Chapter 16
May 6, 3025
North of Mercury Metallics and Mining district
Continent of New Syria
Suk II
"We've got two new 'mechs on sensors. Both Fire Javs. They're falling back. Stallion in pursuit." The comms ended in Jawbone's headset with an abrupt squelch, one of the little quirks of his Orion ON1-K's neurohelmet when he picked the 'mech up in Combine space last year. His forward observer, Stallion, in a Dervish set up for long range missiles was the "scout" of their little team, at a mere fifty-five tons compared to his heavy lance, Jawbone's Jesters. They picked up between three to four light 'mechs from some local mercenaries working for the Militia, with a grey dog of some kind for their insignia. Cute. Must have just got here. Time to kick 'em out of our turf.
"Jawbone in pursuit. Watch the trees on the tops of these cliffs! The ground's pretty unsteady up there. If you find a good spot, get a couple volleys off before moving." These Fire Javs seem to be probing us out, tired of the mineral scores we've gotten over the last week or so. Whoever those commandos were that got the water treatment plants, Jawbone wanted to shake their hands. It opened up a wealth of opportunity in rarer minerals and some gemstones on New Syria. The RoughRiders didn't give them any more trouble on this continent. They were busy elsewhere, and word got out they all pulled back to that Alshayra continent. This mining district was their oyster.
Now they just had to get their haul, and a little bit more off planet before any more cavalry showed up. But first, these guys. "Longshot. Stay on the cliffs and give Stallion some cover fire."
"Copy," came a gravely, deep voice from Longshot, who sounded more like he ate his cigarettes instead of smoking them. He was also hopping from cliff to cliff in these tight, winding canyons in his Catapult. A luxury to some, half his lance had jump jets, but neither his Orion nor his Warhammer had any, and his own 'mech were mostly equipped for longer-range fighting. Their Warhammer had twin PPC's, one in each tube arm, and a whole lotta "fuck you" up close with twin medium and small lasers, a six-tube SRM launcher and two machine guns to wrap things up.
He'd fare better in these canyons than Odin, the name of his own seventy-five-tonner. His entire lance had over five-dozen total LRM's, so running down these Javs shouldn't take too much longer. They just needed an opening for a shot in the next couple of minutes…
"Plus one Jav again, makes three. LURMS away on target beta." Longshot let loose with his thirty LRM's, half in either of his boxy "cat ears" on the back corners of his walking blimp. A brief pause, and some small rumbles almost a kilometer ahead. "Hit on the legs, about half my LURMS. Jumping forward. Jawbone, they really like to jump right before the LURMS land. Maybe you can track them on my next volley. Beta has a red right leg."
Their version of saying that Jav was done for if the leg took another volley like that. A light 'mech with one good leg is a dead 'mech. Speed's everything when you were outgunned by about…oh…a hundred tons or more.
"Shit," Stallion said through his teeth. "Went behind another cliff. Keep your eye on that corner, Longshot. I'm moving south."
"Copy."
Jawbone finally got around another corner and saw some of the exchange ahead of him. The corner, between two other cliffs, were scarred and pockmarked with little craters from Longshot's last barrage. Pieces of metal scattered the area, the last of that Fire Jav's leg protection having served its purpose.
"Contact! Eight medium-sized contacts from the south, just powered up or started up an ICE. Danger close. Looks like combos but I'll move a little closer to get a better readout." A trap. They could be tanks. Combos, or ICE, meant internal combustion engines, so he suspected a tank trap. We could probably take all of them if we draw them into the canyon with us…
"Neg, Stallion. Fall back and form up on me, everyone. We're getting out of here. We're going to counter bait them by drawing them to us one at a piecemeal." Almost on cue, two of the three Fire Javs came back through the gap between the cliffs and split up, hopping up on the edges above either side of Jawbone's Orion. He didn't have time for a missile lock but got a snap shot from his AC-10 in his shoulder, a 115mm slug finding its way into the wounded Jav's right arm. The velocity of the explosion from the arm snapping off at the elbow, right as the Jav landed on the unsteady rocks on the cliff, plus the fact that it was by nature a little top-heavy made him slip and spin clockwise, slamming into a smaller tree on its back.
The tree gave way instantly but helped cushion the pilot's fall. He could still see a battered shin and foot sticking out from the edge of the cliff, and he moved forward slightly to get a shot at the exposed knee. A light vibration in his seat as another round cycled into the chamber of his autocannon indicated he was ready to amputate, and he fired everything that wasn't danger-close, including two medium lasers and a four-tube SRM. The armor-piercing, high-explosive slug found the knee right after the lasers, snapping it clean off, and the SRM's made small holes on its upper thigh. A small spike of heat in his cockpit stole some of his breath for a split second, and he snagged a quick sip of the tiny water valve off his left shoulder.
