Wolves on the Border

by Robert N. Charrette

  A sudden drumming announced the end of the clouds as waves of rain hit the hurtling ship. The water sheeted over the canopy, leaving everything gray and dim beyond it. Ahead of him, Atwyl could see the flames of the Sparrow-hawk's afterburners as the fighters leveled out and accelerated. Easing back on the control stick, he came out of the dive smoothly. Checking on Bredel, he saw his wingman following cleanly behind. Ahead, the lights of the smaller fighters' engines winked out as they reached attack speed. He vectored all thrust aft to bring his own ship up to speed.

  The Dragoon fighters broke through the front of the thunderstorms. Under the clearer sky, the open, rolling hills of the countryside were visible around them. The roads Atwyl could see were deserted. In places, he spotted the rubble of towns and industrial complexes, highwater marks of the Succession Wars battles that had swept over this planet time and again. Right on schedule, the forest loomed ahead, in trees rising to almost a hundred meters high. The fighters roared up and over the forest.

  When they reached the edge of the woods nearest Batan, a path of newly broken trees appeared. It was as though a giant, flaming hand had swept across them, splintering and burning them despite their sodden condition. As the last trees fell away, the cause became apparent.

  Half-sunk in the fields outside the city was the immense sphere of the Davion DropShip. The pilot must had been making for the spaceport when disaster struck. The ship had gone down, skimming the trees and plowing into the open fields west of the city. Seven kilometers short of its goal, the DropShip had foundered.

  A huge hole gaped on the upper surface, the edges blackened and warped outward. Debris was strewn in a trail from the forest's edge to the crash site. High on the elevated side, one of the great unloading doors was open to the sky, its protective armor crumpled and torn. Across one edge, limp as an unconscious man, was the shape of a BattleMech. The giant machine seemed small against the bulk of the transport spacecraft. Even as Atwyl registered the carnage, the Sparrowhawks were zooming over the wreckage, two on either side of the ship.

  Just then, a startling twin flash of laser pulses split the sky, followed by the stuttering light of tracer fire from autocannons. The lead fighter of the left-hand pair crossed the streaks of light and disintegrated in a ball of fire. No sound reached Atwyl over the roar of his own engines. Reischaur was gone.

  The author of the Sparrowhawk's destruction emerged from the shadow of the downed DropShip. It was a Rifleman BattleMech. The wing antenna of the Garret D2-j targeting system was rotating as the machine's torso swiveled to bring the paired autocannon that made up each of its arms to bear on a new target.

  Atwyl felt paralyzed, stunned by the sudden loss of his pilot. His hands were rigid on the Lucifer's controls, but the other members of Blue Flight went into action. Beta Lance split and began jinking to throw off the enemy machine's tracking. Morris threw her Sparrowhawk into a steep climb, thereby avoiding the lethal streams of coherent light and armor-piercing shells that filled the air where her fighter would have been. Even Bredel was reacting. He launched a flight of missiles that impacted far short of the DropShip. The Lucifers were still too far away to do any damage, but Bredel's attack had roused Atwyl from his shock at the loss of Reischaur. He took command again.

  “Overthrust, Gi! We've got to get in there.” Atwyl's voice was shrill with emotion. He had lost one man. He didn't want to lose any more.

  “Roger.” As always in battle, Bredel's voice was emotionless. “I'll take the 'Mech.”

  “No! He's mine. Strafe the DropShip.” Atwyl wanted the killer for himself. He knew that wasn't a professional reaction, but he didn't care. Arming his missiles, he threw his craft into an evasive roll. Ground and sky flashed alternately across his cockpit. Once, he glimpsed Bredel's Lucifer in the midst of a similar maneuver.

  Before they could close to firing range, Atwyl caught a flash of sunlight on metal high above the fields. A check of his IFF scanners revealed it to be Morris's SPR-H5 diving down on the crash site.

  “No, T.J.! Abort!” Atwyl's fear for the young pilot came through in his strained voice. The small fighter was too light to go against a BattleMech that excelled at antiaircraft work.

