Initiation to War

by Robert N. Charrette

  It also was a sight that showed Sten's sarcastic remarks as the petty, worthless things that they were.

  Drinking in the grandeur of the armored titans, Kelly became aware that something was . . . different. It took him a moment to pin it down, but it was the light, the glorious raking morning light, that gave it away. Some of the machines had sparkling pin points where yesterday there had only been shadowed and vacant hollows. He halted, not quite sure he could believe what he was seeing.

  "Hey, the missile racks are loaded."

  Several pilots told him that he was crazy.

  "Look for yourselves."

  They did, and the questions started.

  "What's going on?" Slug scratched his head as he stared at the warheads nestled in his Raven's Harpoon SRM-6 rack. "We're not scheduled for a live-fire today. Maybe the techs screwed up. Anybody doing live-fire today?"

  No one was scheduled for it. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, everybody but JJ.

  "The Phantom Major's orders," he drawled. JJ was picking up a reputation for knowing the real skinny. Some of the trainees were starting to call him Ferret for the knack he seemed to have of digging out the news. He claimed to dislike the nickname since "ferret" was widespread Epsilon E military slang for security forces and he was a MechWarrior, not a dirt crawling weasel.

  But there wasn't any doubt that he basked in the attention his news-scrounging garnered for him. "Starting today, all County Shu military forces are to be armed with combat loads. We, being part of the aforesaid military forces, thus carry our missiles. I expect you guys with MGs and 'cannons are packing, too. Not that we need ammo for what we're doing, but orders are orders."

  "Veck didn't say anything about it," Sam noted. Several other trainees confirmed that their lance leaders had also been silent on the point.

  "The outside world ain't our concern, remember?" returned JJ.

  This seemed to be a case of the outside world impinging on their isolated training world. Kelly didn't like it. "I think we should have been told."

  "Don't like being a mushroom, Gropo?" asked Sten. "You too good to be kept in the dark and fed crap like the rest of us?"

  "We're going out on an M-v-M!" That came from Gunter Stiibel, a Champion Commando pilot and a participant in the day's 'Mech vs. 'Mech battle between the Vigilantes and the Champions. "What the hell are we carrying missiles for? Someone could get toasted."

  Sten had venom to spare. "Somebody do a data wipe on you, Guns? The umpires disable all projectile systems, remember? Don't matter whether you're carrying ordnance or not. Your twitchy trigger finger ain't tickling your launchers. Just no connection. Kind of like between your brain and your mouth."

  Reese Fu stepped between them before anything happened. "Hey, Ferret. How come you know what's going on?"

  JJ shrugged. "Just being an informed MechWarrior."

  "Come on," Fu coaxed. "You know more. Spill."

  "There were shots fired yesterday. And this isn't the first time."

  "Bandits?"

  "Duvic?" The shouts were about evenly divided. "Where?"

  "What happened?"

  "Duvic," JJ confirmed. "Look, I don't have details, but the gist is this. There have been several confrontations over what the Doofvics are calling 'free trade passage.' They've called up their militia, we've called up ours, and so far it's just been everybody staring at everybody else. A few guns have gone off, accidentally of course, but nobody's been hurt. So far."

  "Only a matter of time," Sten observed. "You know what happens when you give a loaded gun to a gropo. Sooner or later, he's just got to point it at someone and pull the trigger. Ain't that right, Gropo?" Sten threw at Kelly.

  "Wouldn't know." Kelly stared the Blowhard right in the eyes. "I'm a MechWarrior."

  "Really? Then why do you answer to Gropo, Gropo?"

  "I don't answer to it. I was just taking pity on the ill-informed. Helping the helpless, you might say, like the Warrior House creeds say any true MechWarrior ought."

  "True Mech Warriors—"

  "True MechWarriors?" Veck's voice sliced through the tension and split the knot of trainees. They snapped to attention as he strode into their midst. "I don't see any true MechWarriors anywhere around here. I don't see any MechWarriors at all. All I see is 'Mech monkeys. And you know that makes me curious, because I came out here expecting to find each and every one of you monkeys sitting in a cockpit. It makes me want to know what you 'Mech monkeys are doing standing around on my time. Anyone want to tell me why that is?"

