CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN

A Battletech Short Story

By Sentinel 28A

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Took a little slower to update this than planned, but we're in the home stretch. Probably another two or three chapters and this is in the can.

And if you thought the last chapter was grim, try this one for size. It's never a pretty sight when people go kill crazy.

REVIEWERS' CORNER:

Rogue: Thanks as always. Louisa is indeed a darker character. Sheila came into the Clan War pretty much as a clean slate; the worst she had ever faced was hazing at the Nagelring. Louisa got introduced to the horror of war at age six, and you never quite get over that.

Fraser: I always figured 'Mechs automatically buttoned up—the 'Mech's computer detected gas, and the overpressure system came on. Over 300 years of no one using WMDs, though…I added in some of what you said here.

AC Double: Thanks. I just threw the crappy weather in as a plot hook for Louisa's bad memories, but if it's adding to the "atmosphere," that's kewl too.

MUSIC CORNER: Journey's "Separate Ways," for some reason. Also "Instruments of Destruction" from the old cartoon Transformers the Movie soundtrack, and Two Steps From Hell's "Moving Mountains."

As Louisa reached the bridge in her Nightsky, she saw that the engineers had not waited for her. They were already guiding Task Force Valkyrie's tanks towards the bridge, using chemsticks to mark out a trail. She looked at the sky. It was still cloudy, the tops of the distant mountains obscured by cloud. I never thought I'd think this, but thank God for the rain. If an enterprising Word of Blake fighter pilot had come across the tanks and 'Mechs lined up on the eastern bank of the river, there couldn't have been a better target.

Each tank had to cross one at a time: Ash Weltjens' Ontos weighed 95 tons, and the bridge sagged dangerously as it crossed. The engineers ran onto the bridge in its wake, Dore amongst them, and it wasn't until he gave the all-clear that the next tank was able to cross. Louisa exchanged radio calls with Musashiya, then jumped her lance across the river. She cleared the foaming water easily, and though their jumpjets were not as powerful as her Nightsky's, Yurika's Valkyrie and Habersohn's Black Hawk still made it with a few meters to spare. Once the tanks were across, then came Musashiya's assault 'Mechs, the MechWarriors virtually inching their way across, as a 'Mech did not distribute its weight as well as a tank. The Lynxes whispered across in seconds, only using the bridge as a safety net if their hoverskirts failed. Last was Dore's Aardvarks; Louisa would have preferred to leave the engineers behind—the Aardvarks were not really combat machines—but they would be alone, as she could spare no troops to defend them. Louisa wasn't taking a chance on detection. The bridge would be left behind, to be picked up later on. Again, she hated doing it, but short of blowing the bridge behind them—something she didn't want to do and would alert everyone within a hundred kilometers—there was no choice. The task force didn't have the time to pull them up, reattach them to the Aardvarks, and continue on. Louisa watched as the task force shook itself back into formation and as her LP from the mountain returned.

"Green Six, Shovel Six," Dore reported. "All across."

"Shovel Six, Bravo Zulu," Louisa replied, Bravo Zulu shorthand for well done. She'd put Dore in for a medal, if they survived. "All Valkyrie elements: Charlie Mike." The river had been the last natural obstacle. From here on in, the obstacles would be man-made.

Louisa unrolled the map in her cockpit and peered at it in the red light of her instrument panel, piloting her 'Mech by feel rather than sight. If it was correct, TF Valkyrie would thread the needle between the river and the WOB units besieging the 63rd Infantry. The WOB evidently only had a thin cordon of troops to the north of Hill 5423; they could not spare troops to have a tight perimeter. Especially if they intend simply to gas them all, Louisa mused. She shuddered involuntarily. A chemical attack was no way to die. The first signs would be a runny nose and being short of breath. Then the victim would lose all control of their motor functions, including their lungs, and they would simply asphyxiate to death. She had seen pictures of people hit by gas: their tongues protruding from their mouths, frozen in their last gasps for air, their eyes blistered but wide open. A MechWarrior's wish was that if they were killed, it would be quick—a Gauss shell through the cockpit, or a PPC blast. Even dying in a nuclear fireball, which would melt a 'Mech and immolate its pilot in microseconds, was preferable to choking to death for long minutes.

