately called Linc. "It is over. Trystan had the Blazing Aces surrounded. There is no reason to continue this stupidity any longer."

"I don't care about the Blazing Aces anymore!" Linc replied. "I'm outta here!"

"You just condemn Blitzie to die!"

"Screw Blitzie! Every man for himself!"

"This will go into your record! Nobody wants to hire a deserter!"

"I'll take that chance! Better be a living coward than a dead hero!"

Caelia noticed that Linc was reaching the edge of her radar. If she couldn't get him now, she'd lose him.

"Alright, run! That's what you'd ever done!" she threw her last effort to bruise his ego. She hated to have to use their past relationship as a weapon. Love him or hate him, Linc was a good, generous, passionate lover. She couldn't help fidgeting in her seat remembering their time together. Yet it was the only thing she had left on him, and even though she would regret it for the rest of her life, she had to do it. "You strayed when you were with me, and now you stray when your friends need you most. That's what you are, somebody that always runs away. No wonder Sgt. Lantham only wanted your meat. I wish I were as smart as her."

Caelia's eyes teared up watching Linc's heat signature slowed down, then turned toward her. There was no turning back; now she had to kill the man that gave her so much pleasure. But he was also the man who betrayed her trust, and who may have murdered her mother.

"You will never be as smart as Vicky!" Linc growled as he paced his mech toward Caelia. "Both of you are hoes. She knew it and embraced it. You're lying to yourself by trying not to be, but in the end you're nothing but your brother's whore. You're worse than Vicky! You're the lowest of the Vandenbergs!"

"Then why don't you get rid of me? You wasted my mother and my brother! Why leave me behind? Isn't it time for you to waste me?"

"You run your mouth like an old hag! Alright, Bitch, you ask for it!"

Caelia charged Linc full speed, watching her radar, and fired her PPC as soon as he fell into range. The rushed shot grazed the Centurion's shoulder, stripping a layer of armor, but failed to do harm. The Centurion shrugged off the attack then launched its answer. Ten missiles whistled out of their tubes in a plume of white smoke. Caelia sidestepped the attack but two missiles gored her waist. The tremor grabbed her attention.

"You know why we keep you around?" Linc started to move in circle, waiting for the opportunity to bring his massive LBX-10 cannon to bear. "You're the trophy of the unit. To get the Blazing Aces we had to get rid of your mother and your brother. But if we get rid of you, nobody will take us seriously. We need the name 'Vandenberg' behind the Blazing Aces. And it's easy since you don't give a crap about the Blazing Aces. As long as somebody gives you a mission, you'll stick around."

"Good to know," Caelia gritted her teeth. "Because you'll die knowing that you should've killed me when you had a chance." Her console beeped, and she launched her SRM in cascaded volleys. Linc dodged the attack but four missiles slammed into historso. The Centurion took a few steps backward. As it regained balance, it fired its lasers, followed by another wave of missiles. Caelia leaned forward to evade the missiles, but ate the laser shots. Her left torso glowed in red as the bolts turned armor into smelter.

The Centurion pressed the attack and fired its clustered-round cannon. A massive shell burst into dozens of sub-munitions the moment it left the barrel, then lashed the upper body of the Griffin. Shredded armor flew in every direction. Caelia held her joystick as hard as she could as the Griffin jerked behind. The Griffin's gryo couldn't compensate the powerful impact of the LBX-10, and in desperate move Caelia fired her jets, taking the Griffin out of the LBX-10's firing range.

The Centurion charged forward and launched its missiles as soon as it was ready, but the rushed salvo sailed way above the Griffin. Guided by the jets, Caelia put her crosshair squarely at the Centurion's midsection and mashed her trigger. A jet of charged particle bolt drilled the Centurion on its center torso, stopping it dead on its track. Caelia knew that Linc's mech was wired with sophisticated communication systems, and her hit might have fried Linc's prized electronics. Either it would piss him off or discouraged him. She hoped it was the latter.

"I may not care about the Blazing Aces as much as Mom or Trystan, but I care about my family," she snarled as she waited for her PPC to reload. "There is not a day went by without me thinking about my brother. There are things in the past I can't undo, but I can always make amend."

The Centurion responded by coming hot with its lasers. Caelia backpedaled in circle to keep out of the Centurion's cannon. Her PPC rang true and she fired it, striking the Centurion squarely on the right chest. As the Centurion staggered, Caelia painted it with her missiles. As many as 10 missiles exploded on the Centurion's torso, ripping armor all the way to the structure.

