"And now those Free Skye Militia rat-bastards have brought the most evil of technology here to you," he growled softly. His lance had seen sent out to chase down a Free Skye terrorist cadre that had overpowered the peaceful locals and taken refuge in their town.
"Angel One, I have fire from the church steeple in the center of town."
"Roger, Angel Two." Peter punched up the magnification on his holographic display and centered it on the steeple of the whitewashed wooden church. There he saw what looked like a number of portable SRM launchers arrayed to protect the town. As he watched, another short-range missile launched from the steeple and headed out toward Carson's Locust.
The anti-missile cannon in the birdlike Locust's stubby left wing spat flame into the night. One of the SRMs exploded in mid-air as the Locust's shells shredded it, but the other remained on target. It slammed into the Locust's left leg, shattering ferro-fibrous armor. The small 'Mech staggered for a second, but remained upright.
"Two, report."
"Lost some armor, Skipper. No problem." Deb Carson sounded her usual confident self. "What do you want to do?"
"I'm on it, Two." Peter dropped the cross hairs on the tower. His JagerMech's right arm rotated up into firing position. Peter opted to use one of the autocannons instead of a laser because the energy beam might well touch off the fuel in the missiles left in the launchers. The resulting explosion could turn the wooden town into an inferno, the last thing he wanted to do. Unless he had no luck to spare at all, the autocannon's shells should take the steeple down without detonating the missiles.
He nudged the cross hairs lower so they would undercut the launchers by five meters, then double-checked the area backstopping his shot. He quickly flicked his scanners over to infrared, but nothing registered behind his shot. "Standby, Angels, the steeple goes down now."
Something halfway between a scream and a mechanical whine sounded as Peter triggered his autocannon, the resulting hail of metal slicing through the steeple like a giant buzzsaw. The upper half of the steeple hung in the air for a second, then slowly fell to the ground, disintegrating as it hit.
Peter felt one instant of elation before disaster struck. He saw the steeple crash into the ground and a launcher bounce free. As the launcher rotated slowly through the air, time moved slowly enough for Peter to start remembering the procedures for recovering dangerous munitions from a civilian area. Don't explode!
It didn't.
The building behind it did.
The decapitated church's windows glowed with a golden light before suddenly exploding outward. Curling flame talons shot from the windows, then closed around and crushed the entire structure. A roiling fireball burst up through the roof, bringing the light of noon to midnight Bellerive. The ball of fire seemed to hang there, an ill omen.
It did not remain alone for long. Another half-dozen buildings in the town also began to explode. Like an epidemic sweeping through the village, houses spontaneously combusted, spraying fiery debris in ragged circles around themselves. Infected by their flames, yet more buildings went up, and within twenty seconds of Peter's hitting the trigger, Bellerive had been consumed by fire.
"My God, oh my God." Peter stared down at the burning town. "What have I done?"
Zurich
Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth
"Yes, I'm Dr. Lear." Deirdre bowed reflexively in response to the man rising from the chair in front of Rick Bradford's desk. "Is there something I can do for you, Mr ...?"
"Chiang, I am Feng Chiang. At your service, Doctor." The slight man smiled politely and bowed with a precision that Deirdre knew marked great respect.
"Rick? Is this another media thing?"
Bradford shook his head. "No, Deirdre. Mr. Chiang has come all the way from Solaris to talk to you. News of what you did has reached there."
Kai? She swallowed her fear and held her head up. "Why are you here, Mr. Chiang?"
"My master wishes me to convey his greetings and a request that you join him as a guest at his estate. You and your son, that is." Chiang apologetically ducked his head. "He wishes to reward you for your heroics on behalf of the hospital."
"You can tell Kai Allard-Liao for me that all we needed to say to each other was said on Alyina years ago." She spun on her heel and started toward the door.
Chiang's voice stopped her. "No, Doctor, Kai Allard-Liao is not my master. He did not send me." The little man sucked at his teeth as if in pain. "I am sent to bring you to Mandrinn Tormano Liao."
