Right now, he almost didn't care whether it was Davion or House Liao forces that found him. For the moment, everything seemed to take a back seat to simple survival.
"Gold Leader calling, down and in need of assistance. Does anybody copy?"
"Gold Leader, this is Green Three." The reply washed over Ardan like ocean breakers, leaving him weak with relief. "I copy," said Green Three. "I have you in sight. Stand by for a cable."
Following carefully explicit directions from his rescuer, Ardan closed the Victor's left hand around a tow cable that the other 'Mech fired across the back of his machine. In moments, Green Three had braced the heavy cable around a low, spreading swamp tree more massive than any 'Mech, and Ardan was using the cable to work his way, meter by painful meter, toward solid ground.
It took almost half an hour to get free. Not only was the cable slick with mud and algae slime, but Ardan had the use of only his left hand because the Victor's right arm mounted a Pontiac 100 autocannon instead of manipulators. At least a dozen times during that slow, wet crawl, Ardan wondered what he would have done had he been in, say, a Marauder or Sep's WarHammer. Without hands, he would have been helpless, and every movement would have carried his machine deeper into the ooze.
At last, feeling solid ground under his feet, he brought the Victor up to its knees. His rescuer, a hulking Crusader-D, helped him to his feet. "You're a sight, sir," the Crusader's pilot told him, "but I'm awfully glad to see you! I think I'm lost!"
"You're not half as glad as I am, pilot," Ardan said, his voice unsteady, his hands trembling slightly on the Victor's controls. "Who are you with?" He'd already picked out the emblem of the 17th Avalon Hussars on the Crusader's right leg.
"Code group Red Dog. Seventeenth Hussars, sir. Company A, First Battalion."
"Company A...that's Morrison's Marauders, right?"
"Right, sir!" He could hear the surprise in the boy's voice. Senior officers rarely knew the details of the units in their command, but Ardan was different. He'd spent long hours studying the stat sheets of all of his tactical commanders, down to company level.
The Crusader gestured toward the east "I think we were supposed to come down someplace closer to that ridge over there, but I've been having trouble finding solid ground heading in that direction."
"What's your name, trooper?"
‘MechWarrior Donald Fitzgerald, sir. Number three in Fire Lance O'Hanrahan."
"Well, Donald. What say we find ourselves some Marauders. Morrison's Marauders, that is...not the other kind."
"YesSIR!"
The two ‘Mechs moved toward the southeast through swamp and open forest The terrain was not the impassable tangle of bogs Ardan had been dreading, nor was it as dry as the planetological tapes had suggested it should be during the local dry season. He finally decided that the pool where he'd nearly lost himself was one of a large number of small, irregular, and ill-defined lakes and ponds that sprinkled the entire upland stretch of the Ordolo Basin. The name "Lost Lakes" came to him, and Ardan realized he'd found at least one of them. Seeing a small cascade of rainwater shower from the broad leaves of a tree as he brushed past, he remembered that even during the dry season, it rains periodically in a jungle. The lakes would be larger and deeper now, the ground softer, so soon after a tropical rainstorm.
The mud sucked at the feet of his Victor with every step Ardan took. If this was dry weather, he decided to definitely take a pass on visiting the Ordolo Basin during the rainy season.
13
As travel grew easier, Ardan's radio also began to pick up a constant stream of chatter from a number of different units. It sounded as if a battle had erupted just to the east. "Green Two, Green Two!" one voice called with sharp urgency. "Break right, the bastard's behind you!"
"Copy! Hot damn, where'd he come from! Watch it, Blue Twelve! There's a Panther zeroing on you, five o'clock!"
"Break left, Seven! Break left! Oh, damn!”
“Here he comes. Steady, steady! Hose him down!”
“Mayday! Mayday! She's going to blow! I'm punching out!"
Ardan and Fitzgerald hurried their pace.
The two 'Mechs broke free of the forest and entered the battle almost simultaneously. The ground had been rising steadily as they made their way further and further east. Perhaps three kilometers from where Ardan had landed, the forest gave way to an uneven plain covered with blue grass knee-deep on the 'Mechs. The eastern horizon was dominated by the ridge, a low and mostly wooded line of steep-sided hills or eroded mountains, none more than 800 meters high. The plain stretched toward the ridge across perhaps ten kilometers, and the area had become a killing zone as 'Mech struggled wildly with 'Mech.
