Fool's Gold: Carson Lyle's War - Part One, page 11
There was a crackle in the commlink. "Mech Bravo-twelve, report status."
Lyle flipped a switch to connect to the open channel.
"Bravo-twelve-" He stopped himself for a second, thinking, and said, "Wicker-Man, status green, copy?"
The channel was quiet for a long moment. The controllers were probably deciding whether or not to designate him by that call sign. In a moment, he got his answer.
"Copy...Wicker-man. Status green. Banshee, report status."
Vostro came over the channel. "Banshee, status green." There was no inflection in her voice, Lyle noted. No detectable hostility. Just another day at the office.
Lyle opened the channel again. "Banshee, Wicker-man, copy?"
He wondered if she would answer.
It took a few seconds. "Bravo-twelve, go ahead."
"Be safe out there, and watch your back, over."
"Acknowledged." Then he heard the click of her closing the channel on her side.
No call sign. Wow.
The comm channel came to life again. "Stalls one and six, you are cleared for power up and departure. Proceed to waypoints designated in your nav-computer."
"Banshee, acknowledges."
"Wicker-Man acknowledges."
Showtime.
Chapter 27
Lyle began the startup sequence first flipping a bank of switches on the left, then the right. The Twelve responded with a coughing shake and a roar from the powerplant that took a few seconds to settle into a consistent, even vibration and hum. He saw white smoke flowing in front of the cockpit and wondered if it would going to blow up before he even got outside.
Chief Diego came over the radio. "That's just some residual carbon buildup. It’ll burn away after she gets warm."
"Thanks, Chief. Am I clear?"
"You are clear. Good luck."
Lyle looked up and Vostro was already out of her stall and heading to the airlock.
He checked the dials again. RPMs were steady, power levels were good. Diagnostics were green on all points.
"Here's to hoping I don't fall on my face."
Lyle grabbed the T-shaped throttle level firmly and gave it a gentle push forward. The Twelve creaked, and shuttered, then the right foot took its first step, followed by the left. The X and Y-pitch gauges for the torso stayed level and the mechs footfalls only sent a minor impact vibration up to the cockpit. So far, everything was as it should be.
He settled the Twelve right next to Vostro's Fifty-four. The airlock took several seconds to slide closed behind them with a loud clank of heavy metal. The amber strobes, in each corner started flashing and the alarm buzzer sounded. Vents opened in the ceiling of the lock to vent out air pressure. There was a sharp hiss and dust rose from the floor as air was suddenly sucked upward by the pressure differential. Then the door leading to the outside split and slowly slid open revealing the pale, gray, rocky landscape set against the backdrop of the asteroid field and the space beyond it.
Lyle looked out the right side of his cockpit at the fifty-four and saluted. He wasn't sure if Vostro could see him. She had already polarized her canopy against the glare that reflected off of the rocky surface of the planetoid. He saw a puff of smoke from the mech's rear exhaust and it took off to its left, across his field of view. Lyle judged that she must have given it full throttle. Each step her mech took in the low gravity was more like a jump, covering seventy-five meters with each step at a forward velocity of ninety kilometers per hour.
That much mech was hard to stop and redirect in this gravity. He could use that to his advantage.
Time to get moving. He brought up the nav-computer display. Waypoint Zulu was ten klicks out, to the east, southeast. There was a countdown displayed on his helmet visor that read: nineteen-minutes-six-seconds, which was the time until start. Ready or not, when the timer reached zero, Vostro would begin hunting him and he'd have to figure out how to overcome the disadvantages of a lesser mech, rusty skills, and a vague memory of the landscape around the base.
Lyle picked a low spot between two hills in an east-southeast direction, turned the mech towards it and shoved the throttle to full. The Twelve leaped forward in response. Each stride was a longer than the last until the mech settled at sixty-eight kilometers per hour.
"Woohoo!"
Carson Lyle was feeling an adrenaline rush from mech driving again. For that brief moment, he was able to put everything out his mind and just enjoy himself. It was absolutely exhilarating.
After he cleared the hills, there was about a kilometer of open space ahead of him so he'd decided to take the opportunity to evaluate the twelve while on route to the waypoint.
He leaned the control stick left and right, slowly. The twelve responded a little quicker going left than it did right. Could be related to the damaged waist linkage. He'd have to be careful. He tested the targeting at full speed on large boulders as he ran by them. Weapons locks were acquired at acceptable speeds. With targeting on, he physically looked way left and right, to test arm mobility. The arms swing out to follow the reticle Lyle was moving across the landscape, on his visor, but, just as Diego said, the left arm was shaky and had difficulty getting a clean lock while in motion.
It was what he had to work with and it would have to do.
Chapter 28
Combat Mech Practice Range
Camp Neptune.
The nav-computer indicated he reached waypoint zulu. He brought the mech to a stop and looked at his surroundings.
"Why am I not surprised?" He said.
Waypoint zulu turned out to be a box canyon with walls that were too high for hoppers to take his mech over, even in this low grav. A few rock formations scattered around the canyon that could be used for cover. The only way out was the same narrow pass that brought him in to the canyon, barely a wide enough for a mech.
