Fortress Republic, page 24
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
Maybe it was. His friend had escaped the Marksman as well, hadn’t he? Caleb thought he recalled an image of the jumpseat straps (fastened tight) hanging open, and empty.
He shook her hand away, and nearly blacked out again. “Mebbe they won’t come in . . .”
“They’ll check,” she whispered. “Not a lot of room to hide in here.” She moved away from him on cautious hands and feet, distributing her weight evenly over the plank floor to prevent as much noise as possible. “Never should have stayed so long.”
His fault! That’s what she was saying. Because he was weak. Because he was injured. He struggled up the wall, getting his feet beneath him. He’d show her. They both would. Him. And Mason.
Where was Mason?
Caleb reached out as if expecting his friend’s arm to lean against—Mason was always there when Caleb needed him—and stumbled forward from the wall only to crash down hard on his knees.
New jolts of pain ripped through his body. A loose plank jumped and rattled.
Two types of soldier. The cautious, and the commando. Tearing away the dark gauze wrapped around his brain, Caleb recalled that bit of wisdom from some long-ago instructor. Knew that a cautious soldier prowling outside would fall back and radio for assistance.
This guy was a commando. Running forward of a sudden, feet pounding against the ground. Maybe fumbling for his radio, maybe not. Caleb would have bet money (six to four and pick-’em) that the guy worked the action on a sidearm or his rifle instead, chambering a round as he stormed for the single door and Danai crabbed her way across the floor to crouch in the shadows just to the door’s right-hand side.
The side away from the hinges, he noticed.
Smart girl.
Few MechWarriors carried a weapon in the cockpit, and Caleb did not make a habit of wearing a sidearm either. He supposed Ferguson or Rolph had been armed, and an M1 did have a small arms locker with two rifles and a collection of pistols in case of need, but Danai had not known or not thought to go searching for it.
Strange enough she had come to look for him at all. At least, strange at the time. Until she told him later about The Republic push that had broken through her lines and rolled over another local garrison patrol as well in a take-no-prisoners drive. The Republic owned Dargo now, and was making a push for Jarman City to seize control of the local government until “a stable defense of New Hessen could be implemented that would not look the other way while House Liao used the world as a means of staging flanking attacks against The Republic.”
Caleb blinked away the vertigo, and the political rhetoric, as the door crashed inward and slammed back against wall, sagging desperately from one rusted hinge. Neither served them at the moment, in the situation they found themselves in now, which was absent any weapon other than the basic survival knife gripped in Danai’s slender hands.
Against an Intek laser rifle held by the infantryman filling the doorway. Not a fair match at all. He wore a simple armored breastplate and a field helmet. Saw Caleb kneeling near the far wall. Levered his rifle down to cover him.
“Don’t move!”
Never saw coming Danai’s foot, as she exploded from the side wall with a full-force roundhouse kick. Swinging up and around. Snapping forward hard enough that her combat boot crunched the cartilage in his nose to paste and all but threw him back out of the shack.
The shock of the impact, the bodily force; the infantryman clenched down on his weapon and the Intek sparked a single ruby-edged dagger that burned through the air just to the left of Caleb’s shoulder to char a round, smoking divot into the thin, plank wall.
The scent of scorched wood joined with the rotten dandelion smell of the local black creeper.
Gasping for breath, Caleb struggled to his feet, grabbing up the survival kit Danai had left sitting in the middle of the floor. Darkness leaned in at the edge of his vision, narrowing his gaze, but he managed to make it this time all the way to the ruined door before falling against the wall and holding himself up by sheer willpower.
Danai had her knife to the man’s throat, but seemed disinclined to use it.
“Well?” Caleb asked. Prompting. Mason could have told her. You did not leave an enemy at your back. Ever.
She looked down. The soldier’s face was a bloody mess, nose mashed to one side and upper lip split wide enough to show blood-stained teeth. She shook her head. “He’s not going anywhere.” Reached down and pried the Intek from his grip. Found the spare battery pack as well. “And now we have a rifle.”