Kai's uncle. Deirdre hesitated. "Please convey my thanks to the Mandrinn, but as you can see I have much work to do here."
"He appreciates that, Doctor, and hopes you will accede to his request when you learn that his reward to you is a magnetic resonance imaging suite for the hospital here. He understands the hospital's need for it, and hopes you will humor an aging man's desire to converse with a real-life hero."
Her eyes narrowed. "He can speak with his nephew if he wants to talk to a hero."
"Alas, he does not. He and his nephew have recently become estranged."
Deirdre looked past Chiang at Rick Bradford. He's staring off into space, already adding the MRI equipment to our emergency wing. "When do we leave?"
"This evening, Doctor. The Mandrinn has set up a command circuit from here to Solaris so your arrival will not be delayed." The man smiled happily. "I brought two doctors with me to fill in during your absence."
"How long will I be away?"
"Barely two weeks to reach Solaris and participate in the ceremony, then we will get you back to Zurich as fast as possible." Chiang bowed his head respectfully. "I am certain, Dr. Lear, that you will find all the arrangements most satisfactory."
21
Solaris City, Solaris VII
Tamarind March, Federated Commonwealth
9 April 3056
Galen Cox resettled his hands on the joysticks of his new Crusader. He felt utterly comfortable in the machine, and actually liked the feel of the cooling suit and the lighter helmet. In fact, only one thing disturbed him: the scent of the cockpit. It was the first time he'd ever had a 'Mech that smelled brand new.
That won't last very long, he thought, seeing the massive doors opening in front of him and feeling a nervous sweat start to slick his skin. His initial glimpse of Ishiyama's dark caverns took him back to Trellwan and the first combat against the Clans. He and Prince Victor had engaged in a running gun battle with warriors of Clan Jade Falcon through a series of linked caves. They had not known then who or what they were fighting, and to this day Galen believed only luck had let them escape.
He stepped the Crusader from the elevator and saw Kai's Penetrator on his left. Galen keyed up his radio. "Deuce here. Do you know where we are?"
"Affirmative. We're about a half-klick from the Grand Gallery. Take that first tunnel to the right."
"Roger, Ace." Galen realized he knew the Grand Gallery better from having watched holovids of fights held in Ishiyama than from all the training he had done with Kai. A huge crevasse ran through the center of Stone Mountain, neatly splitting the lower reaches in half. A narrow ledge on the north side linked it to a number of tunnel mouths. Those openings led back into a maze of tunnels and ramps that provided access to the various levels on that side.
On the south side was a long ledge with pillars that looked like they'd been formed from stalactites and stalagmites growing together. These gave the south passage the appearance of a monster's gap-toothed grin. Galen could easily imagine the open tunnel having some correspondence to an ancient Japanese myth or Combine legend.
The Crusader entered the tunnel heading north and slightly up slope toward the Grand Gallery. Kai had predicted that the Kurita operators of Ishiyama would place the two teams relatively close to each other. In contrast to Federated Commonwealth audiences, the people of the Combine liked quick and violent firefights. Since their market dwelt on the heroic nature of battle and the perfection of technique, the hunting and chasing s
equences that built suspense in other markets left Combine audiences merely bored.
In their preparatory simulations Galen and Kai had practiced fast and deadly battling. As the Crusader came to the level spot from which the Grand Gallery shot off to the east, Galen held up one arm of his 'Mech and gave Kai the standard FedCom signal to slow his advance. "What little I can see of the caverns on the other side is clear. No heat registering."
"Roger, Deuce. I'm up to cover you." The Penetrator sidled deep into the landing, then eased over near the opening of the southern passage. "Enfilade or frontal, do you figure?"
Galen shook his head as he punched a command into his computer. He already had the holographic display on infrared, which rendered everything the scanners picked up in colors corresponding to a rough breakdown of heat level, with purple being coolest and white the hottest. The new program he brought on line broke the scan down into finer gradations, but scant Hide changed on the display.
