BattleTech: Front Lines: BattleCorps Anthology, Volume 6, page 9
Kivi smiled. “No, I don’t think they’d appreciate it as much as we will.” He looked over at Daley. “Chu-sa?”
Daley took the other bottle. “I think we can overlook this. Lord knows the men need something to cheer them up. What about Chu-sa Isoguri?”
“He came by earlier and claimed three bottles, Sir,” Okudara said. “Two for him, and one for the tai-sa, if she recovers.”
“Well, a good idea, Chu-i,” Daley said, looking at the bottle. “And good work at Towman Pass.”
“I did my duty, sir. Hikagemono did most of the work.” “Nevertheless, good work.” Daley looked at the BattleMaster.
“Can that thing still move?”
“Yes sir. As soon as the last of the sake is gone, I’ll take him inside.”
“We’re lifting off in half an hour.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem, sir. At the rate we’re handing it out, it’ll be gone very quickly.”
“You better got back to work,” Daley said. “Yes sir.”
They watched Okudara walk back to the BattleMaster. “I want to sample this,” Daley said, holding up the bottle. “Care to join me?”
“I can spare a few minutes.”
KUME LOOKED at Okudara as the chu-i walked back to the crate. “You in trouble?”
Okudara shook his head. “Under the circumstances, they’re willing to overlook it.”
“Pity about the sake.”
Okudara pulled a couple of bottles out of the crate and gave them to waiting soldiers. “I can get more.”
“Think they’ll let you keep Hikagemono?”
“I hope so.”
“Tanaka asked me yesterday if I was willing to take over as Third Battalion’s chief tech.”
“Oh? Going to take the job?”
Kume snorted. “I don’t know. Not sure if I want to be on the inside anymore.”
Okudara smiled. “Old man, you are just like me and Hikagemono. No matter what, we’re always going be somewhat outside. And you know something?”
“What?”
“I like it there.”
SOMETHING MORE
JASON HANSA
NORTH OF PORT ST. WILLIAM
COVENTRY
COVENTRY PROVINCE
LYRAN ALLIANCE
16 MARCH 3058
HAUPTMANN RAYMOND JEFFERSON sweated in his hibernating Hollander as the lead elements of a Jade Falcon Trinary marched past his position. Hiding in the Bosbeer woods, a stretch of mixed young forest stretching before the Cross-Divide Mountains, his entire lance was spread out and shut down. His ’Mech was crouched as low as his backward-chicken legs would allow and his sensors set to passive mode; he hoped it was stealthy enough to be overlooked for just a few more moments.
A Point of Elementals came into view, hugging the nearer tree line of the field, chasing the remainder of Jefferson’s regiment. This would be the second Star in the Trinary, and the next ’Mech to appear would be the target. Jefferson shook his arms, sweat beads spraying across the cramped cockpit. Slowly gripping the controls with his left hand, he moved his right hand to hover over the switches that would bring his Hollander back up to full power.
He saw a stir of movement as a pair of reservist infantryman slowly pulled one-shot short-range missile launchers out of their saddle-slings and up to their shoulders. Nearly invisible in their green field uniforms, the dark brown Coventry kangaroos they were riding now lying flat on the forest floor, they began tracking one of the nearest Elementals.
Jefferson’s lance had been ordered to slow the Clan offensive for as long as possible, and then conduct a campaign of guerrilla warfare until the invaders left. He’d been assigned a battalion of mounted infantry to support him, and this would be his first ambush working alongside them. He could see evident nervousness in the horse-sized animals, slight twitching in the haunches and ears, the tail of one mount beating a fast cadence against the forest floor. However, he’d been told that they had been bred for combat and trained using centuries-old techniques adapted from Waler horses back on Terra, and the fact that neither man nor beast was shirking from the Elementals, but actively waiting for his signal to attack, he took to be a good sign.
The Elementals weren’t entering the forest, but had set up a skirmish line while waiting for their ’Mech support. A 45-ton Shadow Cat soon appeared, most likely armed with a Gauss rifle. Jefferson swore. Elementals were bad, but a Clan version of his ’Mech could inflict quite a bit of damage before it went down.