Now she had a rifle. And the knife. And the only real idea where they were in relation to the long-abandoned battlefield, Republic patrols, and any sign of civilization. With a plan to escape.
And take Caleb with her? Back to Confederation space? Not likely, Faith defend! She was the enemy. Maybe. Certainly she had her own best interests at heart first. Like the Capellan soldier she was.
“Ready?” she asked. Jumping to her feet. Eyes always on the move as she scanned the still forest, the curtains of black creeper hanging down out of nearby pine and elm, and carefully watched Caleb’s face.
He nodded. Took a hesitant step forward and let her catch him by the arm. Dragging it over her shoulders and around the back of her neck to take some of his weight.
Then Caleb’s own plan began to take form, as he and Danai set off again, fleeing for their lives.
25
Stranger, perhaps, than the arrival of a Federated Suns command to stand for the freedom of Ronel was the quick and near-painless way in which these First Guards absorbed the Dragon’s Fury. It makes no sense, with Davions never having had any real love for House Kurita. Whatever his reason, Sho-sa Katanga remains stoically silent . . .
—Military Correspondent James Collins, RBC News, Ronel, 7 September 3135
Janiper, Ronel
Republic of the Sphere
12 September 3135
Janiper was the last stepping stone for Ronel’s capital city. And it looked like a good portion of it was ablaze.
Smoke poured into the overcast sky in a vast, oily-black curtain. The stench carried several kilometers south where Julian fought to gain entrance to the city, tinged with the smell of fuel oil and hot metal. It stung the eyes like fresh-cut onion.
Julian still had no idea what the hell had happened up there, and wasn’t likely to for some time as he backpedaled his Templar out of missile range. Pulled back the two Condors that had paced alongside him on the probing assault as a line of death walked from the river’s edge to the sewage treatment facility spread out over several square kilometers to the east. Dirt geysered up on columns of fire and smoke to come raining back down in a dark shower that pattered across his head and shoulders like an evil hail.
“Jules?”
“We hold,” he said, leaving himself dialed for the company-wide frequency. Dropping his crosshairs over a distant Behemoth II, he slashed two ionized streams of energy across its blunt nose. His reactor temperature spiked. His receiver crackled with interference.
The Behemoth rolled back towards the safety of the loyalists’ main line.
Julian nodded. “We give her time.”
Then a warning flashed on his HUD and Julian sidestepped several paces, bringing up both arms—PPCs ready—as VTOLs belonging to Carter’s Corsairs mercenary outfit made another dodge in his direction.
Not after him, but a Po tracked tank that had strayed forward from the wedge formation too far to the northwest. The Yellow Jacket gunboats dipped in, smashing at the Po with Gauss rifles underslung their main carriage. Like Callandre’s Destroyer—with altitude, if a touch slower on response times—the Gauss-slinging helicopters were flying death incarnate.
The Po never had a chance. Already weakened from earlier missile strikes and a lucky artillery round that scratched away half of one tread and most of the armor on its right side, the Gauss slugs punched in together to smash deep into the machine’s belly.
A gout of flame flashed out from beneath its treads as the fuel tank ruptured in a ground-searing explosion. The tank jumped a good meter into the air before it crashed back down into an ungainly squat, treads blown away and drive wheels bowed out by the force of the blast.
“Jules!”
At least Callandre kept her complaint to their private channel. With Major Dwight Hastings sidelined with a broken foot and dislocated shoulder, Calamity Kell had assumed temporary command over Julian’s armor assets.
He still wasn’t certain if he should be relieved his Guards took to her as an officer, or concerned.
“We have to give Yori more time,” he said, toggling onto their private frequency. “A Grand Dragon only moves so fast.”
“Way out, Jules. But in the meantime, my people are paying the hard price.”
Her people. Meaning the armored column, which had less defense in an attack from overhead VTOLs. He nodded. He knew it. “So pay it,” he said. “Come back to me when you have good news.”