"Legged the Beta Jav!" Jawbone hollered. The second Jav opened up to his left, scoring green laser hits across his arms and chest but penetrating nothing.
"Oh ff—" static.
A light flickered on the console his left side. The green outline of Stallion's 'mech on his lance's status screen blinked in various places, then the area indicating the head went black. Various parts of the upper torso also changed to various colors of yellow or orange, indicating a huge volley just happened.
Then the entire icon for the mech went black.
"Stallion, you alright?" No response. Jawbone turned to square-off against the other Jav, but it jumped out of his line of sight.
"Stallion?! Come in!" Jawbone suddenly lost a lot of heat in his face. Everything felt shaky, and he broke out into a cold sweat to go with the very warm dampness all over his body.
"Headshot. Multiple headshots." Longshot's voice, much more deadpan, as the reality of the instant removal of an ally and friend started to dawn on all of them. To get multiple headshots on a Dervish with a cockpit towards the rear…
"Last sensor contacts showed about two lances of LTV-4 Hovers." They all have PPC's. And they got the jump on him. New contact! Dropship! Leopard! Coming in from the south!"
Jawbone's eyes went wide and he gritted his teeth at what just happened. We got baited. Jesus Christ how many more are coming? If they turned around, it'd take a about a minute until they reached the woods, but those hovers were twice as fast as they were.
"New thermal contacts!" Longshot again. "Infantry from the west! Reading two platoons. They're probably anti-'mech. SHIT!"
The Leopard was coming to a standstill almost right on top of them. Dust and small rocks being kicked up by superheated jets turned the entire viewing screen ahead of him to about twenty shades of swirling brown and grey."The brick with wings" opened its four 'mech bay doors, two on either side, and three light 'mechs, all humanoid in shape but tiny in size, with one Trebuchet hopped out the sides and lit their jump jets about half a kilometer overhead.
The sound was more than deafening. Even with his sealed cockpit, the vibration from so much displaced air shook him and his 'mech. He briefly switched his targeting and sensors to thermal and floated his reticles toward one of the giant blobs of white in the sky. The downward-thrusting engines of the Leopard. Four of them, brighter than this planet's star. He put his fingers back on the triggers to hopefully take it down and rally his men behind a dropship kill.
As he tilted his chest upwards towards the hovering beast, the two PPC's in its nose opened up on Jawbone, beating him to the punch. Both hit him square in the chest, and the resulting slight impact plus the spike of ions swirling around the electronics in his 'mech caused his own targeting system to stutter and sway, making him miss almost everything but the lasers. They landed so far away that they did little more than put a couple smoldering dots on the dropship, now beginning to ascend and bank back the way it came with its 'mech bay doors securely shut.
After all the noise had subsided, during which nobody was able to get a word in, another squelch of a slightly different pitch came over his helmet's wonky speakers. "Attention, the three heavies in the canyons. You're surrounded and trapped by two companies of planetary forces, with more on the way." A female voice, not too young, not too old. She continued her speech as more sensor contacts indicating a Wolverine and Shadow Hawk lit up his sensors even further from the east. More than half of the Militia hovertanks had also circled around a hillside to the south, aiming their SRM launchers and PPC's at whatever they could get a bead on.
Most of them head a bead on Jawbone's exposed backside. And he was standing still.
"You have two choices. One, go down swinging. It'll be glorious for you, and you'll probably bag a few tanks or 'mechs. Or some infantry currently pointing over a dozen SRM tubes at you from the west. Some of you might even survive to tell your friends and family about it someday. But you won't get to keep your 'mechs, and most likely won't get to keep your lives, either.
"Option two. Power down, right now, no questions asked. Surrender your 'mechs and we'll ransom you and your personnel back to your people at your base. You have ten seconds to decide. Nine. Eight. Seven—"
"OK, OK! Stop counting, bitch! Jesters, power down. Now." Jawbone moved his hands over his control panel for a second, hovering…then moved them back to the sticks. He changed his comm channel back to his lance. "Do not follow up on this. Get out of your rides, now." Changing back to the public channel, he saw what he wanted. "But first…" The light 'mechs that landed out of the dropship had all stopped at the edges of the cliffs, not more than a couple hundred meters from Jawbone. Perfectly stationary.
