AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, chugging along here. I really am glad to get back to writing Battletech again, though I miss working on RWBY too. We'll get back there, I promise. Right now, however, we need to get Sheila to Twycross.
War movie aficonados will get the references in the first part of the chapter. The last part is pretty risque, but I think I can trust my readers to be mature...right?
Black Pearl Base
Sudeten, Tamar March, Federated Commonwealth
28 August 3050
Sheila Arla-Vlata fought sleep as she sat in the AFFC issue chair—which meant she was exhausted, since the chairs seemed to be designed to turn MechWarrior rear ends into perfect squares. She jerked upright as she felt someone pinch her leg. "Wake up," Elfa Brownoak hissed.
"Sorry. Long night." Sheila couldn't fight back a smile.
Elfa gave her a long look, then her mouth curled into a sly smile of her own. "I see." She went back to checking her watch.
Oh crap, Sheila thought. Why do I have a bad feeling she knows just why I'm so tired? To keep herself awake, and because she felt remarkably self-conscious now, she glanced around the auditorium. Around her sat sixteen other MechWarriors wearing Sentinel uniforms, and scattered representatives of the other units assigned to the Twycross operation: the 9th Federated Commonwealth, the 10th Lyran Guards, and the Kell Hounds. Compared to those four regiments, plus their various attached infantry and tank units, the Sentinels' contribution seemed paltry. She tried to think about the upcoming operation, not her new lover.
The thing was, it was hard not to think of Max Canis-Vlata. They had been lovers for two weeks now, and had made love exactly four times—technically, three and a half. There had been that wonderful evening after the rain: after that, they had slept in each other's arms, woken after an hour, and made love again. The second time had been just as great as the first, but because Max was worried about Sheila's reputation, he had not lingered more than an hour or two afterwards.
The third time had been the abbreviated one: just as they had gotten ready to get what Tooriu had called "buckled to," there was a knock at Sheila's barracks room door—and the owner of the knock was Arla Bighorn-Vlata, Sheila's mother. Worse, the door wasn't locked: they had forgotten in the heat of the moment, though Arla was polite and didn't simply walk in. Max had stripped off the condom, tossed it in the trash can, kissed her hastily, then made his half-naked escape through the bathroom window into the early evening. Sheila had composed herself, drawn the covers up to her neck, and asked her mother to come in. Arla was only checking on her daughter, and either didn't notice or didn't think it worth commenting that Sheila had taken to sleeping in the nude. The fourth time had been better, and Max had stayed the whole night—the reason why Sheila felt exhausted.
Sheila knew that she had probably worn the wistful smile of a young woman with a new lover, and wondered who besides Elfa had noticed. Then the door to the auditorium opened, someone barked "Attention on deck!" and Sheila shot to her feet as her father walked through the door. His eyes somehow found hers, and Sheila prayed he didn't notice something different about her. Then she wondered why she and Max were so afraid her parents would find out—after all, they were both adults. Because Dad will kill Max, that's why.
"Be seated," Calla said. He did not stand behind a podium, but on the auditorium stage, a collapsible pointer in his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice carrying clearly, "this is an operation you will tell your grandchildren about. And mightily bored they'll be." There was laughter at that. "Some of you already know what I'm going to talk about, but most don't, so this is the mass brief for Twycross. I've invited representatives from the other regiments to make sure that our plan meets with their approval. After all," Calla smiled, "they're depending on us."
"You poor bastards," Marion Rhialla said loudly from the front row, starting more titters of laughter.
Calla gave Marion a shake of the head, though he was still smiling, then nodded offstage. The lights dimmed, and a map was projected on the screen behind him. "This is the area of Twycross we hope to be fighting in. It's called the Plain of Curtains for the way sand is constantly picked up and moved across it. The sand is thin enough that it won't interfere with magscan or infrared, though it will cause problems with normal vision—so be careful." Calla then tapped several geographical features in turn. "To the west are the Sharktooth Mountains, and to the east is the Great Gash, which is, as the name suggests, a huge dry canyon, bordered by the low ridges of this, here—the Windbreak Mountains. To the south, the ground slowly rises to the Hawkroost Hills.