In the distance, a low line of bunkers with green-mottled, camouflage roofs told Ardan what had happened. There'd been a camp here, probably a full battalion of Liao 'Mechs and possibly an air lance, too, placed well clear of the city and in position to close off the neck of the Highland Peninsula once the counterinvasion was grounded. Instead, part of the Davion drop had come down squarely in the middle of the Liao camp.
A TDR Thunderbolt seemed to rise out of the grass 200 meters in front of Ardan, an illusion created by its sudden move from a hidden fold in the ground. Ardan had only an instant to recognize the raised arm-and-sword against the inverted green triangle on the 'Mech's bulky torso. The 'Mech's right arm heavy laser was swinging down in line with Ardan's cockpit
Ardan dodged left as the Thunderbolt's Sunglow Type 2 laser cut loose with a dazzling pulse of green light. He triggered his twin left arm lasers an instant later, but surprise made him miss.
The Thunderbolt was known for its heavy armor and even more for being one of the best- and most heavily armed 'Mechs in service. That Sunglow laser could deliver megajoules of raw fury in a single pulse, and the three medium lasers mounted along the left torso were each as powerful as the Victor's left arm lasers. And if that weren't enough, Ardan knew that the heavy Delta Dart long-range missile launcher squatting on the Thunderbolt's left shoulder could knock out an opponent with a single volley. Ardan's Victor might outweigh his opponent by fifteen tons, but the other advantages were all with the TDR.
The Liao 'Mech's LRM launcher blossomed fire. Ardan threw the Victor into a twisting, dodging sprint, closing the gap between him and the TDR. At close range, the enemy's LRMs would be useless. He opened fire as he lurched forward, his twin lasers scoring hits on the Thunderbolt's torso, cratering armor in explosive gouts of vaporized armor.
At the same moment, a salvo of missiles exploded alongside the Thunderbolt, and three of them flashed white brilliance against the machine's legs. The 'Mech twisted to the side, moving swifdy. What...
"I got him, Gold Leader! I got him!"
Ardan had forgotten Fitzgerald's Crusader. The boy had opened up with his own LRMs from the edge of the woods, and the Thunderbolt was moving now to throw off his aim.
"Steady, Donald!" he replied. "Hang back and keep raking him! I'll try to close!"
Ardan tracked carefully with his lasers and loosed three paired shots in rapid succession. The Thunderbolt went down, seeking cover in the grassy slopes of the field.
Ardan ran a hurried check on his Victor's main armament The right arm Pontiac 100 autocannon had the best chance of scoring a crippling hit on the Thunderbolt, but he was afraid that his swim in the mud might have fouled its feed mechanism. The autocannon was a devastating weapon. It fired high-speed, rapid-fire streams of explosive, armor-piercing shells from cassettes or carousels fed into the gun one at a time by a complex and occasionally balky autoloader mechanism. Each cassette held 100 shells, and by a widespread but commonly accepted looseness of terminology, each cassette was itself considered to be one round. One cassette round was already loaded. Nineteen more were stored in the autoloader chamber high up in his Victor's right torso. He would have to use that single round carefully, because if the loader jammed, he would not get another chance.
Ardan moved swiftly, watching the
grass. The Thunderbolt had gone to ground...about there...He triggered a control and his TR scanner dropped across his face. The world darkened, lit now in surreal shades of green and blue, with heat sources identified in whites and reds.
A white fountain geysered into the air fifty meters to his right, the heat plume of the hidden Thunderbolt. Ardan triggered a salvo of short-ranged missiles. Grass shredded in clots of smoke and flame, and then the Thunderbolt was up, swinging past him at a run, its heavy laser already spouting green flame.
The laser caught the Victor high up on his left shoulder. There was no shock, but heat flooded Ardan's cockpit He steadied the crosshairs of his HUD and triggered the autocannon. The weapon bucked and roared, jolting Ardan against his seat. The stream of high explosive chopped and slashed at the Thunderbolt's chest armor, smashed across its left shoulder, and turned the LRM launcher into a tangled, black-smoking ruin. It took six seconds for the autocannon to cycle through the cassette, and then the dull thud of a loader failure echoed through the Victor. He checked his console. As he'd feared, the mechanism was jammed.
