Chapter 20

May 10th, 3025

North of Triple-M district

New Syria

Suk II

Pearl shook her head, feeling the neurohelmet pads rub against the side of her face for what felt like the 148th time today. She blinked off the small amount of sweat beading over her eyes. "Flock lance, I really hope you have something good for me soon, cause I'm more likely to die of boredom than anything else at this point."

Despite the lack of any action, Mother Hen was glad to be back in her 'mech again. All the new responsibilities Emily had dumped on her recently as the XO was really getting on her nerves, and she needed to just ride again. Motorcycle riders called this "wind therapy," but the only breeze she might get was a hot one, unless she ejected. Her lance mates, in both Firebees and the Firefly, were up ahead taking a very cautious approach through some of the more deciduous trees of the northern forests of New Syria.

History was her minor at the Nagelring Academy, before she dropped out. It mentioned some of the imported seeds from Terra that made their way across most of the Inner Sphere. She guessed some of the more Mediterranean trees were imported to this particular continent, where they thrived around Seldiran Forest, where they were currently investigating. It wasn't as swampy as it was down on Gimli, but the trees were pretty large and blocked most of the wind, making any breeze along the surface just skim over the tops of them.

Her Trebuchet's cockpit was mildly warm, feeling more like someone had left a space heater on low heat in the springtime than anything. They had been patrolling for the better part of three hours in this area, some fifty kilometers north of "Triple M" mining district. Starting with the place they last fought, her lance followed a winding path of heavy 'mech tracks up and down the winding hills that laid themselves out on the western slopes of the Steever Mountain Range. An impressive and very steep range of cliff faces that dropped off into the channel, she read in the footnote of a book about Suk II's geography having one of the largest glaciers of any terraformed planet.

That glacier now belongs to the planet's ocean, occasionally flowing back through this channel it had formed.

The mountain range on the west side of an ocean channel dividing Alshayra from New Syria stretched across the entire channel. Combined with a fairly recent tectonic collision, some of the lopsided cliffs managed to reach as tall as Mt. Everest on Terra, hence the anagram. It was distracting to look at in all its majesty, even after hours of having that background on the right side of her 'mech's viewscreen, seemingly stretching on ad infinitum.

Either way, it beats looking at tree after tree for hours. Now I get trees and mountains. She shook her head. This was getting reeeeally boring. Murphy's Law should be kicking any…no? Oh c'mon Murphy! Well, at least we have an idea where they came from. That's something we can take back to base.

"Alright guys, time to pack it in. Swing due one-seven-zero, let's go back along the trail we took. Presto, take the rear. Break into pairs, split-diamond formation. Bees together, usual right side, Camel on point. Keep it tight until we reach the edge of the woods, then spread out to about half a click each.

Some a series of double-clicks on her helmet's ear confirmed the order. Presto, Heretic, and Camel all formed up in their respective places in a rough diamond formation. The two Firebees took front and right. A fresh surge of adrenaline added to her perspiration as the excitement of heading to a place her friends and allies were all at, along with the general changeup to doing something new. At least for a few minutes.

"Contact, bearing two-seven-seven, max range one click." Heretic's smooth baritone voice got her attention. "Moving to get a better look."

"Copy. Camel, give him some backup. Presto, stay with me. I'll work on an angle for LRM's."

"Roger." Presto's thick Italian accent and general flair when he finished a task sooner than expected earned him that callsign. The rather diverse ethnic background led to several in the Coyotes offering to change the company name to "1st Iron Salad Bowl," but Emily had politely refused. And then gave them an extra half-hour of 'mech cleaning detail.

A PPC shot screamed between the trees and over the shoulder of Heretic as he closed in carefully. "Plus two contacts, makes three. PPC went high and wide. First contact is a…" A brief pause. "Locust." One of the more infamous lights of the Inner Sphere, it was also one of the faster 'mechs without jump jets, easily reaching speeds over a hundred and twenty kph, but going that fast usually meant sending the pilot for a jarring ride. Bird-like, rearward-facing legs that often felt as thin as an actual bird's legs made it look more like a large metal mosquito without wings than an actual locust.

Despite the cramped cockpit and meager protection it had at twenty tons, it was still useful for scouting roles, but it typically needed backup close-by if it was going to put up a fight. Apparently this one carried a PPC that was fired on the move, because that shot didn't even come close.

"Can't get a read on the other two yet. Might be using some kind of cammo or something. Whoa!" Another PPC shot came a lot closer this time, passing just over the shoulder of Heretic's Firebee, slamming charged ions into a nearby boxwood tree and sending arcs of blue and white into the branches. For a moment, the tree looked almost spherical, divided into halves of green and blueish white. Several small birds fell from its branches, cooked by the discharge meant for walking tanks, and not small life forms.

A single PPC by itself wasn't actually that dangerous to most 'mechs, but one lucky shot on a light 'mech and it could be game over for any of them. Only Mother Hen had enough armor on her Treb to withstand a single hit without issue at fifty tons. Unless it was the head, she thought.