"Now the plan is that the 1st Kell Hounds will ground on the Plain of Curtains, where they will meet any Jade Falcon force attacking the main drop zones head on. The 2nd Kell Hounds will secure dropzones in the Hawkroost, then will move over to the Sharktooths, to support the left flank of the 1st. The right flank of the Hounds will rest on the Great Gash." Calla paused for any questions; there weren't any yet. "Now here's the fun part: the 9th F-C will land just in front of this monster, here." He pointed to an overlay of a swirling storm, marked with the universal sign of a hurricane. "This is the Diabolis. It's a giant dry hurricane that meanders around Twycross. We're talking wind speeds high enough to knock over a light 'Mech, maybe even a heavy. The sand picked up by this will sandblast your 'Mech down to the bare metal, and in there, your sensors won't work hardly at all—the sand is so dense, it's moving so fast, and it's hot, so magscan and IR are useless. We'll give that thing a wide berth—but the 9th won't.
"Once the Clanners are committed to hitting the Kell Hounds, the 9th F-C, having marched through the Diabolis—the poor bastards—will hit the Jade Falcons flank and rear. The 10th Lyran will be in reserve, here, at the Cloisters, to move up to reinforce the Kell Hounds as needed." Calla paused again. "Here's where I'd say under normal circumstances that opposition will be light, but we're dealing with the Clans, so it won't be. However, we're committing over four regiments of 'Mechs, tanks, and everything else, and the Jade Falcons have less than a regiment onplanet—maybe a regiment and a half at most. We've got good intel on this, from what was left of the Twycross TMM, when they retreated offplanet, and what little resistance that may or may not be still there. The Jade Falcons on Twycross are supposed to be a second-line unit, using converted Star League designs rather than their frontline stuff. Still tough, but not as bad as what we faced on Persistence, or Rasalhague, or Blackjack. There's also the possibility that the Falcons have taken over 'Mechs at the Trellshire Heavy Industries plant, which they took intact-so don't just assume that if you see something familiar, like a Battlemaster, that it's friendly. No idea if Toads are present, but we're going to assume that they are. Plan accordingly. Any questions so far?"
Marion stood up. "I have one." She pointed to the map. "That Great Gash thing. That's like a damn arrow pointing right to the ass of the Kell Hounds. Any Jade Falcons that get through that canyon will come out right behind the Hounds, and the 10th Lyran. The plan doesn't seem to show anyone covering it. I'm assuming someone thought of that besides me?"
"We expect that the Jade Falcons will go straight for the Hounds, but good point, Marion," Calla said. "However, yes, someone did think of that. Dan Allard plans to put a reinforced company of the 10th Lyran at the north entrance of the Gash to act as a tripwire force. And I do mean tripwire—he also plans on lining the Gash with enough pentaglycerine to blow the place into orbit. If things get sporty, the 10th Lyran will blow the Gash and block it. Good enough?"
"Yeah." Marion smiled like a predator. "Kinda hope they do blow it. That'll be one big fucking boom." She sat back down.
"Okay, this is our part in this." Calla tapped the map, and small Sentinel crests appeared. "We're going to act as pathfinders—Morgan Hasek-Davion requested us because of our experience, and because Persistence was a bit like Twycross, so we're used to the desert. The weather on Twycross is worse than Persistence by a damn sight, so the DropShips are going to need pinpoint guide beams to land—otherwise, they're liable to get scattered. No combat drop this time. The pathfinders will go in an hour before the main landing." That got everyone to shift in their seats rather uncomfortably: it meant the Sentinels' detachments would be on Twycross alone for an hour. "It's not as bad as it seems. The Clanners will be too busy watching where the main drop will be; they won't bother with a lance or two, and it'll take them too long to get into position anyway—the main Clan concentrations are at Trellshire Heavy or the capitol of Camora, and both are well to the north of us. We'll be close enough to mutually support each other anyway.
"Each one of our 'Mechs will have a beacon attached to it," Calla explained. "Once you reach your predesignated point, you throw a switch, and the beacon falls off your 'Mech and starts transmitting. The reason why every 'Mech is carrying one should be obvious." It was: it increased the chances that the drop zones would be marked correctly, even if there were casualties.