"I've got no trace temperature changes to suggest they're over here. Enfilade." Galen returned the computer to the original program. "Ready when you are."
"I'll cover the middle hole. Go."
In accordance with a strategy they had worked out during their simulations, Galen started the ten-meter-tall Crusader sprinting down the southern passage. The sensors in the cowl allowed the machine to use Galen's own sense of balance to regulate the gyroscopic stabilizers that kept the 'Mech upright. Though not as agile or reflexively quick as a man, the Crusader moved with a spritely elan that would have surprised everyone except perhaps its pilot and the engineers who had designed it.
As he broke from cover and dashed down the ledge, Galen caught movement on the opposite side of the Grand Gallery. It was Edenhoffer's Stalker coming through the opening of the centermost tunnel over there. The covers over the square LRM launchers mounted in the 'Mech's boxy shoulders snapped down, and fire ignited in the missile racks.
A full score missiles shot out at the speeding Crusader, but fewer than half locked on to their target. Galen felt the Crusader's head buck as the antimissile system kicked in. The gun mounted in the 'Mech's forehead spit flame as it labored to blast missiles out of the air. It succeeded in picking off one of the incoming LRMs, and two more slammed into a pillar before the last seven hit their target.
The missiles hammered the Crusader's left arm. As the explosions sent armor plates whirling away, the auxiliary monitor reported that the limb's protection factor had dropped by twenty-five percent. Two other missiles tagged the 'Mech's right leg, chipping away about ten percent of its armor, but Galen wasn't much concerned over the damage. Resisting the temptation to shoot back, he kept the speeding 'Mech upright despite the shock from missile detonation.
Two searing white lines linked the iconographic representation of Kai's Penetrator with Edenhoffer's Stalker. The first large laser slashed a furrow through the armor of the ride side of the 'Mech's torso. The second traced a diagonal cut through the riotously colorful armor on the Stalker's right leg. Galen knew the damage to Edenhoffer's machine exceeded what his had taken, but given Edenhoffer's advantage from the start, it didn't even come close to making them even.
On the far side, just about even with where Kai fired out at Edenhoffer, Galen caught a glimpse of Vandergriff's elephantine Goliath. The tiger-striped, four-legged 'Mech moved ponderously from the tunnel it had been using for cover. As it half-turned to sight back along the line of the crevasse, its turret swiveled around to sight somewhere forward of Galen's path.
Going for the long precision shot and waiting until it's at my weak back armor! Galen shook his head. Predictable. When the Clans got predictable, we beat them by being unpredictable. Like now.
Leaning to his right slightly, Galen brought the Crusader's arms up and, as he slackened his speed, pushed off hard from the passage's wall. His 'Mech's right foot pressed down on the ground, sparks shooting up from beneath the heel. Galen twisted his own body around, leaning heavily to the left as he did so to make the Crusader's torso mimic the motion. The pilot then stabbed his feet down on the jump jet pedals, igniting the jets on the Crusader's back and launching the 'Mech out from between stony teeth into the crevasse.
A quick feathering of the jump jets made the sixty-five-ton BattleMech dip down into the crevasse itself. That immediately provided him cover by putting him beneath the line of sight from the ledge on the north side. The Stalker, which had shifted around to target Kai, vanished from Galen's holographic display. A forward-jutting section of the crevasse eclipsed the Goliath, eliminating any threats to the Crusader for the moment.
Above him he caught the quick flashes of laser light and the sustaining fire of a missile launching that marked another exchange between the Stalker and Kai's Penetrator. "Ace, what's the score?"
"Deuce, I knocked down all his incoming missiles and took laser damage to my left arm. I hit him in the chest and right arm. I'm operational and he's fixating on me."
"His mistake." Galen hit the jump jets for a sustained burst of thrust. A wave of heat passed up into the cockpit, but the cooling suit shunted it away quickly enough. Galen centered the cross hairs for his weapons controls in the middle of his tactical display, then let the jump jets bring the 'Mech up to superimpose them on the Stalker.