"Okay, we've made contact. Let's not get stuck in a long firefight." Pearl glanced at the two yellow brackets in the distance on her Heads-Up-Display. "Get a readout on the other two 'mechs and let's start backing off." Trying to reach out with her missiles, she kept floating her crosshairs over the location of the Locust, relayed back by Heretic's sensors. Every time she came close to a lock, it would fade out again. "We can't get a good line-of-sight for our LRM's. Everyone break off and see if he follows you." Goddamnit, what are those contacts already?

She turned her 'mech due south with the rest of them and pushed into her foot pedals a little deeper to get some speed. Ahead of them lay a few more square kilometers of trees, shrubbery, and vines with a few sporadic beams of daylight, and beyond it, freedom.

"Marauder!" Presto's near-panicked voice was due to the sudden realization of a seventy-five-tonner being within firing range. With two PPC's in its arms for easy aiming and a long-barreled AC-5 up on its right shoulder amounted to pretty much triple the killing power of the Locust, with more than half of a Locust's weight in just armor, allowing it to very possibly go solo against Pearl's entire lance, if it was a solid shot. And it had one more friend.

"Get as many trees between you and that Marauder as physically possible, now! Fall back to the edge of the woods! When you get there, turn and cover the rest of us!" Pearl turned directly away from the almost-big-enough-to-be-an-assault 'mech and hit a button on her console. Tiny vibrations on either side of her cockpit went pop, and a large net slung over the back of her Treb came free, dropping close to a dozen now-armed seismic-activated mines that would either deter or disable the perusing Marauder.

Or it'll kill the Locust and still deter the big guy, Pearl silently hoped. She then put her feet into the pedals as hard as they would allow without triggering a jump sequence and fought the back-and-forth momentum like a bull rider as she slalomed around tree after tree. The terrain at the floor of the forest was clearer than the jungle, which made for easier running.

The Locust pilot thought so, too. And given how aggressively he was pursuing everyone, the chance of his other friend being very large was also very likely at this point. Another PPC went shot wide of Heretic's Firebee, off to the right of Pearl's HUD, but the Locust pilot didn't seem to care much. Two more PPC shots from the Marauder reached out and created a huge amount of electrical and ionic power going straight into the left arm of Heretic.

The entire thing was split off at the bicep, and went flying into a nearby tree. Heretic managed to catch himself at a jogging pace, regaining his balance, then managed to swerve around another tree. Pearl's eyes widened at the amazing piloting display, and checked in.

"You ok, Heretic?"

Some struggled grunting from the other end. "Yes'm. Gimmie a sec. I need some cover, guys."

An autocannon round splintered one of the bigger trees near him, then split a smaller one in half. One of two more PPC shots grazed his right leg, sending brief arcs across it.

"Keep moving! The Marauder's probably getting pretty warm already." A lot of a 'mech's heat dissipation gets negated if the 'mech is moving fast, and this 'mech could have a top speed of forty to sixty-five kph depending on if it was customized or not. The enemy pilot would have to decide on not cooling down as quickly between shots, or losing more distance between them. The rest of Pearl's lance could get away easily once they cleared the tree line. Her Treb on the other hand, topped out at just over eighty kph as-is. And there was still plenty of reach on those bigger guns the Marauder had.

"Mother, last 'mech is a Phoenix Hawk." Not good. He's faster than me and can cripple me if we don't get him first. Shit. A very humanoid design that looked like it had some kind of jet pack on its back and held a large laser in its right hand, the forty-five-tonner was fast and had good firepower. Usually in the form of lasers and some SRM's. It typically ran hot, though. If it fired one too many vollies while chasing, it was a sitting duck.

"Stick with the plan, guys. Get to the edge of the forest." Turning around another pair of deadwoods wrapped around each other, she saw the clearing up ahead. The small bunch of mines she dropped appeared as a tiny purple blip on her map, from the transponder hooked up to one of them. The Hawk was closing in on her directly from behind, but that also meant he was closing in on the mines. It looked almost like a collision course.

"Scratch that! New plan! Turn around and get ready to blast that Hawk. He's headed for my mines!" She slowed and turned around, the ground giving way slightly but the treads on her feet holding firm. The Locust, off to what was now her left side and less than two hundred meters away, snapped a PPC shot wide and immediately turned to bank away as Pearl brought her own medium lasers to bear. One clipped his "ear" of a left arm, but didn't penetrate.

My paycheck for a god damn LRM lock just once today! Heat allowed its way in the cockpit, as if someone changed the space heater into a large floor dryer and put it on high. To answer Pearl's maneuver, the Marauder pilot slowed briefly to aim the two stubby PPC's mounted to two very skinny, almost cartoonish-looking arms. Both of them were aimed right at her Treb's chest.

She tried to turn her torso to spread some of the damage to her 'mech, but the shots came too quickly. Both slammed at her right in the center, creating a massive gouge and making her HUD flicker for a moment. The momentum knocked her back slightly, but she was able to brace herself on her back leg. Her damage monitor showed a deep cherry red crater in her center torso. Fortunately, none of her LRM's were stored there, nor the launchers themselves.