  The trainees' answer to Veck's question was a scramble for their 'Mechs.

  Kelly tried to put the belligerent Sten out of his mind as he raced towards his 'Mech, but all he had to replace his annoyance with were worries about his performance. All the way up the access ladder all he could do was note the areas that had supposedly been damaged in the previous day's exercise. He would do better today. He would! Routine gave him a little surcease as he went through startup procedures. He fumbled some codes and had to rekey them. Tired, he told himself. Just tired. His emotions and intellect had been whipsawed all morning and it wasn't even noon yet, but all his fatigue and worries burned away when the Commando fired up beneath him.

  Anyone who had ever piloted one of the gargantuan battle machines knew the feeling. Sitting atop a minimum of twenty tons of protective armor, myomer pseudo-muscle, and foamed endosteel, all powered by its own fusion reactor, was heady enough, but having all that power move at one's command was even more so, to say the least. And the neurohelmet's feedback loop that used the pilot's own kinesthetic sense almost subconsciously to keep the machine upright and moving smoothly only added to the illusion that one had become god-like. You didn't need the weapons to foster the intoxicating sense of power, though the array of destructiveness available to BattleMechs certainly added to the sense of ultimate might felt by the person in the hotseat. Most MechWarrior training with its emphasis on making the control of the walking engines of destruction as second nature as using one's own body increased user-machine identification by doing as much as possible to blur the line between the two.

  Of course, Kelly reminded himself. A true MechWarrior became the machine, but never lost his humanity in it. At least that's what the House warriors believed. It was Kelly's goal to reach that stage of perfection. He had a long way to go, but as the Commando's actuators shifted from stand-down immobility to live flexibility and he felt the machine beneath him stir and settle into an easy, natural stance awaiting his command to move, it felt right and natural. He knew he was on the path.

  Some said that BattleMechs had originally taken their humanoid form to make the merging of man and machine more natural, easier to achieve. Kelly didn't know about that. Certainly he felt like the Commando was his, though not yet him.

  Most of the Vigilantes' 'Mechs were distinctly humanoid. It was the "classic" BattleMech look, that of a caricatured giant in bulky, squared-off armor. Admittedly, Commander Veck's Vindicator had only one hand since its lower right arm was devoted to an Extended-Range Particle Projector Cannon, but that didn't affect the overall impression. They were a far cry from bird-like designs like the Raven or the almost alien types of machine that tended to look like stilt-walking crabs or scorpions. They had the "classic look."

  Whatever their "look," all BattleMechs were beautiful to Kelly, and none more so than his own Commando. He set it in motion, marching smoothly forward to take his place in the lance formation. Veck's Vindicator strode among them, its head swiveling from side to side as the commander surveyed his troops. "Move out," Veck ordered as he led the lance out of the compound and into the rugged badlands of the Red Elk River.

  It didn't take them long to lose sight of the base. It took longer to lose sight of each other, but that was deliberate. One by one they moved into their ambush positions among the boulders and outcroppings of the badlands. Each pilot chose his own spot. When they had settled in and powered down to maintenance levels, Veck moved his Vind
icator across their front, surveying the position as he looked for anything that might betray a 'Mech's position. JJ caught a few blisters from the Whipmaster for his inadequate camouflage job. His second try met with Veck's approval.

  "All right, you 'Mech monkeys. This is your ambush now. I will wait up on the butte at map ref seven-dash-niner-by-one-two. And before you start whining about being outnumbered by the OpFor, I'll tell you that you don't have to worry about Commander Chun's Strider on this run. He'll be developing a mechanical problem when I signal him that his chicks are heading for the bag. This one belongs just to you greenies. Good hunting."

  Veck left them with a whoosh, superheated air billowing clouds of dust and gravel into a frenzy where his 'Mech had stood. As the Vindicator was rising out of sight on its jump jets, JJ came on the lance commo circuit.

  "Hey, how are we supposed to know when to spring this trap?"

  "Think I won't see them coming?" Slug asked.

  "Know you will, my favorite Slug. But I lost line of sight on Mr. Chill when Veck moved me." The 'Mechs had been positioned to set up a chain of nearly undetectable, line of sight commo lasers to keep a communication link until they broke cover. They had planned to attack on a signal flashed from Slug when his Raven's specialized electronics said the OpFor were in the best position. JJ wanted to know, "How to I get the go code?"