Calla thumbed a switch on a controller, and the holomap zoomed in. "We have four separate dropzones, coded according to who commands the lances marking them." He pointed to the one that was furthest to the north. "Elfa, your Royal Glosters will get Drop Zone Miia. This is the 9th F-C's DZ, and the toughest one—it's closest to the Diabolis."
"Christ, not us again," Elfa groaned, in what she thought was beneath Calla's level of hearing.
Calla grinned. "What was that, Elfa?"
Elfa raised her voice. "Happy to be of service," she said with forced cheer, and the crowd laughed.
"Philip Scott, your Royal Green Jackets will take DZ Centorea." Sheila looked over at Scott. He was no relation to Mary Scott that she knew of, and just a little older than Sheila herself—a handsome man, with blond hair over his shoulders, and a rakish goatee. Like her, he was relatively new to command. "That's an easy one—it's the 10th Lyran's in the Hawkroost. You'll be the furthest south."
"Yes, sir," was Scott's only comment.
"Marion, your Tigerstripe Legionnaires will take DZ Papi." Calla glanced at the map. "Some AI generated these names, I swear…anyway, you've got the 2nd Kell Hounds. There's broken ground there, and if it's too bad, I'm depending on you to find a better spot. Once you've got the DZ marked, move north to support Elfa in case she runs into trouble. Those monster assaults of yours will give the Clans something to think about." To Sheila's surprise, Marion did not have an acid comment on that; she merely nodded sharply.
"Sheila—" Calla found her in the crowd "—you've got the last one with your 13th Dragoon Guards. Your DZ is codenamed Meroune, the 1st Kell Hounds on the Plain of Curtains. Should be fairly easy, but you'll be out in the open, and the weather might be an issue there as well. You can get lost easy out there, so don't go wandering around, okay?"
"Yes, sir," she replied tightly, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Calla had not given that admonishment to anyone else; it had been three weeks since the return from Blackjack, but she was still apparently in the doghouse…though no one in the Junior Officers' Strategy Group had so much as mentioned Schattenwolff in their planning meetings. Either Victor Steiner-Davion and Kai Allard didn't know, or more likely, didn't care.
"All right. Once the beacons are placed, remain there until the first wave hits the DZs. Then fall back to the Cloisters. It's a rock formation that looks like a bunch of monks walking across the plain, so you can't miss it; that's our rally point. I'll meet you there with my command lance, and we'll attach ourselves to the 10th Lyran. I honestly doubt we'll see much, if any action, but be careful what you wish for." Calla made one final pause for questions, and saw none. "People, this isn't some half-cocked operation like Blackjack, and I think it's got a real good chance of succeeding. If it does, we can show these Clan fuckers that they're not invincible." He gave them a nod. "We go in three days. We'll warp in a pirate point. Good luck, Sentinels."
That night, Max came by with pizza and sodas. Sheila met him at the door wearing nothing more than her formal uniform cape. They didn't make it to the bed. Max got his boots and pants off, pushed his underwear to one side, then took her against the wall, with Sheila first laughing at his eagerness, laughs that turned to soft cries. Her fingernails had left marks in the drywall. Once they were finished, shuddering and gasping for air, then they had made it to the bed, Max losing the rest of his clothes and Sheila the cape in the process. Then they ate and drank.
Sheila noticed Max staring at her. "What? What is it?"
"Nothing," Max grinned. "Just never thought I would see a naked girl eating bell peppers and beef pizza."
Sheila chuckled. "Is it erotic?"
"Would you be offended if I said no?"
"Hmm." She reached over and pulled down the covers, exposing him. "Eat your pizza." Mystified, Max did so. Sheila nodded. "You're right. It's not erotic." He laughed and began to pull the cover back up. "No, no," Sheila stopped him. "I'm sitting here with my boobs out, so you can sit there with your, um, thing out." She almost said cock out, but for some reason, that made it dirty. She laughed at herself at that. He was just slamming into you with that up against the wall, driving you crazy, and a word is dirty?