He looked at the timer. Just over three minutes to get set.
Someone picked this waypoint on purpose and they definitely didn't want this to go down fairly. Even if it wasn't Vostro that set this up, it was a fair bet someone would tell her right where to find him. But that was something he would have to deal with later.
He checked out the rock formations more closely. Two cast shadows large enough for him to take cover. One was taller, in the wide open area of the canyon floor. The other was against the east wall, it wasn't as tall but had more girth and looked as though it could provide good shielding against mech fire. It also had several other smaller formations around it that could be useful, plus it had a good view of the canyon entrance.
"That'll do."
He steered the mech over to it and settled in shadow. The bright sunlight cast shadows in from the direction of the entrance so he'd have at least some extra cover from that direction. He positioned the mech in small a gap in the rocks that was at cockpit level and lined the right arm laser up pointing at the canyon entrance like a sniper. Then he remembered what Diego had said.
Hmm..new plan.
***
Captain Leeann Vostro sat in her cockpit watching the final thirty seconds tick off the timer and she was fuming. She could not believe the gall of that civie to show up and get placed at her level. She didn't care what he used to be. She didn't care what the Colonel wanted him to do. She just want to get this over with and relegate him to working in the mess hall for the duration of the time he was here.
A captain working chow. Now that would be a sight.
She brought up the tactical display and overlaid the grid for the duel area. The computer displayed four other way-points where the civie could be. She decided she would run the perimeter of the full grid, and work her way in. Her only concern was taking too long to locate him and getting careless.
She suddenly remembered his face, his eyes, staring into hers before he went to his mech. There was no hint of fear there. No trepidation. Maybe he really had been a driver before? Maybe the Colonel knew something she didn't? No! It didn't matter what he was before. He was just a low life civie hauler now and she wasn't going to have that in her unit.
The timer ticked zero. Vostro through the throttle to forty percent and steered the mech toward her first planned grid.
A tone sounded in her helmet, indicating an incoming coded message. It caught her off guard. Why send a secure message now? She brought up the message on one of her screens and keyed in the countersign for validation. The message opened as text. She was surprised again to see it had the Colonel's encryption signature. It read:
The pride of the 501 is riding with you. Just take it by the numbers, alpha to zulu, and do us proud. Good luck, Leeann.
She felt pride well up inside her. She had thought the Colonel was actually pulling for the civie, but this message told her otherwise and it made her feel good. It was odd that he called her 'Leeann', but he was probably just trying to put her at ease. She had been wound up pretty tight since all of this started, so it made sense.
Vostro deleted the message, per protocol for secure messages and switched her sensors to passive mode to reduce her electronic signature. No need to hold up and electronic sign for the civie to see a kilometer away.
"Just take it by the numbers, alpha to..." She paused and brought up her nav-display. She saw where she'd just left from waypoint Alpha and in the lower right corner, she saw waypoint, "...zulu." The 'Z' icon blinked in a canyon formation five clicks due south for a few more seconds and disappeared, as if it were never there.
That tricky, old son-of-a-gun, she laughed. "That's why you're the Colonel."
She plotted an indirect course to the canyon.
This is going to be over quick.
Chapter 29
Vostro brought her mech to a stop at the base of the hill leading to the canyon's south wall, on the side opposite the entrance.
The civie would have been stupid to stay at his waypoint. But he was also at a disadvantage and he'd want to sucker her into a fight on his terms.
She eased the mech up the hill slowly, just enough to get the optics to take a snapshot of the canyon floor then quietly back away from the edge of the hill.
Vostro brought up the image on her screen. It gave a pretty good view of the canyon. The long shadows that blanketed the canyon floor were the only real problem. She couldn't see him in the open, so he would be using the shadows for cover.
Not a bad idea.
She eased the mech back up to the edge of the hill and pointed the optics at the largest rock formation. The shadow was completely black and engulfed the back half of the rock and several dozen meters directly behind it completely. She couldn't make out anything there. She could switch to infrared view, but with the mech in passive mode there would be a quick spike in E.M.F. that the Twelve might detect.
Vostro turned up the optic zoom incrementally until something caught her eye. On the far side of the large rock, the shadow looked to bend around something on the edge. She still couldn't see it clearly, but it looked out of place with everything around it.
A large rock suddenly fell from the formation near the bend. It must have been knocked off by something near it...like a mech.
She brought up the targeting system. Vostro thought about eye-balling it and aiming manually. She could get off two, possibly three shots before he'd be able to react. In this low-grav, missile or cannon fire wouldn't track far from where she aimed to put it. No, she wanted to make him crap his pants when the warning tone of a weapons lock went off in his cockpit. She brought the sensor array active. The reticle, on her visor, went from amber to red in less than a second. Vostro thumbed the safety cover for the missile launch on the top of the control stick up, making the button active.
"That's it, you son of bitch. Good night."