And that was if the Blakists were using generic nerve gas. Rumors abounded they had far worse at their disposal. Since the Sentinels had learned of the WOB's willingness to use chemical weapons, overpressure systems and filters were checked regularly, but that was because Sheila Arla-Vlata believed in preparedness. The Virentofta Militia, which would not be expected to fight away from their home planet, which itself was far away from WOB holdings, had no defense against chemical attacks; Louisa was sure that none of the 63rd had even rudimentary training in surviving such an attack, much less the chemsuits and atropine they would need. That was one reason the Word of Blake had been able to win so many early victories in their self-proclaimed Jihad. Chemical and nuclear weapons were supposedly outlawed, and aside from isolated incidents in the Succession and Clan Wars, no one had ever used them on a wide scale. Therefore, no one trained any longer for such an event. Louisa noticed the terrain, which had been level plain, begin to change to rolling hills again. Her chronometer read 0200 hours.

Then the northern horizon lit up.

"Green Six, Wolf Six! Enemy contact!" Musashiya shouted. She was on the right flank, while Louisa was out front; the tanks were bringing up the rear, with the Lynxes on the left, paralleling the river. Louisa's eyes shot towards the map: there was nothing listed there. She then looked in that direction, but in the darkness, only saw laserfire and tracers. Most of it was outbound; Musashiya was doing the firing.

"Wolf Six, I need a sitrep!" Louisa yelled back. What the hell is she facing? She flung the map aside.

When the other woman came back, she was breathless. "Green Six, Wolf Six—enemy is about a platoon of tracked APCs. They just came over the ridge to our north, march formation!"

So it had been a collision. The WOB was bringing troops down to reinforce the cordon, came over the ridge and sighted Musashiya's 'Mechs at the same time they themselves were sighted. Armored personnel carriers against a lance of 'Mechs, even one of which outweighed the entire platoon: it was a gross mismatch. "Wolf Six, Green Six, engage as necessary, but do not stop! Your objective is Hill 5423!"

"Roger that," Musashiya replied, with a trace of irritation. Louisa had to remind herself again that Musashiya knew what she was doing. Noticing in her sensor monitors that TF Valkyrie was starting to get strung out as Musashiya's assaults began to be left behind, Louisa sent a message to slow down over the company net. She didn't want to stop completely, but neither did she want her force to get spread out. Louisa was coming to the top of a small ridge, and crossed it.

Spread before her, in a fallow wheatfield, was an artillery battery. Several of them.

Louisa stopped, almost involuntarily. She didn't have to look at the map to realize that this was not where the batteries were supposed to be. They were supposed to be well to the northwest. She switched to infrared and saw the artillery pieces—Snipers, she noted in passing, tracked 155 millimeter howitzers—were still warm. The WOB had deployed early. The prime movers that carried the Snipers' ammunition were not yet in place, still in trail from the march. The artillerists had just stopped to deploy, probably waiting for the infantry in the APCs to put out a perimeter before sighting in the guns, loading their gas shells, and waiting for dawn to begin firing against the 63rd, who, with no artillery of their own, would be able to do nothing but die under smothering clouds of chemicals.

It would be a massacre, not unlike the one that had claimed her own parents and sister.

Louisa felt her rage building. "Green Six to all Valkyrie elements. Enemy contact. Multiple artillery batteries at grid 24526. General attack: engage and destroy." She paused. "Kill them all." General attack released the 'Mechs and tanks to attack, engage, and destroy at will. Hill 5423 would keep: in the meantime, Louisa wanted to ensure that these artillery pieces never fired a shell, chemical or otherwise. Orders given, she charged into the midst of the battery.