“Luder diensteifer—”
He slapped at his comms panel, cutting off her curse. Just as frustrated and fearful as Callandre that Yori couldn’t break through on the enemy’s eastern flank.
And even if she did, that his company wouldn’t respond to her rally in the same way they might one of their own, or she would pull the plug too early.
Unrequited commitment. It had to work both ways.
Which was one of two reasons Julian led this wedge from the very forward point, letting Callandre and the majority of her armor fan out to the east as he shot the gap between the river’s bend and the sewage treatment plant. Pushing Lars Magnusson’s Arcas out to anchor the west. After the Grand Dragon, Lars had one of the best ’Mech weight-to-speed ratios. He wanted the Arcas ready to swing around and back any wild play he might need to make.
One reason. The other was the Rifleman that held the center of the loyalist line, a linchpin between the regular line troops on the western side and the mercenary groups (Storm Chasers, Carter’s Corsairs) holding the east. Always a tempting target, that Rifleman, trying to lure Julian forward into the enemy embrace.
Granted, it could be anyone stalking the northern line, baiting this trap, but Julian did not believe so. He watched the Rifleman closely. Saw the fluid motion and the near-human mannerisms in the stride and posture of the sixty-ton machine that took a great deal of effort to mimic, or otherwise came only with years of training and experience in a single machine. A true melding of technology and skill.
The kind of faculty one expected in an ex-Knight of The Republic.
Conner Monroe.
“Guard-one, two minute standby.”
The transmission came over another of his private command channels, this one linking him back to the Praetorian command crawler that slowed the back of Julian’s western line. The channel was usually reserved for his intelligence analyst. But Lieutenant Dawkins did not have such a smooth contralto.
He passed the standby alert along to his senior officers, then cut back to the mobile HQ. “Our appreciation, Lady Zou.”
“Todd has a civilian report on the smoke to the north,” Ariana said, leaving it up to him whether or not he could afford to take the time to discuss. Meaning it was not necessarily tactical in nature.
He traded long-range PPC fire with a Hasek mechanized combat vehicle. Its particle cannon ripped an unsteady gash along his left leg, chewing apart armor and raining thick, smoking crisps across the ground.
A light flashed for his attention, warning him of a damaged foot actuator. Of all the cursed luck. “G’head,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“It’s a series of fuel tankers. They went up when some of Monroe’s hired guns chanced on our spotter lance sneaking into the local industrial sector. They took cover behind the wrong train.”
And overzealous mercenaries had done the rest. Julian was grateful that the heavy pall of oily smoke wasn’t an indication of a massive city-wide fire. Still, he could have wished for it not to happen at all.
That was true of so many things this past year.
“Thank you, Lady Zou.”
“Least I could do,” the paladin said. And in a tone suggesting she was not happy about that being the case.
Julian had asked Ariana to hold her Griffin in reserve for this battle, so she had opted to ride out the battle in the mobile HQ to contribute however she could at the moment. Her ’Mech waited at a rear staging area along with the First Guards’ Enforcer and their Legionnaire. They were prepped to rotate up in case the battle dragged out too long, letting Julian field a second, fresh line with a commander capable of assuming full command of the battle.
Ready also to hold open a rear line of retreat, should it become necessary. He didn’t think that likely. Not now.
Within the next moment, he knew it for certain.
“Contact!” Magnusson said, already throttling his Arcas into a run at better than eighty kilometers per hour. Pushing his way up the river’s course. “She’s broken cover at one eight degrees, range four point five!”
“Bring it,” Julian ordered his warriors, and flashed a second signal to the reserve units holding several klicks south. “Forward the Guards!”
Their answering cheers were violent growls, tearing apart the command channels for several long heartbeats while the entire right side of Julian’s wedge suddenly swept out in a strong and mighty wing to wrap up towards the loyalist position.
Not that they could do much for it, as they had a dragon in their midst.
Yori!