  No reply came from the AeroSpace Fighter weaving a crazy corkscrew path as it dove. All four of its lasers were blazing. Some of the beams caught the Rifleman and sent chunks of blistered armor spraying from its torso. The 'Mech's own fire cast a deadly net around the fighter, but the small ship darted like the winged predator of its name. A burst of fire from the Sparrowhawk caught one of the twin guns on the 'Mech's right arm, shearing it clean away. Then the fighter cut sideways and roared over the field, miraculously untouched by the Rifleman's weapon fire. Now shielded from the 'Mech by the bulk of the DropShip, T.J. sped her craft toward the onrushing Lucifers. Atwyl shook his head in amazement at this virtuoso display.

  “Not to worry, boss man.” T.J.'s voice was clear, though the words were slightly spaced as she caught her breath. “Those tin men are too slow to catch this—”

  T.J.'s comment was cut off as missiles arcing up from a concealed position struck her fighter. One hit her port wing. Its explosive warhead and the speed at which she was traveling were enough to rip the wing away from the body of the craft. As the Sparrowhawk began to roll, the turbulence tore more pieces from the stricken craft. Trailing flames, it dropped lower. Morris's screams lasted until the fighter plowed into the ground and exploded.

  With those screams echoing in his ears, Atwyl hit the firing stud. All of his forward-mounted lasers raked the ground at the point where he had seen the killer missiles rise. Clouds of steam rose as kilojoules of energy flash-heated the ground, then flame erupted as the launcher's ammunition exploded. The infantry team who had fired the SRMs ceased to exist. A savage smile split Atwyl's face. It vanished just as suddenly when his Lucifer rocked under autocannon fire from the Rifleman, which had now cleared the side of the DropShip.

  A swift shift of thrust vectors let him sideslip the fighter away from the 'Mech's searing energy beams and pounding shells. Banking the Lucifer around, he came in from the other side of the DropShip.

  The Rifleman was waiting for him, its remaining three guns brought to bear on the Dragoon fighter. Atwyl, lost in his fury, bore straight in. His craft's armor was vaporized by the hellish energy of the 'Mech's lasers and the pounding of its autocannon shells. He didn't care. Flight after flight of missiles roared out from the Holly LRM launcher beneath his cockpit. His aim was poor, and most of the shots went wild, streaking past the BattleMech or striking the ground beside it. Some burrowed into the heavy plating of the crashed DropShip to send scraps pattering harmlessly against the 'Mech and the scorched dirt around it. Some few others found their target, repaying the BattleMech some of the punishment it was dishing out.

  Atwyl's lips were skinned back, baring his clenched teeth. Sweat rolled down his face, puddling under his eyes and blurring his vision.

  The shutdown alarm shrilled, warning of heat burden above acceptable limits. His hand stabbed out to hit the override, silencing it. Another stab launched the last of the Holly's ammo.

  The Rifleman loomed larger and larger. Atwyl cursed the heat, then loosed all of his lasers. Red fire lanced out.

  As fissures opened in the 'Mech's armor, a small explosion came from within the machine, followed by a string of larger ones. The BattleMech rocked and toppled backward as its torso ripped open. The Lucifer screamed through the fireball where the Rifleman had stood.

  Now Atwyl had to pay the cost. The heat burden had risen too high for the fighter's cooling unit to handle. The automatic cutoff had shut down the fighter's reactor. The ship was going down, and him with it. To correct a flaw in the LCF-R15's design, the engineers had created a new one. The fighter had no emergency ejection system.

  Fighting the sluggish controls, Atwyl thought that it was lousy to die now after he had wasted the 'Mech. Struggling with controls, he thought that the Lucifer's nose did finally come up, a little.
Enough?

  No.

  Maybe.

  He was glad he was in a ship that had at least minimal atmospheric streamlining. Some AeroSpace Fighters relied almost exclusively on their engines for lift. Lift that the Lucifer would need. To avoid crashing...

  Crashing...

  3

  DropShip Starblade, Approaching Quentin IV

  Draconis March, Federated Suns

  13 June 3023

  Nine days ago, the Kurita DropShip Starblade had uncoupled from its interstellar transport to begin its flight from the jump point into the system. Behind it, the JumpShip had settled in to await its return, unfurling the kilometer-wide jumpsail to collect the solar energy needed to recharge the hyperdrives.