His secondary monitor lit up with new contacts as his fiancée fired up her Charger to initiate the ambush. Her targeting and tracking computer automatically fed new targets to the rest of the lance.
Jefferson began flipping switches and felt the fusion power plant beneath his cockpit thrum back to life. Monitors flickered for a moment as he switched them from batteries to main power, then to active mode.
The nearest Elemental turned toward him, the awakening of his slumbering ’Mech not unnoticed by the enemy soldier as the Shadow Cat fired its arm-mounted weapon at Melissa’s assault ’Mech.
Lining up his shot at the Shadow Cat’s cockpit, Raymond flicked open a channel to the infantry and spoke one word.
“Fire.”
* * *
NORTHWEST OF PORT ST. WILLIAM
COVENTRY
COVENTRY PROVINCE
LYRAN ALLIANCE
16 MARCH 3058
RAYMOND SKIRTED a pair of technicians erecting a portable repair platform next to his Hollander as he walked up to the infantry battalion commander. The older hauptmann, standing about ten meters away from the squad of infantrymen guarding the prisoners, shook Raymond’s hand.
Jefferson studied the prisoners, and realized both were young, late teens, maybe twenty. The male was blond and huge, like a casting agent’s idea of Thor, and wearing a full-body, black-mesh skintight garment Raymond knew to be an advanced version of his cooling vest. An Elemental. The girl was small, with stringy blond hair that contrasted against an emerald jumpsuit that looked a size too big. She had a nasty cut under her left eye and cradled a neurohelmet decorated to resemble a falcon. A MechWarrior.
“The Baboon pilot?” Jefferson asked. The tall, thin infantryman nodded.
“She is. My diggers picked her up after she ejected. Her ’Mech exploded in the fire, though, so no significant salvage.”
After the ambush that had destroyed the Shadow Cat and a number of Elementals, Raymond had immediately withdrawn his lance deeper into the forest. The Clan Trinary had followed, rushing forward in the belief that Raymond was retreating. They hadn’t expected a second, more layered ambush. Once they had sucked the Trinary into the deepest part of the woods, Raymond had ordered his lancemate MechWarrior Murray Druten and his Firestarter into action.
Druten was almost as old as his ’Mech, a specialized machine excelling at hunting infantry and starting fires, but what age had stripped from him in reflexes he made up with in skill. He had ignited very carefully selected areas, and within minutes the Clanners had found themselves surrounded on three sides by apparently-impassible burning woods.
What looked impassible strapped in a ten-meter-tall BattleMech, however, was sometimes quite different than the situation on the ground. In selected areas, Druten had knocked down rows of trees to create firebreaks, and then had layered the fire, creating a serpentine maze in the apparent inferno. Howard’s mounted infantry had then raced along the firebreak “safe zones” between walls of burning trees and to strike at the Clanners through these gaps, attacking again and again with concentrated missile fire.
Watching them in battle for the first time, Jefferson had realized that the infantrymen, riding on their Coventry kangaroos, were far more nimble in the woods than on any other type of animal he’d ever heard of. Bounding along on their large and powerful hind feet, the colloquially nicknamed “boomers” could zigzag around trees much faster than the all-terrain vehicles or motorcycles of regular motorized infantry. The mounted troopers, commonly referred to as “diggers” by other Coventry Militia units, were lightly armed and armored. Specializing in reconnaissance and hit-and-run attacks, they had assisted his lance in taking down two more ’Mechs and almost a Point of Elementals before the fire began to grow and forced the combatants apart.
Raymond stopped a few paces away from the prisoners. The pair stared at him with a combination of anger and consternation. He didn’t blame them—he’d be feeling a lot more worried than they appeared as if the situation was reversed. He scratched an itch under the three-day old scruff on his face as he contemplated them.
“Okay, I’m the commander of the task force that’s being leading you on this merry chase, and I’m responsible for the ambush that hit you this morning,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the repair and rearming operations taking place around them.