It had taken her ten minutes longer than scheduled, and in battle ten minutes was an eternity. But she had made it, taking her Grand Dragon on a wide, sweeping maneuver under radio silence with nothing much more than a fast-strike lance of Dragon’s Fury to accompany her. If spotted early, it would have been a long, desperate run back to safety. But getting slightly north of the loyalist position she had managed to skulk the river and come wading up onto the near bank with weapons blazing, two hover APCs deploying combat engineer squads from the Dragon’s Fury while a pair of Maxim heavy hover transports dumped out Hauberk SRM infantry.
A stroke of good fortune, Julian knew, that Yori had turned that first victory on the dry basin into a recruitment push. Trading off her Kurita name for the first time since he’d met her, she’d quickly taken control of the Dragon’s Fury, severing their ties to Katana Tormark, who had left them in such straits.
Not that her efforts would amount to much if he didn’t back her, and soon! Yori’s Dragon tangled with a Shadow Hawk IIC and a MadCat III as well as two Joust tanks. The ’Mechs and machines were painted the blue and silver of Carter’s Corsairs. And she did it two kilometers past any effective range of cover from Julian’s line.
Julian pushed his warriors forward at the Templar’s best speed, ready to add his firepower to the hole Yori had just opened up on the enemy’s right flank.
“Guard-one! Gunboats!”
Julian nearly missed them, stumbling through a tortured landscape of exploding warheads and the slashing red and green fire of lasers—the two Yellow Jacket VTOLs winging up from the northwest. He turned onto a sudden oblique line, ducked one Gauss slug but took the second square against his centerline.
The kinetic force smashed armor and cracked internal support struts. His engine temperature jumped several degrees as waste heat bled out through damaged reactor shielding. He staggered forward, splitting off slightly from the eastern line.
“Fill the gap!” Julian ordered. Worried, as his turn opened a slight hole. He didn’t want his Guards suddenly pulling back to cover his flank. Abandoning Yori.
They did not. Behind his position, Leftenant Beaufort’s Centurion crossed quickly at his back from the western flank to the eastern drive. If anything, it added more momentum to the push.
“Got company,” Callandre called. Missiles rained down as strategic carriers along the entire loyalist front spread hundreds of warheads into the air as a deterrent against any hard push forward.
Conner Monroe either did not plan for it to work, or did not care if it did. His Rifleman led an echelon-right maneuver away from the attacking Dragon . . .
And into the second fist of Julian’s one-two punch.
“Calamity! Now! Right wing, enfold and charge; go go go!”
Within a handful of seconds the full trap had snapped shut. Yori’s flanking assault had been a feint disguised as a major push. Expecting the Senator and ex-knight to react quickly and efficiently to any threat from the river, Julian had readied his people for a two-prong attack. With her Dragon’s Fury in tow, Yori retreated slowly to the south to link up with Lars. As the Guards had waited, trusting her to make the flanking push, now she ran a hard gauntlet back to safety while the entire eastern line pivoted around Julian’s Templar to smash like a hammer into the brittle steel of the gathered loyalists and their mercenary support.
Like quicksilver beneath a mallet, the eastern side of Conner’s line crumbled and spattered into tiny, fast-moving clumps. A few retreated back towards the city and the raging fire clouding the horizon. Some of the Storm Chasers’ hovercraft took to the river as a natural throughway, skating quickly upriver and out of danger. Most struggled to link back up with the core of the loyalist line, now curling hard away from Janiper.
“Gunboats coming hard around.” Callandre’s warning came at about the same time a digital clock on Julian’s control panel flashed down to 0:00:00.
“Too late for them now,” Julian said.
His words seemed prophetic when the first gunboat exploded in midair while still out of range from any large weapons on Julian’s line. The fireball roiled out and up, flaming wreckage scattering over several hundred square meters. The burning cloud molted quickly from reddish-orange to a soot-stained bloom that hung heavily against the overcast sky.
Then, like twin bolts of lightning, the two Sparrowhawk fightercraft slashed through the cloud. Their jetwash scattered the pall of smoke into a dozen small tornadoes. And then they were gone, winging far, far over the city of Janiper, losing themselves behind the thick curtain of the fuel oil fire before they began to make any turns.