  Now, hours from reaching his destination, Minobu Tetsuhara contemplated the main viewscreen on the bridge of the Starblade. The magnified image showed the fourth planet in the Quentin system. The terminator bisected the principal continent of Aja, and in the darkened portion of the sphere, twinkling lights outlined the land mass and its smaller companion, Aja Minor. Lights marked the major population centers as well. Even in the midst of a major raid, there was no blackout for cities that did not fear attack. Their lights shone forth, callous as the stars in the greater darkness of space.

  He shifted his gaze from the planet and sought out the glimmer of Nirasaki. Mere days ago, the JumpShip Okomaru had transferred from there to the Quentin system, crossing the gulf instantaneously by virtue of its Kearny-Fuchida hyperdrive. It would be years before the light Nirasaki emitted that day would reach Quentin. By then, Minobu would be elsewhere, his current business long concluded. Yet light from Nirasaki was here today, light from years gone by. The past mingling with the present.

  Today, he mused, the past was meeting the present in more substantial ways. Today, forces of the Draconis Combine were assaulting the Quentin system. Once again, the Federated Suns and the Combine struggled for possession of these inhospitable worlds, just as those two states had for almost their entire history. The lure of Quentin was not that of friendly worlds, ripe for colonization, but a glitter that evoked the greed of the House Leaders. The third planet's mineral resources and the fourth's factories and research facilities were great prizes.

  In the days when the Star League had ruled the Inner Sphere and its thousands of Human-settled stars, the battles for Quentin had been political. The League had tottered after Stefan Amaris had attempted to usurp the power of the First Lord of the League, and fallen apart when General Alexandr Kerensky abruptly vanished from the Inner Sphere in 2784, taking with him the bulk of the Star League military. When Lord Minora Kurita claimed that he was rightful heir to the throne of the First Lord, the other Council Lords opposed him. The First Succession War had begun.

  Five states had solidified out of the chaos within the Inner Sphere; for good or ill, each was strongly wedded to a ruling house. Foremost among those quarreling realms were the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns. The Combine was ruled by the Kurita clan and the code of bushido. The office of Coordinator of the Draconis Combine was currently filled by the strong-willed, forceful Takashi Kurita. Under him, the Dragon was strong.

  The Federated Suns was headed by its ruling family's scion, the shrewd Prince Hanse Davion. Minobu had often heard it said that Lord Kurita considered Davion one of the few foes worthy of the Combine.

  Minobu was no master of a star-spanning kingdom. He was only a ‘Mech Warrior—and a Dispossessed one at that. It was true that each of those redoubtable House rulers had served as a ‘Mechwarrior in his younger days, but neither one any longer fought in the battles of the Succession Wars. Lord Kurita and Prince Davion directed great states. They gave the orders while he, a simple soldier, obeyed them. His orders had brought him here to the Quentin system where, under the light of the present sun and the past stars, he would meet his future. Wolf's Dragoons.

  So far, his own route of travel along the lanes of commerce had prevented him from joining the mercenaries to whom he had been assigned. Having their own transport gave the Dragoons tremendous strategic flexibility, and they had traveled rapidly across the Combine, then moved into action.

  Minobu had finally been able to intersect their course. Soon he would have his first actual meeting with Wolf's Dragoons, or at least, with those present for the attack on Quentin. He would meet the people behind the communiques and situation reports.

  One mercenary regiment and several auxiliary units had rushed on, joining a raid in the Hoff system. A second regiment was on recovery furlough and serving as escort for the Dragoon support services and noncombatants as they moved toward their assigned home base on An Ting. That left three full BattleMech regiments involved in this action, an unusually large force. Likely, it was simply a matter of timing. The Dragoons were to be stationed in the Galedon District, along the Draconis border with the Federated Suns. As they moved through the Benjamin District, the opportunity for the Quentin raid arose. The Dragoons simply used the whole available force, for it would mean a quicker resolution of combat and a faster arrival at their garrison stations.