A missile exploded against the Victor's chest, the shock jarring the breath from Ardan's lungs and knocking his 'Mech a staggered step backward. In the same instant, more missile fire washed across the Thunderbolt. Fitzgerald had pulled back to a range of 300 meters and was pouring salvo after salvo of long-ranged warheads into the Thunderbolt. Ardan triggered his own Holly SRMs and joined in the bombardment. Smoke belched from a rent in the TDR's right side, and its right arm hung dangling, the heavy laser junked.
Something hit Ardan from behind. Instinct brought his hand down on the Victor's jump jet controls. The 'Mech leapt and spun as ravening beams snapped like bolts of fusion-charged lightning at the spot where he'd just been standing.
The Victor dropped to one knee as it came to ground. His attacker was now a 70-ton WarHammer so much like Sep's that Ardan caught himself looking for her personal crest on the scarred battle machine's left shoulder. The double bolt of lightning had been the discharge from the twin PPCs it mounted as ungainly arms. Those cannons lifted slightly now, their muzzles still red hot and trailing steam in the humid air. One of the 'Mech's medium lasers fired, striking the Victor above the left knee. Ardan jumped again, wildly, before those PPCs could be brought into line for another paired shot
The battle had become a near free-for-all now. The Hussar Crusader behind him was exchanging missile fire with the crippled Thunderbolt, but the WarHammer, baffled by Ardan's sudden jump, was swinging to open fire on Fitzgerald.
If only his autocannon were still working! Ardan opened fire from less than sixty meters with his twin Sorenstein V lasers, savaging the WarHammer's right side. The right PPC dipped abruptly, out of control or unpowered, and the WHM spun its torso back on its hip swivel to confront his attack. Liquid fire spewed from nozzles set into the machine's chest, up where the twin Sperry Browning machine guns should have been. With a cold touch of fear, Ardan realized the WarHammer was a WHM-6L, a House Liao variant on the familiar 6R, which mounted twin flamers instead of MGs. Fire flared close past his Victor's chest as he sidestepped the firestreams. Smoke boiled across the viewscreens, obscuring his vision. He fired again with his lasers, not aiming, but laying down a pattern of fire where he guessed the WarHammer would be.
The 'Mech's temperature alarms were rasping in his ears, and red and amber lights flickered and winked across his console. The heat inside the cockpit was overwhelming, coating his body with a sheen of sweat and setting the tiny electric pumps in his coolant vest to whining. He had been maneuvering too hard, jumping and discharging his lasers too frequently. The Victor could not handle the excess heat much longer.
And neither could he. The high temperature left him gasping, each breath painful. He was weak and dizzy, and only the adrenalin surging through his blood was keeping him moving at all.
He stepped through the fire, and his vision cleared. The WarHammer was close, much closer than he'd expected, scarcely thirty meters away. Having turned again to fire at Fitzgerald's Crusader, it now had its back to Ardan.
The Victor's computer streamed words across his main combat screen: Heat critical. Suggest immediate shutdown. He slapped the heat cut-off overrides, then stabbed at the jump jet controls once more. His Victor kicked off into the sky, rising on throbbing jets. He kicked in the maneuvering thrusters once, let the massive machine ride against its shrieking gyros. The WarHammer turned, looking up, its PPC rising too late...
The impact was deafening. Metal shrieked, and the WarHammer's cockpit opened like a flower between the Victor's feet. In combat, the Victor was a constant surprise to Mech Warriors encountering it for the first time, for none expected a 'Mech of its size to be jump-capable. Though the WarHammer's pilot had seen the Victor jump, he had turned to deal with the Crusader's LRM barrage before trying to finish off Ardan's 'Mech. The mistake had cost him his life.
Ardan brought the Victor up out of the tangled wreckage, his autocannon trailing streamers of shredded myomer fibers and gutted wiring. The WHM's flamer fuel tanks ignited as he stepped clear, masking the wreckage with a pillar of oily black smoke.
"The Thunderbolt shut down," Fitzgerald said. Battle-charged excitement edged his voice. "The pilot ejected."