The Blakist artillerists saw four 'Mechs and then heavy tanks come over the ridge. Some bravely stayed with their pieces and began slewing them around: a 155mm shell could do a lot of damage to even a 'Mech. Most ran for their lives: softskinned Snipers, prime movers, and trucks would not stand a chance against 'Mechs or heavy tanks. They ran northwest, away from their attackers, only to witness a even more terrible sight: four assault 'Mechs topping the hill. Musashiya's 'Mechs had destroyed half the APC platoon and were still moving in accordance with their last order. Musashiya advanced into the midst of the batteries.

The wheatfield turned into a charnel house. Prime movers, stocked with shells, brewed up into fireballs; the chemicals would be consumed in the fire, but that was no consolation to drivers and loaders killed by flying debris. Howitzers exploded, their gas tanks adding to the suddenly well-lit area. Louisa noticed Hitomi Dunn's Spider picking off individual soldiers with her lasers, but could not watch long, as she swept her hatchet upwards, neatly separating a truck's cab from the body and flinging it, and its driver, skyward. The radio net was filled with yells of triumph and shouts of glee as Task Force Valkyrie went berserk with bloodlust. One part of Louisa shrilled that this was wrong, that she should not lose control of her force, that she was diving headfirst into the same gutter occupied by the Word of Blake, but she shut that away. She wanted this, she wanted the blood. The WOB troops running from her in terror filled her with savage joy and darker emotions that she dare not acknowledge but felt nonetheless. And they felt good. She crushed a fleeing jeep with a foot and laughed aloud.

She looked for more targets, causing the Nightsky's head to swievel from left to right. Nothing. In her immediate area, everything was dead or in hiding. She switched to infrared and spotted someone lying still in a copse of bushes, giving off heat; the shadows to either side were rapidly cooling. She turned and laid her crosshairs onto the glowing figure, raising her large laser. The figure had been glowing orange; now it turned red and parts even began to shade to white. Abruptly, something she had read somewhere or heard from someone popped into her mind: in infrared, when a person got scared, their body heat increased—they were literally turning white from fright.

Louisa blinked. The red haze suddenly cleared. She felt herself breathing hard, her chest feeling tight, her legs trembling, her mouth dry—and it wasn't from the exertions of the fight. Mother of God, what's wrong with you? she asked herself. This isn't you, stop it! Stop it right now!

With reluctance that surprised and horrified her, Louisa turned away from the bushes and switched back to vislight. "Valkyrie, this is Green Six. Break off. Repeat, break off. They've had it. Reform at grid square 24536. Lance commanders, acknowledge."

Dore, whose engineers had first held back and then detoured around the carnage, was the first to acknowledge. Then, slower, Fencer, Pryce, and finally Musashiya. The 'Mechs and tanks made their way through the flaming wreckage that a scant five minutes before had been three full WOB artillery batteries, trains, and security elements to the rally point. None showed more than superficial damage. With hand signals, the task force shook itself back into order and headed for the hill. Louisa, looking down at her now still legs, consulted a list of radio transmissions placed in one of the shorts' clear pockets. "Batman Four, Batman Four, this is Green Six. Come in, please."

She repeated it twice before there was an acknowledgement. "Green Six, Batman Four. Who the hell are you?"

"Batman Four, Green Six is Task Force Valkyrie. We are approaching your lines from the north and request you hold fire."

There was silence for fifteen full seconds. "Green Six, authenticate."

The codes were in the list as well. "Batman Four, authentication is Nevermore. Repeat, Nevermore. Countersign."

Another pause, shorter. "Green Six, countersign is Eclipse. Repeat, Eclipse." Pause. "Holding fire, and thank you for coming. You're an angel of God."

Louisa caught her reflection in a secondary monitor. She could not make out her own face, only the neurohelmet and its visor. She didn't feel much like an angel.

Hill 5423, in peacetime, was a roughly flat mesa with moderately thick forest cover and two natural springs. To the west was a wide glacial valley before the terrain once more rose in steps to tall mountains. To the east was a somewhat steep grade falling away to the Vingaard River, then the rolling hills; in the distance, the lights of Belgrade reflected off the rain clouds. The south was nearly a cliff that dropped to another valley floor. The north, the approach that TF Valkyrie took, was a gradual slope down to more rolling hills. Louisa reflected that she would like to visit the area after the campaign was over—if she survived and if the Sentinels won. Though, she mused, she might want to wait a few years until things had grown back.