  In the three months since he had received his assignment, all of Minobu's contact with Wolf's Dragoons had been secondhand, through reports and ComStar-mediated communiques. Soon he would be dealing face-to-face with the enigmatic mercenaries from beyond the Inner Sphere. Indeed, he still did not know what the Dragoon commander looked like. For some unknown reason, there were no solidographs or datapics included in the briefing materials, and Minobu realized he could not even be certain of Wolf's gender.

  The name was no help, either. Minobu had met or served with at least seven persons named Jaime, and only five had been male. While all Combine materials used the masculine pronoun when referring to Wolf, that was not proof of gender. Combine forces had suffered serious defeats when the Dragoons had been employed by the Lyran Commonwealth, the other Successor State bordering the Combine. Many Kurita officers could never accept the idea that a female could function successfully as a military commander. If the Dragoons' leader were a female, Combine officers might have concealed and denied that fact out of shame at being defeated by a woman.

  Minobu had studied all the available history of Wolf's Dragoons. Of their origin, there was nothing. They had simply appeared in Davion space in 3005 and signed on as mercenaries. Details of their later history were just as meager, except for a long list of victories and a much shorter one of defeats. For almost twenty years, they had fought for each of the contending Houses in turn, but always seemed to avoid conflict with their most recent employer. Minobu knew that the contact with House Kurita specifically precluded the use of the Dragoons against House Steiner, and he suspected that their previous contracts had included similar clauses.

  The Kuritan Internal Security Force had provided organization charts, but the ISF's data were incomplete. To Minobu's mind, the most glaring gap was the lack of personal dossiers on most of the Dragoon officers.

  Sho-i Rudorff, the ship's Second Officer, cleared his throat and interrupted Minobu's musings. “Sho-sa Terasu and Sho-sa Hawken are on their way to the bridge,” Rudorff announced, his face showing concern for Minobu's position. The two Sword of Light officers had made it clear that they did not approve of Minobu's presence on the Bridge. Rudorff's warning was one more of the small kindnesses he had shown Minobu throughout the trip. Minobu acknowledged the man's unnecessary sympathy with a nod.

  Because of the obvious rancor of the Sworders aboard ship, Minobu had tried simply to avoid them. With practiced ease, he scrambled up the worn steel of the ladder that connected the bridge with the ship's first deck. He had not quite made it to the cross corridor into which he intended to duck, when the two Sword of Light officers exited the lift. Honor prevented Minobu from showing an attempt to avoid them, so he continued on.

  As their paths brought the three men nearer, Minobu stepped to one side of the companionway to allow the Sworders room to pass. Technically, he outranked them, but they held combat
assignments and he had only a staff officer's position. Moreover, each of them was a commander in an elite Sword of Light Company and an active ‘Mech-Warrior, while he was Dispossessed. The net effect put the Sworders in a superior social position, and they took full advantage of it.

  Minobu sensed that they disdained him because of some secret self-importance that made their harassment seem justified. Ever since his transfer to the Starblade from a commercial DropShip docked at Nirasaki's zenith station, their petty indignities and deprecating comments had been ceaseless. Minobu ignored them whenever possible, though he knew they took it as a sign of weakness.

  Today there would be no avoidance.

  Sho-sa Brett Hawken of the First Sword of Light Regiment stopped as he drew abreast of Minobu. His long-distant ancestry on the Terran continent of Africa was as evident as Minobu's own, but he had made it abundantly clear in previous encounters that he would accept no hint of association with Minobu, however minor.

  “It looks like our deskjock has been wandering around where he isn't needed,” the man drawled.

  “Or wanted,” Sho-sa Gensei Terasu of the Seventh Sword of Light added venomously.

  The two officers rarely agreed on anything except their dislike of Minobu.

  “We are almost in range of the planetary defense, Tetsuhara,” Terasu continued. “Shouldn't you be in your crash couch? I've been given to understand that it's much safer there.”

  “I believe you are correct,” Minobu said, his deliberate ambiguity lost on the hardheaded Sworder.

  “Then you had best get along,” Hawken said, stepping so close to Minobu that the scabbard of the black Sworder's katana almost struck him in the crotch.