Max pulled up the cover anyway. "No, because one, I might drop hot tomato sauce on my nuts, and that does not sound like fun at all. And two, you'll just start staring at it, and I'll start staring at your boobs, and then we'll be making love with the pizza box between us and get all greasy."
Sheila gave him a nod. "You have a point there." She pulled the covers up to just above her breasts. "Fair's fair."
"True."
They joked a little more, finished the pizza, then Max got up, cleared away the paper plates and pizza box, and took them naked to the garbage can. Sheila appraised him all over again. He was nowhere near as muscular as Tooriu; Max had a lean, rangy look of someone who didn't work out much, but didn't gain weight either. He was nearly as tall, but his mop of black hair was just as long as Tooriu's blond locks, down to their shoulders. Tooriu didn't have much body hair, but Max had a fair amount. When he turned around, Sheila's appraisal went to between his legs. He's not as big as Tooriu, Sheila thought with her heart skipping a few beats, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in enthusiasm. That was a bit unfair, she decided, because she regarded Max as the more skilled of the two men she had been with—now that she could compare them. With Tooriu, it had been a race to the finish, one which she always lost. Sheila didn't mind then and she didn't mind now, but with Max, she took her time—usually, after that first night of fumbling bliss. He did as well, as much for his pleasure as hers. It felt mutually satisfying: sometimes he finished first and used tongue and hands to get her to her peak, and other times it was the other way around.
"Like what you see?" Max had noticed her look.
"I do." He got back into bed and reached for her, but Sheila pulled the covers over him. "Hold on a bit. We start having sex this soon after gorging on pizza, and I might just puke on you. You're not into that sort of thing, I hope."
"Nah, I'm pretty boring, really."
Sheila raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Don't want to tie me up or anything? No hot wax or spanking?"
Both of Max's eyebrows rose. "Are you into that sort of thing?"
Sheila shook her head with a laugh. "No, not really. I mean, I never tried it. Took me forever to get the nerve to go down on…um…"
"Tooriu?" She nodded. Max smiled. "Sheila, we can speak the guy's name. I'm not jealous of him." He leaned over and kissed her. "You're with me now, and that's all that matters."
"Mmm. True."
"Though since you bring that up—"
"Max," Sheila said, facing him directly, "I just ate bell peppers. Hot bell peppers."
"Right." They were silent for a moment. "I didn't eat bell peppers," Max pointed out. "Just saying."
Sheila burst into laughter and hit him with a pillow. "Give me a few minutes, you horny bastard." She mock-pouted. "Besides…I wanna snuggle."
"Ugggh, so girly," Max mock-groaned. He lay back on the pillows as Sheila rested her head against his shoulder. He put an arm around her. "Actually," he said, "this is pretty good."
"Sometimes I'm not just cold steel and sex appeal."
They were quiet again, for a long time, as Max smoothed her hair. He loved to joke with her, loved to hear her laugh. Truth to tell, he was just happy to be here, however long here would be. Max was too much of a realist to think it could last forever, but he put those thoughts away. Tomorrow would come soon enough.
"Max?" Sheila murmured.
"You can go to sleep if you want," Max told her.
"Not sleepy." Sheila glanced up at him. "This is probably a dumb question, but…do you get scared before a fight?"
"I damn near pissed myself on Persistence. Rasalhague I didn't really have time to get scared—and my lance didn't see much action anyway." He paused. "You know, I wasn't really scared before Blackjack, either. I don't know why. Given what happened, I should've been scared shitless."
"Me too. I was terrified on Persistence, but on Rasalhague and Blackjack…I really wasn't. Didn't have time either, but…even when I did…I just didn't think about it." She shrugged. "Maybe it's the training. It's supposed to be the training. Or maybe we're just getting used to it, God help us." Sheila sighed. "I'll tell you what scares the bejesus out of me: combat drops."
Max laughed. "Oh hell, Sheila. Name me a MechWarrior that likes them."
"Yeah, but I just get petrified. We had to do the five combat drops at the Nagelring. The first two weren't bad—low altitude stuff. Hop out the door of the DropShip, hit your jumpjets, and you're down before you have to look around. But the high altitude ones…God, the fourth one we did we dropped through a snowstorm. I thought I was going to die. I don't know why—it actually wasn't that bad—but I just was convinced that I would die. I still am. I don't think some Clanner is going to tag me out; I think I'm going to die in a drop."
