Chapter 28

May 19th

Firebase Yankee

"Run that again!" The tech in charge pointed dramatically at the other tech, who thought they might have found the virus running around in their regiment's 'mechs for the first time in almost a month.

"Okay. Stop pointing." The other tech, a sixteen year-old girl, went back to their datapad, plugged into the miniature paddle of an arm of a Jenner, scrolling through the lines of code that controlled the thermal displays a MechWarrior would see through their neurohelmet. Over one thousand years of coding evolution, and yet the old-fashioned If and then was probably the most repeated words in the entirety of technology.

"Sorry." The tech in charge of said dramatic point practically ran over to the shoulder of the pointee. The datapad screen displayed various lines of code, some simple, some that spanned multiple lines. All boring.

Then a paragraph that looked way-too-unfamiliar scrolled by and the pointer tech said "there! Go back!" He pointed at the paragraph when it came up and immediately took a picture with his camera. The younger tech, the pointee handling the datapad reached for the screen capture button on pure reflex and the instant she pushed it, the paragraph vanished. "Noooooo!" The pointer threw his cover on the ground and a woomph of brown-red dust landed on them both. After the small coughing fit ended, the pointee seemed heartbroken.

"Sorry boss, it's a pure gamer reflex." The young wizkid happened to be an electronic genius, and was able to get through numerous waivers to sign up for the RoughRiders in exchange for non-combat garrison duty with zero exceptions. "I warned you I shouldn't be the one doing the scrolling, but you guys can't do it all day every day. Did you take the picture this time?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Let's go take it to the boss and see what we get."

Raymond Bache Memorial Spaceport

Suk II

LaPointe had gotten used to masking his enthusiasm for news. Any news. He'd learned not to get overly optimistic about good news from lower-echelon troops. He cared for them just the same as Hansen, but he typically got the good news that didn't pan out, or worse news, from subordinates lower on the chain of command.

Two of the four techs assigned to round-the-clock "scrolling duty," back at Firebase Yankee were on the screen, personally keeping an eye on the single 'mech he was able to take off-duty for an extended period of time. The video feed was linked directly to his 'mech, and since he had to climb into it to get the transmission this time, they had better be on to something finally.

They had just come to him with another trace of the virus running around his entire damn regiment's systems, and they finally got an actual picture of it. What he saw was pretty underwhelming in terms of what he understood, only that it meant they were a step closer to finding out how to defeat it.

"So, since we can't figure out how to isolate it, what we figured we could do is immediately put a firewall around each folder it previously hid in." The tech, with a very dusty cover on his head, seemed to have a flair for the dramatic. Corporal Wilson, and his team. So many names to remember, but it's nice to hear something good after almost thirty days of hunting for this damn thing.

The spunky young man continued. "We can't really set up a trap for it without messing up all the code in the gun cam folders right before a fight. That'd be counter-productive. So, what we're doing is adding one line of basic code that prevents it from returning again. It gets one chance and that's it."

LaPointe did some math in his head, based on how often the techs said it could move, and rubbed his temples together. The last few months had added more than a few gray hairs of his own.

"How long until you realistically figure that's going to happen, Corporal? We have three dropships full of Dracs about to make planetfall in less than two days."

The tech simply shook his head. "No idea, sir. We've found a way to isolate future locat—" the young man looked like he just had an imaginary light bulb go off over his head. "Actually, yes, I think we might have an answer, sir, but I need to confirm it's going to work first."

"Then I won't waste any of your time, Corporal. Let me know immediately when you have something locked down. Good hunting." LaPointe cut the video and climbed back down. Those men have about a day and a half hours to figure something out, or I wasted a 'mech for nothing.

"Where are we at with their trajectory? Have they changed anything?" He asked his officers as he strode into the command tent.

"Actually, yes sir." Dusselhoff seemed mildly pleased with the news. "They're diverting to somewhere south of Mach 'Beh. Still good they're not going to drop directly on top of us."

"Yes, however it will put all the pressure on the Coyotes and the 3rd Cav to keep them from deploying without a care." Abramsen chimed in. "If they go even further south, there's no chance in hell any of them would survive in the open, not to mention dropship and aerospace cover fire."

LaPointe interjected again. "Which is why, if we move south early, then they can just go for the throat and divert back towards the spaceport. They'll come in rested when we've been forced to march for the better part of an entire day before a fight. Not going to happen. We hold here until they commit to a final trajectory, then we move."

"No argument here." Dusselhoff again. "Some of our more savvy techs have begun rigging up infantry cameras to the major weapon systems of most of our 'mechs' main guns. If our gun cams go offline they can at least have a decent idea what their biggest weapon is aimed at. Did those techs have any luck yet?"

LaPointe shook his head. "Unlikely at best. They said they made some progress, but I'd rather rely on jury-rigged infantry cams at this point, the way that's been going. Said the virus kept moving around all the different files, and a 'mech's got millions of them. They got a picture of it this time. Hopefully they can write some code they can duplicate and send our way before the fight starts." The tone of his voice implied that wasn't going to happen, anyway.

"Sir, trajectory update." The junior officer assigned to major communications had the traditional holding-the-headphones-up-to-one-ear look about him. He wrote the message down on a piece of paper, handing it to his seniors.