The Centurion rushed its counter attack. The 10-grade shotgun blasted, spitting murderous pellets at the Griffin. Caelia twisted to expose its nearly unscathed left armor to the incoming fire. The massive impact almost toppled the mech, and Caelia had to summon every bit of energy she didn't know existed to keep it standing. But stand it did, and as the Centurion realigned its weapon, Caelia gambled with her alpha strike button.

The effect couldn't be more devastating. The particle bolt cored the torso for the third time, and the missiles finished whatever was left of the upper body. The structure gave in, then the engine burst into flame. A fireball tore the Centurion from the inside. The front torso split open, gushing smoke and burning parts, and the gutted mech tumbled behind, flat on its back.

Caelia didn't know if Linc was still alive. She didn't take any chance. She brought her mech slowly toward the fallen Centurion and waited until her PPC was fully charged. She lined up her cannon with the smoking cockpit of the Centurion, hissing, "Consider this a closure." She pressed her trigger, engulfing the Centurion's head with bright blue light.

From the distance, both Trystan and Blitzie knew somebody just exploded into smithereens, but it was outside their radar range. They didn't know who survived between Caelia and Linc. Trystan prepared for the worst, while Blitzie hoped for the best, especially after he lost his most powerful weapon.

"Linc?" he called as he fired every weapon he had left to keep Trystan at bay. "Linc! Come in, dammit!"

"He might not hear you anymore, Blitzie," Trystan said while dodging Blitzie's uncontrollable shots easily. Bluffing was not in his blood, but against an assault mech with 15 ton advantage, he could use anything. "Even if he could, why would he come back for you? We both know he's a backstabber."

"Sonofabitch!" Blitzie hurled the last batch of his missiles, which missed miserably. "Look, man, it was all his idea! I have nothing to do with your mother!"

"Oh, sure, sell your partner to save your life!" Trystan grew sick of Blitzie's lack of decency. Why the Blazing Aces survived under the leadership of these lowly individuals escaped him. He was just glad that they wouldn't be able to hurt the unit any longer. "Linc is a cheating bastard, and now you're turning into him!"

"OK, OK, OK, just listen to me!" Blitzie completely broke down. "I am rich! I have a lot of money! Why would I need to kill your mother? I could have bought the Blazing Aces for all I care! I'm telling you, man! It's all Linc! He's the one who came up with the murder! I have nothing to do with it!"

"I have enough! Get out of your mech, Blitzie!" It was not easy to fight the urge to fire everything at the Victor, but Trystan restrained himself. "Save yourself from further humiliation!"

"You're just gonna kill me when I'm out!" Blitzie moaned.

"I am not you! Get out, or continue fighting!" Trystan raised his large pulse laser. "You have 3 seconds."

"Alright, alright, I'm out, just lower your weapon."

The truth was Blitzie was just as backstabbing as Linc, and Trystan knew it. He knew Blitzie was waiting for him to lower his guard. Even without the Gauss rifle and the missiles, the Victor was still dangerous. It was an assault battlemech. Trystan lowered his pulse laser but rerouted all generator output to the myomer, ready to make his move whenever Blitzie tried to cheat.

And as he predicted, the moment he lowered his arm, Blitzie hoisted his. He aimed his lasers at Trystan's cockpit and fired wildly. But Trystan twisted his Thunderbolt, and Blitzie's lasers landed on solid armor.

"Bad choice!" Trystan thumbed the red button. His lasers lit up the field, taking away the remaining armor on the right torso until the structure caved in. Three internal explosions wrecked the Victor. The lanky assault mech staggered hard before falling backward. As the Victor crashed, its head disintegrated, and a life pod jetted out in a plume of smoke. It reached its summit then glided down under three large parachutes.

Trystan knew that shooting down a life pod was repulsive, but he was not letting Blitzie get away. He lined up his crosshair with the life pod, thinking of how disappointed his mother would be if she knew what he was going to do, then hit the trigger. Blitzie's life pod turned into burning ember for a short while, then withered away.

"I'm sorry, Mom, but I have to do it," he sighed. He shut his mech down, took off his neurohelmet, then buried his face in his palm. He started to sob, but he realized that Linc might still be alive and were coming for him. He quickly called for his sister, "Caelia! Caelia, can you hear me?"

"I'm here," Caelia's voice made him sigh in relief. "Are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Blitzie?"

"Dead. Linc?"

"Dead."

"How do you feel?" Trystan said gently, knowing that Caelia had a history with Linc.

"Spent. But it's all over now." Caelia paused briefly. "Tell me this is over. Tell me this is it."

"It is. We avenged Mom."

"So what now?" Caelia muttered. "What would be of us? What would be of the Blazing Aces?"

"We'll deal with it tomorrow. Today, let's just be together."