The Crusader came up to land on the narrow ledge to the east of the Stalker's lair. Galen kept the cross hairs on his cylindrical body as he bent the Crusader's knees to cushion the landing, then he cut loose with both his LRM racks and the medium lasers built into his 'Mech's arms. Let's get rid of even more of that ugly paint job.
One of the lasers missed low, but the other flensed armor from the top of the Stalker's right shoulder. The missiles leaped from the forearm-mounted launchers and arced in at the Stalker like comets falling in toward the sun. Explosions ringed the 'Mech and bathed it in fire. Armor shards flew out of the firestorm, leaving armor over the 'Mech's left leg, flank, and chest in tatters.
Two red spears of laser light stabbed into the Stalker from Kai's position on the far side of the Grand Gallery. More armor dropped in molten gobs from the right side of the BattleMech. The Stalker returned fire on Kai, but one swarm of missiles swerved off down into the crevasse to explode far below. The large laser melted a big hole on the right side of the Penetrator's chest and then four missiles from a second launching exploded on the center chest.
Despite its counterstrike, the Stalker had been hammered badly. Galen could see no signs of an armor breach, but the 'Mech had definitely taken a physical pounding. The missile and beam assaults were powerful enough to momentarily kick the gyros out of phase with each other, and Edenhoffer could not keep the 'Mech on its feet even though his life might depend upon it. To his credit, he seemed to know he was going down, and managed to have his 'Mech fall backward and into the cave that had been giving it shelter.
Its departure from the battlefield allowed Galen to see all the way along the narrow ledge to the Goliath lumbering toward him. The muzzle on the turret gun flashed a brilliant electric blue as the Gauss rifle vomited out a silvery projectile. The long-range missile pods blossomed with fire on either side of the 'Mech, and Galen found himself at ground zero for their attack.
The Gauss rifle's ball slammed into the Crusader's right shoulder and rocked the 'Mech back with the sheer force of the impact. Ferro-ceramic armor crashed to the ground like so much broken glass and the auxiliary monitor reported he had lost seventy-five percent of the protection on that arm. One more hit and its gone!
The missiles corkscrewing in on him met a hail of antimissile fire head on. Over a third of them died there, with the remainder peppering the right side of the Crusader's chest and left leg. Compared to the damage done by the Gauss rifle, what they did was negligible and decidedly survivable. Aside from his vulnerable right arm, the Crusader could weather anything the Goliath could throw at it and keep coming.
Even as he had braced for the assault, Galen had been lining up his own shots and then returned fire, hopin
g he would give at least as good as he got. Both lasers hit. One stabbed into the middle of the Goliath's chest while the other undershot the torso and hit the right rear leg. The missiles swarmed all over the boxy 'Mech, shredding armor on both the hind right leg and chest, then grinding it away on the turret and right foreleg.
Over on the south side of the crevasse, the Penetrator launched itself into the air. The large lasers in each arm cut loose at the slothful Goliath, but only one hit. It opened a wound in the heretofore pristine armor on the orange and black-striped 'Mech's right flank. The Goliath faltered for a second, but Vandergriff kept it right and moving in toward the Crusader.
Galen did not shy from the confrontation, despite the gross weight difference between the two 'Mechs. Once again he cut loose with missiles and beams as Vandergriff walked his 'Mech straight into Galen's fire. The LRMs gouged huge chunks of armor from both of the Goliath's forelegs and shaved some off the hind left leg. The twin medium lasers lanced into the armor on the 'Mech's chest and right foreleg, but neither they nor the missiles even slowed it down.
The Goliath's answer to Galen's attack staggered the Crusader. The Gauss rifle's silvery sphere ripped into the Crusader's left arm, shattering the rest of its armor. The falling armor left the arm naked, exposing the bunched myomer fibers, which looked as if someone had stripped the flesh from a man's arm. The LRMs Vandergriff launched at the Crusader failed to hit the unprotected limb. Those that got through the antimissile system's counterfire exploded against the Crusader's chest and left leg, crushing armor plates.
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