Kid even uses pencil. "No major changes. The kind of minor course corrections that makes it look like a final approach. Way too early for that. Probably wants it to look authentic." He wadded up the paper and casually tossed it back to his junior, who caught it with his free hand easily. "I ain't fallin' for that. Give it another twenty-four hours and we'll see."

Camp Bow Wow III

Naphos Forest, south of Mach 'Beh

Suk II

"Well that's one way to do it." Emily put her fists on her hips, surveying the 'mech hole like a mother looking at a child's room being cleaned up. Not cleaned up the way she instructed, but at least the spirit of the thing was achieved.

The hole had an occupant, and the occupant was sitting in its very own pre-dug grave. Nymph's Urbie was jam-packed with enough random AC-20 ammunition all over it to detonate a small village. Given the Coyotes no longer had a use for a 'mech that was slower than their biggest mech, they decided to send it out in a blaze of glory.

"Everyone get a chance to put their autograph on there before we cover it up all nice and pretty?" She turned to their chief tech, Staff Sgt Dorek Zolnierczyk, who often just went by either "Chief," "Zol," or "gesundheit." Most people went for choice less likely to land them extra cleaning duty.

"A pretty damn-good work of art if I say so myself, Major. I'm still more proud of our jungle gantry system we had down south on Gimli myself, though." He smiled and did the same fists-on-hips pose, except he stuck his chest out a little further though just to make fun of the Major. "I took the honor of stripping the ignition sequence console, ejection console and the heat override console and welded them together to make a nice little three-button panel." Nymph can stick it to the inside of her Mongoose somewhere and activate it when she likes.

One of the ideas for buying time was to use the Urbie as a one-time shotgun blast. With one of the biggest shotguns ever made in the Inner Sphere. They had a simple sequence to make it work. Wait till enough juicy targets were within a hundred meters or so, then slap the ignition button. Wait six seconds, then slap the ejection button. It was tied to the Urbie's jump jets, allowing it to break through the cover and get a little closer and more importantly, up in the air. Then, four seconds later, slap the heat override button, which was tied to over four-dozen smaller explosives all connected to the primer pockets of the 200mm rounds. All of that remaining ammunition was in that hole. A very appropriate sendoff for the last remaining weapon that used it.

Every round that had been welded, tied, or stuck with industrial adhesive to the Urbie from head to foot was facing forward in a forty-five-degree arc. The resulting blast meant that at least some of the rounds will hit something.

This was Martin's original idea, but Emily and Pearl had elaborated on it further with the chief and this was the love child of that project. Everyone in the company had climbed into the clay-fired hole to sign one of the shells, the mud hardened courtesy of the Urbie's jump jets. The last one had been signed a few minutes ago by Emily herself, and she caught a glimpse of some of the graffiti others had offered.

"For your ass only."

"This side towards enemy," with arrows pointing in every direction.

"See you in Valhalla."

"If you can read this, get out of this hole, quick! It's gonna blow!"

And other such nonsense. She laughed at a few of them and simply signed her name with the spray paint, knowing she'd be the last one to see these anyway, except for Nymph and her team. The carefree but dedicated Corporal had been assigned some of the more lackadaisical of the Coyotes at the start of their campaign on Suk II when it came to camouflage. The "Nymph's Ninjas," as they had been branded, were originally the "Nymphcompoops." A title they happily shook off within the first month of working with her.

Their task was to duplicate this exact hole as much as possible further north. About a dozen more times. The chief had procured some out-of-service fusion reactors of the small-'mech variety from the RoughRiders before they left. The kind of engines that had seen too many repairs, thus weren't reliable for combat duty for one reason or another.

After they were gently placed amongst various piles of scrap in their own holes, they had only one task: Turn on by remote control.

With any luck, and if the newly rechristened "Bouncing Betty" plan worked up to snuff, they only need turn on the reactors across a several-kilometer stretch of land, from east to west, which should significantly delay any advance until the Dracs figure out what's going on.

"Yeah, it looks good alright. Very end-of-civilization chic. You realize about fifty percent of our plan relies on Betty here being rigged up perfectly, right? It's going to be hell to slow them down if this one's a dud."

Chief Zol looked like she had just shot his family dog. "Major, you know I want that bonus as much as the next guy, right? There's about two weeks of paid debauchery on the line for me and the Nymphos. Sorry. Ninjas."

She chuckled. "How many nicknames does her group have at this point?"

"Last I checked, about seven. A lot of fun words rhyme with Nymph, like—"

"You know what, forget I asked. Looks great, chief. I need to go check the 3rd Cav's cammo to the west. Hit me up if you need anything. Let's wrap it up nice and pretty for the Dracs, clear?"

"Clear, Major. And thanks. I just hope your gun cams don't go haywire because I want to see this baby take off! He saluted with his typical sideswipe that was often mistaken for giving the cut the engine hand signal.

One evil plan down, two to go. She started towards the hoverjeep that would take her to the 3rd Cav's northeast location when Martin came running up to her, looking more than a little concerned.

"Dirk, come with me. 3rd Cav can wait. The commandos just hit all the large water treatment plants. All of them."