"Shit! Hang on'a Mamma Hen!" Presto, who's voice had the urgency of a boy who had seen his own mother get punched in the stomach, came running. Winding through trees, he managed to get off a single large laser hit from his right arm on the Marauder at max range. The Hawk, firing its own large laser in its own right hand, looked like a larger mirror image, as it scored a blue beam across Pearl's right leg. A nasty scar in the center of the thigh dripped molten metal just above the knee before congealing again. Her chest had been breached, but everything inside remained intact, for now.

And then the Hawk hit the spot Pearl was hoping for. As the 'mech's top half jerked sideways in what must have been a last-minute realization, the very last of the Coyote's mines went off in a crescendo of dull thumps as the Hawk's right foot was turned into a stump. A huge cloud of dust and dirt swelled instantly up to the 'mech's hips. Metal went in every direction, leaving various tattoos and piercings on all the nearby trees like they had suddenly joined a punk band.

The mines didn't do much else, but getting the foot was enough. The Hawk kept running over the explosion onto its left foot, then took another step…and tumbled forward out of the cloud of dirt onto on its right side. Its own weight crushed the large laser in its hand, as well as most of the entire arm.

"Everyone stop for two seconds, get a good volley on that Hawk and get the hell out of here!" For the first time today, her LRM crosshairs in the shape of a large group of circles went from golden to red, and she let loose thirty missiles in a blackish-grey cloud of smoke. The large lasers from both Firebees and most of the lasers from Presto's Firefly etched red, green, and blue beams into both the fallen Hawk and the surrounding shrubbery, starting many small fires. Fires that would likely spread quickly around the crippled 'mech.

"Break and run! Now!" She kicked one leg out and spun on the other, doing a near-perfect one-eighty turn as the Marauder launched another volley strike on her. All three main weapons created triangle of ionized, explosive death going sailing past her, with one PPC shot clipping the back of her right elbow, fusing it in place.

As she started to gain speed, she switched to her rear camera as there were no trees ahead of her at the moment to worry about. The Marauder had overheated itself, having fired maybe a half-dozen PPC shots and several autocannon shots in less than thirty seconds. Either panic, rage, or just a simple miscalculation on the heat gauge had caused the last volley to push it way beyond a simple overheat warning and went straight into a shutdown. It sagged forward, still standing but unable to do anything until the Coyotes were already long gone.

"Big guy's cooking. Time to go! There's no way the Locust is gonna leave his friends, especially the Hawk. Good shooting, Coyotes. Let's get home." Presto, now more audibly calm, offered a solo howl as they ran.

As if to offer a final insult, the Locust fired it's PPC one last time at Pearl and hit the elbow previously weakened by his comrade, and what was left hanging began to dangle and sway, held on by myomer muscle and nothing else. As the remaining muscles in her bicep continued contracting and relaxing in the running cycle, the forearm began to flop back and forth, lacking any rigidity, weakening it further.

Finally, the whole forearm snapped off, taking the pair of medium lasers with it to the ground a few hundred meters further away as both sides decided to call it a battle. If they were shooting the other arm with the hand on it, I'd happily have left the middle-finger extended before it broke, Pearl thought while smirking.

Hours later, the sun was setting, and they had settled to a fast walk after getting enough distance between themselves and their new rivals. After arriving with some brief welcome home waving and gestures from the ground, all the members of "The Flock" had found an open makeshift gantry to park their 'mech at.

Backing up slowly while various people threw thick cables of wire and rope around the front of her 'mech to cinch it in place for now, Pearl hit the various buttons that began the shutdown sequence. Doing her ritual double-pat on her chest to beat off some of the tension and see if she had any serious bruises from the ride, she unstrapped herself and climbed out.

Waiting below her on the ground was a very worried-looking Emily, visibly relieved Pearl came out with all her limbs still attached. Emily held the rope ladder thrown down more as a courtesy than anything, and both of them embraced deeply when she reached the bottom.

"Geez hun, look at the size of this hole!" Emily swept her arm upwards at the Treb, and the almost two-meter wide black crater dead center of its chest. Pearl finally got a good look at it for the first time.

"Whoa. Uh…" She looked back at Emily sheepishly. The right arm had various wires and pieces of shrapnel hanging from the remains of the bicep, and walking back home after getting far enough from their foes without that counterweight had been a semi-wobbly experience from time to time. "Sorry, I guess? Beats being dead," she offered with a shrug.

Emily simply answered that by taking her face in her hands and pulling her up for a deep, long, sweaty kiss. Various techs and lookers-on offered hoots and catcalls and some mild clapping came from the gantry. They embraced each other for a moment, letting all things unspoken pass between them, as if they shared their understanding through osmosis.

"Let me debrief you so we can try and pinpoint their base," Emily suggested. Then she put her mouth down to Pearl's ear, speaking softly. "Then let me debrief you again after you've had a shower. Or we could just kill two birds with one stone and debrief in the shower. I've got the key to the doors."