"At least we're not dropping onto Twycross."
"Thank God. Those poor bastards in the 9th F-C deserve a medal for even thinking about going into that damn hurricane, let alone drop into it. They're going to be scattered hell to breakfast. I'm glad we're just doing a dustoff. Out the door, over the wing, on the ground. Easy peasy one two threezy." She didn't want to mention that the DropShip still had to get down to Twycross. That was her other fear, one she knew she shared with every MechWarrior: being trapped in a crashing DropShip, sealed into a 'Mech bay, unable to do anything but ride it down, praying one didn't burn up in the atmosphere, or wasn't crushed on landing. She heard the stories from her father and others, of finding crashed DropShips with even a mighty Atlas turned into confetti—to say nothing of what the MechWarrior inside looked like, if they could even find what remained. It frightened her nearly as much as a combat drop, and Sheila decided she didn't want to talk about it.
Then she remembered something. "Hey, I kind of forgot to ask this. I was going to ask you when you came in—"
"That would've been an awkward time." She looked at him, confused. "I mean, when I'm coming in, Sheila, I'm lucky if I can speak English."
Sheila made a disgusted face. "Gross. I meant when you showed up."
"That was awkward, too. You did answer the door wearing nothing but your cape."
She snickered. "Heh. Well, it worked, didn't it?"
"It sure as hell did, but what's the question?" Max asked.
"I'm down a MechWarrior in my lance. I was thinking of asking Mike Whelan, but he's got that big-ass Stalker, and that doesn't fit with my Shruiken, Kaatha's Griffin, and Marcus Drax's Phoenix Hawk. Your Hatchetman would fit, though." She stopped, remembering. "Unless your Battlemaster's fixed?"
"It will be, but not in time for Twycross." Max gave it some thought. His lance had been put in reserve for the Twycross operation—it wasn't due to go, but he and his MechWarriors were briefed on it just in case. There was no reason not to go with Sheila. True, he was a Lance Commander, but he could be spared for a mission where the Sentinels would be mostly in reserve. The only reason he could think of was that he was pushing the envelope some: MechWarriors believed in luck, even when they claimed they didn't, and Max had already been in three campaigns against the Clans, in a war when most didn't survive their first. By embarking on his fourth in almost as many months, he was pushing that luck, which someday would run out.
But Max looked down, into Sheila's green eyes, and found himself nodding. Max, you're a lovestruck idiot, he told himself, but then considered that it was better than waiting to hear if she had gotten killed. Besides, he might could keep that from happening, and it would also be a nice way to repay Kaatha for the kindness she had shown—a way, somehow, to square the debt with Renni. "All right," he said.
"All right?" she repeated.
"Yeah. As long as Mom says it's all right, and I don't see any reason why she wouldn't." He laughed at that: it sounded like he would be asking Mira if it was okay to go over to a friend's house for the weekend. "'Mom, can I go and play on Twycross? I promise I won't stay out too late.'"
Sheila laughed too. "Well, I'll keep you out of trouble."
"Okay, but who's keeping you out of trouble?"
"We'll keep each other out of trouble, how's that?"
"I can live with that," Max said.
"Good, me too." Sheila sat up, not minding that the covers fell away from her breasts. "Hey, wait a minute. This is dumb. We're talking shop here, buck-ass naked, when we should be making sweet, tender love." She pointed to the marks she had made on the wall. "You know, like earlier."
"That wasn't exactly tender," Max remarked. Tooriu had warned him Sheila could be enthusiastic.
"But it was pretty sweet." Sheila opened her eyes as wide as she could, blinked theatrically, and clasped her hands in front of her. "Pleeeease?"
"Well, okay," Max said with a theatrical sigh, "but only because you asked nicely." She quickly straddled him, but then just knelt there. "What?"
Sheila folded her arms across her breasts. "You did say you didn't eat anything spicy."
"Huh? Oh." He grabbed her thighs. "Come here."
"Oh," Sheila smiled hungrily. "I intend to."