Ardan swung and saw the TDR still standing, an immobile cast-metal statue now, the blown escape hatch still dangling across the wreckage of its shoulder-mounted LRM launcher. If Thunderbolts had a particular weakness in battle, it was their tendency toward rapid heat overloading— the penalty paid for carrying so many heavy weapons.
The battle had turned now in favor of the invaders. Ardan rotated his 'Mech, picked out others he recognized from his own unit moving through the enemy's bunker area. A scattered handful of Liao 'Mechs were withdrawing down the slope into the forested swamps to the west.
He opened a new commlink channel. "Gold Squadron, Gold Squadron, this is Gold Leader. Do you copy?"
"We copy, Gold Leader!" The voice was that of Eric Garrand, whose red-painted Archer was the number two ‘Mech in Ardan's Command Lance. He sounded enormously relieved. "This is Gold Two, returning command to you, sir! Hell, I saw you fall into a swamp! We thought you'd bought the farm!"
"Not even a down payment, Eric. What's the situation?"
"The 17th is down and scattered. Maybe 40 percent have reported in to me since I took your seat, but there're more coming in all the time. A bunch of us landed smack on this snake's nest, but it looks like we've about got them cleaned out now. Some withdrew toward that jungle behind you. The main body is falling back to the south."
"Good. Any word from the 5th?"
"Not yet, sir. There's no line-of-sight, and we don't have our space relay commlinks in yet. I have a scout platoon moving up the ridge, though, and they'll be able to serve as a lasercom relay station as soon as they get the 5th in view."
"Good enough." Ardan glanced at his chronometer and was shocked to find that less than an hour had passed since he'd touched down, including more than forty minutes he'd spent splashing around in the swamp and hiking back to where the action was.
There were no targets nearby. He locked his controls, pulled the neural helmet from his shoulders, then decided to take a chance and crack his Victor's skullcap. The round, topside hatch popped open to admit a gush of cold air as Ardan climbed out onto his 'Mech's shoulder.
14
The air was muggy and hot but so much cooler and fresher than what he had been enjoying in the Victor's cockpit that Ardan sagged back against the 'Mech's massive head in pure relief. He had left the helmet's commlink attachment in place and could hear new reports of additional 'Mechs arriving on the broad and smoke-heavy field. The 17th's ComInt people reported that 85 percent of the regiment had reported in, with more reports still to be processed. Perhaps the 17th had not suffered too many casualties in their ill-advised drop into a bog. It might be days before all of the stragglers reported in, but he was sure now that 'Mechs lost to landing mishaps in lak
es or swamp would be mercifully few.
Meanwhile, he opened an access cover, drew his knife, and began working at the mechanism of his autocannon round feeder. The entire assembly had been coated in liquid mud, and the heat spilling from his 'Mech during the battle had baked that mud to the general consistency of tempered ferrocrete. He chipped at the stuff, cursing under his breath but feeling better now than he had in days.
"Gold Leader! Gold Leader!" Garrand's voice cut in from his earpiece. "We got company coming, boss!"
"What is it?" He looked around the horizon. Except for scattered groups of Davion 'Mechs sorting themselves out after the first battle, the area looked clear. A distant thunder rolled down from the eastern ridge, sounds of pitched battle on the far side.
"We got an ASF on radar to the south. Low altitude, high speed. Looks like a ground support mission."
Ardan slapped the access panel back in place, sheathed the knife, and slid back into the stifling interior of his 'Mech. He didn't know the outcome of the tangle between AeroSpace Fighters that he'd seen during the Exeter's approach toward the DZ, but it was logical to assume that the enemy would attempt to hit the Davion DZs as soon as their own units were clear and they had fighters to spare.
"ETA?" He fitted his neural helmet back in place, checked the connections.
"Thirty seconds, Gold Leader. Bearing one-seven-nine, altitude—aw, shoot! He must be plowing the fields! Lost him...No! There! Visual.
"Target south! Fire!" Ardan's command went out to all units on the command override, interrupting Gold Two and triggering a spattering of laser fire from those ‘Mechs in a position to target the oncoming aircraft. Ardan's HUD sprang up across his screens, and an autotrack vision enhancer steadied on the ship's nose.
The sword and the dagger Page 10