Now, Hill 5423 was a fortress. The trees had been cut down and a trench dug around the perimeter, with barbed wire strung around it haphazardly. The felled trees had been turned into bunkers, with dirt heaped on top of them. Louisa was warned to stay between two white stakes, as the defenders had set out antipersonnel and antitank mines. They crossed inside the perimeter, and Louisa made her way to a group of bunkers where a single, solitary Virentofta planetary flag flew. Leaving Musashiya to determine how to set out preliminary defensive arrangements, she dismounted from the Nightsky and climbed down.

Immediately the smell of the hill hit her and she nearly gagged. It was a combination of human sweat, blood, urine, and feces, combined with cordite, churned earth, wood smoke, and something rotten. A ragged figure wearing the rank bars of a lieutenant came up to her. "Are you Green Six?"

"Yes."

"I'm not going to salute you, Lance Commander," the man said, seeing her rank tabs, "we've been taking sniper fire for hours." He grinned. "But I damn sure am going to hug you." And he did, enfolding her and squeezing her tight. Louisa's nose wrinkled at the unwashed smell and she was taken aback by the affection a total stranger was showing her. He pulled back. "Sorry, ma'am. Just damn good to see you. Caught up in the moment."

She decided not to be offended. This man looked like he had been through the proverbial wringer. "Um, it's okay. I'm Lance Com—er, brevet Major Louisa Arla-Vlata. You are…?"

"Ulquiorra. Roger Ulquiorra. Brevet Captain." He suddenly turned somber. "You were probably expecting Lieutenant Colonel Tazewell. He was killed yesterday in the first attack. Captain Vincent took over, but a sniper got him around midnight. In fact, it might be a good idea to get undercover. I don't think any snipers would be stupid enough to fire with a company of 'Mechs and tanks here, but you never know." He motioned her into a nearby bunker. The wood was badly chipped and boughs lay on the damp ground. Considering it had been built in haste, it was comfortable and it was safe, though she avoided the slits built into it; just the word sniper had made her feel naked. She nodded at the other two people in the bunker, who huddled next to a radio, then accepted a steaming mug from Ulquiorra. Louisa thought it was coffee and was surprised to find it was chicken soup.

Ulquiorra sipped at his, then seemed to remember something. "Did you say Arla-Vlata? Wouldn't that make you—"

"I'm Sheila Arla-Vlata's daughter, yes," Louisa confirmed. "Look, Captain, we really don't have time for niceties. I shot up a couple of artillery batteries on the way in, which will buy us some time, but the Wobbies are not going to tolerate an infantry battalion and a mixed arms company sitting in their rear area for long."

Ulquiorra nodded. "I understand. Sorry…this is kind of new to me. I'm not a professional soldier. I'm a school teacher, except for one weekend a month and two weeks a year. We're militia, not pros like the Sentinels." He looked to her, and Louisa was surprised to find he was waiting for orders.

"What's the situation?" she asked.

Ulquiorra seemed reluctant to say, and then the words came spilling out. The 63rd Infantry Battalion had been called up as support for the Snowbirds, who were moving west out of Belgrade, but had not been expecting to see action for a few days yet, as the Blakists had been reported making for the planetary capital at Last Chance. When the Snowbirds had instead run into the 7th Division advancing south and got into a confused battle at Three Forks, Lieutenant Colonel Tazewell had tried to do something to turn the tide in the Sentinels favor. Loading up his infantry in his APCs and on top of two platoons of Scorpion light tanks, he crossed the Vingaard over the Toston Dam, intending to drop squarely into the Blakist rear: militia or not, no commander wanted an enemy battalion loose behind him.