  Veck dropped into the circuit to remind them, "Radio chatter can be picked up."

  "Sit tight, JJ," Kelly suggested. "Don't fire until we do."

  "Unless they find you first," Sam amended.

  JJ agreed, and the commo went quiet.

  The plan was for the Vigilantes to get the drop on at least one of the Champion 'Mechs with two-to-one odds while the unfortunate Champion screened his lancemates from hitting the attackers. Take him out and move on, double or triple teaming their way through the chain of the OpFor, using their positioning to the Vigilantes' advantage. It would be harder to pull off without Veck. They needed the OpFor in close, almost knife-fighting range because almost every weapon the Vigilantes packed was optimal at short range. The lance's long-range weapon, the Vindicator's ER PPC, had gone along with the commander. At least the Champions were also going without their major long-range punch since Commander Chun and his Strider's LRMs were out of it, too.

  Still, there'll be little chance of avoiding damage in the kind of dogfight we'll be having, Kelly thought ruefully. More punishment detail for sure.

  Their best chance to escape damage to themselves lay in inflicting maximum damage in the first attack. Elementary tactics, but given a personal immediacy by Veck's work-for-damage program.

  "Let them get kissing close," he lasered to Slug.

  "Roger that." Slug was slow but not stupid, and if anyone dreaded work-for-damage more than Kelly did, it was Harry Trahn. It was the better part of an hour later before Slug zapped another message. "Get ready. They've entered the canyon." Kelly passed it on to Sam. A few minutes later, he did the same for Slug's "Drat all, they're spreading out."

  So much for Plan A. Dispersed Champions meant the OpFor would have a better chance to react and return fire once the ambush was sprung. They might get the first one, but the rest would be a lot harder. They'd probably be taking on three of the Champions as a team, a tougher proposition.

  Kelly waited, wondering which of the OpFor 'Mechs would come his way and whether he'd be the one to spring the ambush. Time seemed to stretch in the cockpit. The air grew stale and the temperature rose. It wasn't as nasty as swamping the 'Mech's heat dumping capacity with major weapons fire, but the badlands sun pumped out a good deal of energy itself and even a stationary 'Mech had to soak up some of that. His mind began to drift as he envisioned various scenarios of combat.

  When the Commando first came into view, he spent a moment thinking it was just another imagining. A few hard blinks told him that it was real.

  With his active sensors held in check, he wasn't getting IFF and the Whipmaster hadn't authorized personal markings for CSVB 'Mechs, so it took Kelly a few seconds to work out which of the two Champion Commandos he was seeing. It was Gunter Stiibel's machine that was pacing toward his hiding place.

  No word came from Slug, which probably meant that the other Champions were badly positioned. Stiibel's Commando was at one hundred meters and closing. If he spotted Kelly, the ambush was blown.

  At eighty meters and still moving cautiously, the Commando continued straight at Kelly, but the camo netting over the cleft in which he was hiding seemed to be holding up for the moment. Once Kelly popped the dampers and brought his 'Mech up to full capacity, the heat bloom would register on Stiibel's sensors. Close as he was, it might actually be Stiibel who got off the first shot.

  Then Kelly's external mikes picked up the sound of a rock fall. Speakers erupted with the sound of multiple SRM launches. Nobody shouted a go signal and no lasers cracked, so' it had to be out-of-commo JJ in his all missile-armed Javelin that had pounced. Stiibel's Commando halted and turned toward the sound.

  "Wrong move," he told Stiibel. Of course, since Kelly wasn't transmitting, Stiibel didn't hear it. Neither was the OpFor pilot focused on Kelly's hiding place to register the Commando coming up to full power. He had Stiibel cold.

  Kelly popped his dampers as he sighted in the back of the OpFor 'Mech's head, swiveling his Commando's torso and raising both of the 'Mech's arms to bring all weapons to bear. He dropped the laser target reticule over the center of Stiibel's Commando's back just as the Streak target lock-on pinged positive for his arm-mount launcher and the Artemis FCS registered a good firing solution for the torso-mounted 6-pack.