Her thumb tapped the button twice. Two missiles were loosed from the left shoulder pylon of the fifty-four. At the same instant, she gunned the throttle, accelerating the mech toward the edge of the canyon at a forty-five degree angle relative to the direction the missiles flew. She thumbed the button on the right side of the throttle. The hoppers fired as the Fifty-four stepped off the edge of the cliff.
The missiles found their mark, spraying a shower of rock fragments and dust in all directions. If they had been live missiles, the explosion would have been spectacular and that mech would have been dead.
She feathered the hoppers as the mech dropped from the ninety-meter cliff. The Fifty-four dropped slowly, almost floating toward a safe landing on the canyon floor. Vostro had her cannons trained on the dust cloud that hung around the rock formation. As soon as her mech had solid footing, she'd unload on the civvy again, bringing the Colonel's little experiment to a quick and satisfying end.
Still twenty meters from the ground. Vostro heard something in her cockpit that took an extra second to process.
The target lock alarm.
It was immediately followed by a heavy laser impact to the left knee of her mech.
More alarms sounded as the gyros were knocked off kilter. The mech was going to hit the ground hard, even in half-G.
Chapter 30
Lyle watched the Fifty-four dropping to the ground, spinning from the impact of the hit to the leg. The fall wouldn't do the Fifty-four any good, but it wouldn't be enough to disable it either.
He almost didn't see Vostro at the top of the cliff before she fired on the other rock formation. If he'd have been watching the entrance, he wouldn't have seen her at all. He'd have to buy Chief Diego the synthehol drink of his choice for that bit of intel.
He needed to get his mech behind her. Lyle threw the throttle up to full. The Twelve lurched forward with Lyle rotated the torso to keep Vostro in view.
Before the Fifty-four hit the ground, the torso turned sharply to the right and the hoppers fired at full burn. It was enough to break the mech's fall and even lift it to a near standing position. The right arm extended, as the mech came up, and Lyle found himself staring down the business end of a sixty-millimeter cannon.
He saw the muzzle flash, followed immediately by the piercing BANG of the training round hitting the mech in the left shoulder. The impact caused the whole mech to lurch to the left.
BANG! Another hit to the left side.
Lyle was assaulted by alarms in the cockpit. The simulated damage readout showed the whole left arm assembly, including his own cannon, was gone. The computer would shut it down, completely, to simulate the damage…except it wasn’t simulated. Lyle could see it dangling in front of his cockpit, in the low gravity, by a few bits of cabling still attached to the actuator.
Dammit! That was a good shot!
***
Vostro saw the Twelve's shoulder linkage explode into a shower of twisted metal. The dummy round must have hit it just right. The way the linkage just flew apart, leaving the arm just hanging by some cables was satisfying. But she cursed herself for her rookie mistake. She'd underestimated the civie, but he'd had his shot. Now she was on to him and she wasn't going to stop until he surrendered the duel.
The Twelve had regained its footing and continued moving to her left, along the canyon wall. In turn, she swiveled the legs counter-clockwise and gunned the throttle to keep pace and move in parallel with the twelve. The left leg grunted in protest from the hit at the knee. The computer damage simulator shut it down to sixty-percent effectiveness after the hit it took to the knee, making the mech sluggish to get moving.
With the left arm gone, the civie was left with the laser in the right arm and six missiles in a torso launcher. Still enough to worry about.
Vostro tried to take aim with her cannon again, but the Twelve was tough to track as a moving target with the rhythmic shudder of her mech with each left foot fall. She fired two more rounds. The first struck the canyon wall, at torso level. The second went above the cockpit. Rock fragments rained down on the Twelve, but its movement was unaffected.
They were getting close the rocks she had fired on before. In another few seconds, the rocks would be between her and her target. She would try to corral the civie to the far side of the formation, keeping him against the wall.
Just before the Twelve fully disappeared behind the shadow from the large rock, she fired two more cannon rounds at the right side, splintering it at the edge, and continued moving toward the far side, targeting the gap between the rock and the cliff wall. In a second or two, the Twelve would run out, at top speed, and she would have him.
Vostro reached the wall except, there was no Twelve running through the gap. All she could see was the long shadow cast by the rock. She looked back to the right. The civie hadn't come around the other side, either.
He was hiding behind the rock. What a fracking coward—
Her cockpit was suddenly engulfed in a limegreen light.
LASER!
Vostro jerked the control stick to the right. The damage simulators registered severe cockpit damage. Life support was compromised. Had this been a real fight, her canopy would have been cracked, or worse.
She drove the mech around the right side of the rock. There! Vostro could see the bastard moving out of the shadow. He must have been crouched, hidden in the shadow, just waiting for her to stick her head in the gap.
The Twelve was moving at top speed toward another tall rock formation to the right. That must have been where he was hiding from the start.
She saw the Twelve's torso turn in her direction. Another laser shot came her way, hitting the rock.
The Twelve was out in the open. Vostro was stationary with cover. This time she wouldn't miss.
She laid the reticle right on the center torso. It went red. The target lock tone sounded. Her thumb hovered over ‘fire’ button on her control stick.
It was fun while it lasted, civie.
She tapped the button twice.
Chapter 31