Unfortunately, Tazewell had not counted on a rain-swollen river delaying his passage, or that the Snowbirds and the 7th would break off their battle and mutually pull away from each other. Instead of an impressive manuever sur la derriere, as Napoleon would have called it, he ended up stuck in an open valley, his back to a river, and an angry, fanatical enemy to his front and sides. Tazewell had immediately attempted to retreat, only to find himself cut off even from the river. Seeing that, he had done the only thing possible, save surrender: he had taken up position on Hill 5423, dug in, and called for help.

As Ulquiorra pointed out the 63rd's positions on a rough map, Louisa was impressed by the late colonel's skill. While the battalion had been forced to abandon their APCs, which could not negotiate the forest, they had dismounted the personnel carriers' heavy machine guns and placed them around the perimeter with interlocking fields of fire, in hastily constructed but good bunkers. Barbed wire had been stolen from a nearby farm and strung around the perimeter, along with a trench. Mortars had been emplaced and the five remaining Scorpions dug in as pillboxes, since the perimeter wasn't big enough to move them around much. And the 63rd had waited.

The first attack, Ulquiorra recounted, had been a foolish one on the part of the Blakists. Expecting ill-trained planetary militia that would fold quickly, they had run into a murderous crossfire; true, the Virentofta Militia was only militia, but its higher officers and NCOs had been involved in several battles as the Sentinels fought to hold the planet against the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats. The college kids and part-time soldiers were inexperienced, but having heard the atrocity stories coming from offplanet, were determined to sell their lives dearly rather than face brutal capture and certain execution. Tazewell had also let the Blakists get within fifty yards before opening fire. The result was a lot of dead WOB soldiers and a newfound respect for the 63rd. Tazewell himself had died at the tail end of the attack, felled by a stray shot.

The second attack was better planned. This time, the WOB had struck the hill at dusk with artillery and mortars, and sent in the infantry only seconds after the barrage was lifted. "No Manei Domini, thank God," Ulquiorra said, "but bad enough. They got in the perimeter in two places before we managed to throw them back. That was when Captain Vincent got it. Captain Jorgensen was killed when her bunker took a direct hit." He motioned out into the darkness; Louisa could see the collapsed bunker. She could also see the wrecks of three tanks. "They had SRM hunter-killer teams too," Ulquiorra explained, seeing her expression. "Since about midnight, it's just been sniper fire and the occasional mortar, though we haven't heard from either since about an hour ago."

"That's because the Wobbies were getting ready to hurricane barrage this place, probably with another infantry attack." She decided not to mention the gas; there was no reason to panic these people, who were probably just holding onto the last shreds of their sanity. None had showered in three days, and probably none of them had slept much, either. "What's your current status?"

Ulquiorra grabbed at a looseleaf tablet. "We've got roughly eighty effectives right now, with about fifty wounded—half ambulatory." He bit his lip, suddenly trembling. "We…we started with 250." He made a visible effort not to cry, and succeeded.

Louisa did some quick mental calcuation. With eighty unwounded but exhausted soldiers, and despite augumenting that force with her 28-man platoon, the perimeter would still be too large to defend. She looked outside again. Her 'Mechs and tanks were now in defensive positions that would wreck an infantry attack, and she doubted the WOB would have much artillery left. The clouds precluded an air attack, for which she was profoundly glad of. But with a force such as hers behind them, the next attack would be at best heavy tanks, and more likely 'Mechs. If the 7th Division was feeling sporting, they would only send a company of light and medium 'Mechs, but Louisa was sure that someone, either from the APCs Musashiya had shot up or any survivors from the artillery batteries, had radioed that TF Valkyrie had assault 'Mechs. The Blakists were not stupid, and they had enough time to still wipe out Louisa's tiny task force and the 63rd before taking on the Snowbirds.

"Can I take a look around?" The diffuse moonlight was enough to see by, now that her eyes had adjusted to it.

"Sure. Better take the trench, though."