“We will not tell you anything, freebirth,” the MechWarrior said, fire in her eyes.
“You don’t need to: we know you were in Echo Trinary, Jade Falcon Eyrie Cluster, and we know your Cluster’s overall capability, so there’s not going to be any questions. Except one. What do you two want to do now?”
The prisoners looked at each other, confused, and then back at him.
“As you can tell, we’re on the run. We managed to get away from your Cluster long enough for us to rearm and slap some fresh armor on, but we expect your boys will be heading back this way before midnight. We don’t have the manpower or the time to guard you, and quite frankly, we simply don’t want to deal with this right now. So, first option,” he said, raising a finger, “is we make you bondsmen, and you agree to join us wholeheartedly. Lots of trust involved there, so no surprise if you say no.”
“Second,” raising another finger, “we send you back to the rear, and you sit in prison with the other criminals until someone decides what to do with you.” He shrugged nonchalantly, deliberately exaggerating the judicial process. “They’ll probably just end up hanging you next to the thieves and rapists.”
The two looked slightly nervous at that option, glancing at each other. Clan soldiers, brought up to believe in their own superiority, didn’t fear execution by enemy forces, but they would never have their honor besmirched by associating with criminals if they could help it.
“And third,” he said, deliberately stretching out the word as he raised another finger, “we can let you go.” A couple of the guards stirred, but Howard shut them down with a glare. The prisoners, however, looked horrified, as Raymond knew they would be. The only thing worse—in the eyes of the Clans—than being captured was being released by the captors. It was acknowledgement that the prisoner was so utterly worthless that they weren’t worth keeping.
“Our scouts say your unit is about three kilometers that way,” he said, pointing south, “doing the same thing we are, repairing and rearming. If you guys move quick, you can be there before sundown.”
“Neg!” the MechWarrior cried, almost coming to her feet before her companion dragged her back down.
“Do you have any battle armor?” the Elemental quietly asked.
“No, but I should have a mount big enough to carry you,” replied Howard.
“You will teach me to ride, quiaff?” he asked, hope in his voice.
Raymond suppressed a smile as Howard nodded. Clan soldiers were bred for war. Success on the battlefield ensured their genetics would be passed onto further generations. When captured, they would do just about anything to be able to carry themselves as warriors again. By offering the Elemental a mount, Howard had acknowledged that he planned to have the young man fight.
“Then I will join you,” the Elemental said, rising to his feet.
“Welcome to the Cavalry,” Howard replied.
Raymond looked at the girl. “I will ride no beast,” she said.
Howard laughed. “Oh, the spitfire’s all yours, Ray,” he said, then told some of the guards to take the Elemental to the remount pen.
“Didn’t think you would,” Jefferson replied. “We don’t have any spare ’Mechs right now, so either you can serve as my aide until we find one, you can go to jail, or you take a southbound walk.”
She stood. “My name is Point Commander Tallara, and I accept the position of aide.”
* * *
OUTSIDE GLENSHEE, NORTH OF PORT ST. WILLIAM
COVENTRY
COVENTRY PROVINCE
LYRAN ALLIANCE
4 APRIL 3058
RAYMOND STRETCHED under the trickle of tepid water streaming from the clear bag slung from a tree, trying to work out a kink in his right shoulder. Once the Clans had recovered from their fiery ambush on the sixteenth, they had pursued the small task force relentlessly. Their mission had changed from delaying the enemy to simply attempting to survive, moving from forest to forest, town to town, hiding as long as possible, hitting them as best they could, and falling back.
The Clanners had near full military control of the planet, which they used to their advantage, sending fast scouts on long patrols looking for Raymond and other scattered survivors. Catching Raymond and the infantry between towns, the Falcons had immediately engaged them, pushing the task force hard in a sixty-hour running battle that had raged across twenty square kilometers. It wasn’t until Jefferson got reinforced with a second battalion of diggers that the Falcons had finally withdrawn to lick their own wounds.
“Hauptmann? The infantry commanders are looking for you. They say we have new orders,” came Tallara’s voice from behind him. A little too close behind him.