A Trebuchet had popped out, waist-high, over a cliff. Bigger than the lights, but the head is right there. His sensors went back to normal after some of the dust and debris had settled, showing a clean shot. If he could turn to the right fast enough…
The second he began to turn, the voice over the public channel shouted, "kill the Orion!" She didn't even take the time to switch back to her own comms. The Trebuchet lit its jump jets, rising up slightly and pivoting its torso to the right. The other lights in that lance did a similar jump, unsure who was the actual target. The AC-10 was in range, along with his LRM's, but nothing else was close enough. The sudden unexpected movement of the Treb caused his shot to go low, instead of a direct head hit, merely impacting on the left side of its chest.
A large explosion cut through but left most of the internal structure intact. His LRM's arrived late, putting craters in the legs and setting the Treb off-balance but the pilot was able to compensate, since they weren't worried about shooting at the same time.
Had the Treb turned the other way, the shot would have broken through and cooked countless LRM rounds of its own stored inside, blowing the whole thing apart. Lucky bastard.
Everyone else that didn't just do a bunny-hop to avoid losing their head had nothing distracting them from making near-perfect shots on a stationary heavy 'mech the size of a small building, most of which was turned towards them. LRM's from the Firebee, SRM's from the hovertanks belched black smoke as the missiles went free, seeking the asshole who tried to assassinate their friend. Before they arrived, medium lasers from just about every 'mech cut the Orion in various places, but only making small cracks or holes all over the front. Nothing penetrated.
Until the PPC's hit. Four combined shots all landed square on the Orion's rear armor, much thinner despite the good amount of protection a 'mech of that size normally had. Discharged Ions seemed to shove Jawbone's 'mech forward, forcing the gyroscope to compensate and plant one leg slightly ahead to keep it from being pushed even further into a nearby cliff, face-first. His rear armor display went completely black, with some engine damage in the center.
The few LRMS that were fired without the help of that Treb seemed destined to reach every little crack that was open on its front. Two of the five from a Firefly found holes near the pair of medium lasers in Jawbone's left arm, blowing them apart inside and peeling armor outwards like a disgusting-looking avulsion. Smaller cuts were turned into larger gashes along the chest, opening the 'mech further.
Jawbone rocked forward against his harness, hands still on the sticks. He turned back to face the Treb once more, for one more attempt, and heard the warning tones of more missiles in his helmet. From the Trebuchet itself, which was wrapped in its own smoke. They were already on final approach to him, giving him almost no time to react. He simply put his arms up in front of his face, and thirty more missiles panged and banged and boomed and made all manner of sounds that explosives and metal hitting more metal at incredible rates of speed made.
And yet, it wasn't enough to push him over. However, most of his previously pristine 'mech had become a memory. Emergency lights turned his displays into a Christmas tree, or went out altogether. Sparks fired across several consoles. The smell of acrid smoke filled his nose and taste buds.
He lifted the cover of his emergency ejection switch and slammed his fist down on it. Milliseconds later, loud pops around his cockpit went off, and he was shoved into his seat and into the heavens on jets of flame.
"All Coyotes, Alpha here. Everyone get a laser or something aimed in on that parachute when it opens and wait for my signal." Emily hissed through her teeth.
As the blood stopped rushing into his legs and suddenly went back into his head, Jawbone felt the arc of the cockpit start to plummet back to earth. The roaring ceased, and his chute opened. He smiled at being able to deny them the kill, Ares Conventions about surrender be damned.
As he got his bearings below him, he saw every single tiny 'mech, and some bigger ones, and even the tanks all had their guns aimed in on him. His eyes went wide.
"Fire."
Lasers and machine gun fire created a lopsided teepee of tiny beams of green and red light that speared up at the parachute, poking holes all over it. One beam quickly swept from left to right, cutting one side of the cables connecting chute to cockpit. The PPC's all went high, but some man-made lightning managed to arc its way across the chute, through the cables, and into the cockpit.
The tiny pod fell to the ground within seconds, wrapped in small bands of blue light, as what was left of the fabric of the chute simply fluttered down behind it like a popped balloon.
It landed with a the tiniest of vibrations Emily could feel in her seat from a few hundred meters away.
Shoot at my girlfriend, will you?! Emily thought…out loud. Then the sudden realization that she thought it out loud over the combined comms of the Coyotes and the Militia hit her, and her ears filled with high-pitched howling and whooping from her entire company, louder than ever. Some slightly static-filled howling came from the Militia tankers, and for a second she thought she could hear Kang one more time.