Louisa followed Ulquiorra in a quick tour of the perimeter. They detoured around craters and over destroyed bunkers, Louisa scraping her knees and hands, and wondering if there was a crosshair on her back. Ulquiorra had made brief introductions to exhausted troops, and pointed offhandedly at a misshapen pile to the west, explaining that those were bodies of WOB troops, killed by the machine guns. One body was caught in the barbed wire, and to Louisa's horror, he—or she; Louisa couldn't tell in the darkness—was still alive. One leg was off and blood covered the grayish uniform, the results of a grenade going off at the WOB soldier's feet, but he/she was tangled in the wire so tightly that it served as tourniquets. The figure gave off a plantive, but soft moan, and made an attempt to move, jangling the wire with a metallic sound. Then it stopped. None of the militia spared the WOB soldier more than a glance.

He led her back to the command bunker, under its ragged, bullet-holed dark blue Virentofta flag, nearly invisble in the darkness. They had to go through the hospital first, which was makeshift at best. Medical supplies had run out, and the dirt floor was soaked in so much blood it pooled underneath her feet. She had to suppress another gag at the stench: some of the wounds were already festering, and some of the more badly wounded, and the dead, had voided where they lay. Four medics lay collapsed on the far side of the wall. No one screamed or did more than groan, but that, Ulquiorra explained, tears in his eyes, was because they had used all their morphine to sedate the wounded. "Sorry," he apologized when they returned to the bunker. "I shouldn't have shown you that." For the briefest second, Louisa saw a flash of contempt for her: the high-stepping MechWarrior, who literally rode above the infantryman and fought an antiseptic war of machines, where a warrior rarely saw their opponent and never really wanted to, subscribing to the fiction that they were only killing 'Mechs, not people.

"It's all right. I've seen worse."

Ulquiorra's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "You have?"

"Yes." A phantom smell wafted through her nostrils from old, bad memories: roasted flesh. Once smelled, never forgotten; Hill 5423 had not been hit by flames. She forced back the image of small, blackened hands reaching out forever from a blasted truck, hands that would've been hers if not for a panicked jump and the grace of God, hands that might have been her sister's.

Musashiya came into the bunker. "Louisa, I've got us placed. How does it look to you?"

Louisa motioned her over and said quietly, "Priss, I think we've got a problem."

"Aside from the obvious?" The older woman made a twirling motion with her fingers, indicating the hill.

"I guess. The 63rd's got maybe eighty people fit for duty. The ones that aren't wounded haven't slept in nearly 48 hours. And now that we're here, the Wobbies are going to send 'Mechs."

"So what? That's what they pay us for."

"It's not that, Priss!" Louisa hissed, trying to keep her voice down. "There's going to be nothing left of the 63rd if we try to hold out until the rest of the Snowbirds get here! There's no point in rescuing these people if we're just going to get them wiped out in the morning—they can't hold against another attack."

Musashiya folded her arms. "I figure the Wobbies'll hit us in about two hours; three if we're lucky." She spoke in a normal voice and glanced at Ulquiorra. "What are your orders, Major?" Now everyone's eyes were on Louisa, and Musashiya raised an eyebrow, as if to say, You wanted command of this thing, Arla-Vlata; I'll obey your orders, but they'd better be good.

Louisa, however, had already made up her mind. She turned to Ulquiorra. "Captain, begin loading your wounded in our Lynxes and the Aardvarks. Everyone who is still upright can ride on top of the tanks. Dig out your two remaining Scorpions and get ready to move."

Musashiya's eyes widened; those weren't the orders she was expecting to hear. "But the supplies and stuff we brought—"

"Unpack and leave it. We'll burn them before we go. Priss, I want the MechWarriors to keep an eye on the woods in infrared. Anything moves out there, we kill it. I don't want some asshole sniper or mortar team plinking at us."

Ulquiorra realized what Louisa meant to do just before Musashiya did. "Yes, Major." He ducked into the hospital.

"Wait, wait—we're abandoning the hill?" Musashiya exclaimed. "But our orders—"

"To hell with our orders." Louisa began walking for the entrance.

"Your mother's not going to like this."

Louisa looked at Musashiya with steel eyes. "My mother's not here, Priss. I am."