Raymond paused, scrubbing shampoo in his hair. “Cadet, when I open my eyes, you had better be on the far side of the shower curtain.”
He heard a rustle, and shook his head as he began washing the shampoo out. The four MechWarriors had quickly found that one of the hardest things to teach the young Clan girl, because of cultural differences, was the concept of “personal boundaries.”
He savored the shower, his first since the campaign began, for a moment longer before finally turning the spigot off. Quickly dressing in his cockpit outfit, which still stunk, since he had decided on a shower before laundry, he threw on a cloak and swept aside the poncho he’d hung as a curtain. As he’d suspected, Tallara, dressed in a blue LAAF jumpsuit with cadet insignia, was standing only a meter away and looking annoyed that he’d taken so long to respond to the summons.
First things first, he decided. “Cadet, do not walk in on people in the shower, especially me. If Melissa had seen you do that, she’d knock you senseless,” he said as they began to walk toward the cavalry headquarters tent.
“She would try,” she replied.
“She would succeed. She’s forgotten more about combat than you’ve learned, and don’t forget that. Status?”
A small convoy of trucks with supplies from regiment had arrived in Glenshee, about five kilometers north of their bivouac, but the task force was buried so far into the woods that the supplies had to be carried in by trains of pack mules. It was a hell of a way to sustain a fight, but the low tech way was both working and inconspicuous enough that Falcon patrols hadn’t tracked the mules into the deep forest to find the hide location. Yet.
“The Firestarter, Commando and your ’Mech have been reloaded already, and the technicians are replacing the damaged armor. They cannot replace the arm, however. They claim there are none available.”
He nodded—his Hollander’s right arm had been melted off by a pair of PPC blasts, and he’d suspected replacing it would have to wait. “Gives it character.”
“Hauptmann?”
He glanced sideways at her. “The expression? ‘Scars give character?’ I’m sure the Clans say something similar, right?”
She nodded as she absentmindedly rubbed the scar under her eye. “We do. You do not want a replacement arm for your Hollander?”
He massaged his temples as they walked, reminded himself she was young and rather literal about things. “I was being sarcastic. A new arm would be swell. Next?”
She glanced at her notes before continuing. “MechWarrior Melissa’s Charger has been repaired, except for the damaged pulse laser. There is a replacement available in Glenshee, but Leutnant Grant reports that the mules cannot carry it, and he cannot get it here to us at this time.” She said the last portion with some disbelief in her voice.
Tallara, in true Clan tradition, had been given little training in where supplies came from and, before her capture, simply hadn’t cared. Leutnant Grant, Hauptmann Howard’s maintenance officer, had taken her under his wing to teach her the ins and outs of field logistics as he coordinated the platoons of technicians and quartermasters working tirelessly to keep the units fed and supplied. Tallara was soaking up as much knowledge as she could from the Leutnant, and was in constant awe of his abilities. Raymond suspected her incredulity stemmed from her inability to accept there was something the Leutnant couldn’t accomplish.
“I suspect Leutnant Grant is probably working on it, and will have a solution soon.” She smiled at that. “Anything else?”
She slowed her walk, and got a distant look on her face.
“What is it?” he asked, coming to a halt in the middle of the lance bivouac, the four ’Mechs scattered and facing outward. The cavalry had patrols that circled the site, but Hauptmanns Howard and Graham preferred to have their headquarters separate, about a hundred more meters away.
“I am not certain it is my place to tell you, or that I am even right. I do not have much experience in such things.” She looked slightly pained and embarrassed, a new look for her. This had Jefferson a little worried.
He put some steel in his voice. “Cadet Tallara, report.” Early on, Hauptmann Howard had reported a couple quiet complaints from some of the troops in his command, especially those with some BattleMech piloting experience, who thought they should have the opportunity to pilot captured ’Mechs before a Clanner. He had forestalled those admittedly somewhat-valid complaints by giving her a commission as a cadet. It was essentially the same position she’d held in the Jade Falcons, but he also made her carry out what were—to her—alien logistical responsibilities.