  "I'm planning on a good night's sleep," he told the unhearing Champion pilot as he triggered his weapons.

  Kelly's 'Mech shook. His eyes widening in surprise. That wasn't right! The umpires had insufficient control of a 'Mech's systems to simulate the shock of an actual launch. But smoke trails arched from the Commando's chest and arm!

  Dear God, his missiles had actually launched!

  Without thinking, Kelly stomped the pedals and sent his machine forward. His laser shot had gone out full power, too! He could see where it had cored the unsuspecting Commando's back. Missiles were already impacting on the hapless Stiibel. There really wasn't anything he could do, but he rushed forward anyway.

  Stiibel's Commando staggered under the pounding. Kelly didn't count the number of missile strikes. He didn't need to. Any was too many. A Commando's rear torso armor was light. It evaporated under the pounding. Fire flamed from its back. The Commando reeled like a drunken man, or like a BattleMech whose pilot was unconscious. Or worse.

  Thankful that he wasn't piloting an armless 'Mech like a Raven or a Strider, Kelly reached out, intending to steady Stiibel's Commando. If Stiibel had survived Kelly's strike—God, Buddha, anyone, please make it so!— the fall could kill him.

  But steadying wasn't enough. Stiibel's machine went as limp as a passed-out drunk when Kelly's touched it. He managed a grip on one of the arms, slowing the 'Mech so that it crumpled to the ground instead of crashing. It landed face down, its ravaged back visible to God and all.

  Kelly slammed his neurohelmet back into its cradle and ripped away his restraining harness. He was cracking the hatch when the commo channels began to buzz with chatter. He hadn't shut down the commo circuits. Cha, he hadn't shut down anything. It was against procedure, leaving a live 'Mech, but he didn't go back. The noise was faint as he dragged himself out of the cockpit. It grew fainter. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but it didn't matter; he knew what they were talking about. They had to have seen or registered his launch. Kelly shoved the voices from his mind as he clambered down the rattling access ladder.

  He intended to drag Stubel out, to learn if he was still alive, but when he reached the ground, his feet seemed to freeze there. Even prone the Commando towered above him. Its shadow lay across his legs and he looked at it. Twisted metal and composites made tortured silhouettes against the bright sunlight. All he
could do was stand and stare at the wreckage he had caused.

  He didn't hear the other 'Mechs arrive. He never felt the thunder of their steps. The voices calling to him were nothing more than the buzz of gnats. Those things couldn't touch him.

  He knew he should, but he couldn't bring himself to climb up onto the Commando. To look into the wrecked cockpit. To learn the truth of what he had wrought.

  Veck had no such reticence. He climbed the wreckage more nimbly than any monkey. Cursing as he tugged on twisted wreckage, he forced open a passage. Then he disappeared into the dark cavern that Kelly had opened in the back of the Commando's head.

  Vigilante and Champion 'Mechs stood in a circle around the fallen Commando, much like mourners at a funeral. That was as it should be, for a frozen-faced Veck emerged from the Commando's cockpit alone.

  14

  Mirandagol District

  County Shu, Epsilon Eridani

  Chaos March

  6 January 3062

  Kelly choked back a sob as Veck strode toward him. There was blood on the commander's hands. More blood spattered his legs and arms and there was a big smear of it across his cooling vest. It wasn't Veck's blood, of course, it was Stubel's. Gunter Stiibel's. It belonged to the man Kelly had just killed. Veck's voice was chillingly cold, drifting in from some glacial planet that hadn't seen any warmth for a billion years.

  "Did you, at any time, disable or tamper with the umpire in your 'Mech?"

  Kelly couldn't bring up any words. He was deep inside in a dark place. From far away, he heard voices arguing. First, Sam saying, "Kelly wouldn't do that."

  Then Veck, "I want your answer, Kelly, and I want it now."

  Then Sam yelling, "I'm sure it was an accident. And I don't like you implying it was anything else." She continued to rant at him. Her obvious feelings for Kelly might have warmed his heart had he not been so deep in the cold place, speared by Veck's frigid eyes. When Sam finally stammered to a stop, Veck asked, "Done?"

  "Sir."