"You're out of line, Liu." JJ and Slug prudently dragged the protesting Sam away. Veck waited till they were out of earshot before he whispered, "Well, Kelly?"
"I never touched the umpire, sir."
Veck's eyes narrowed slightly. "There will be an inquiry."
Of course there would. "I understand, sir."
"Understand this, Kelly. This incident happened on my watch. I don't like it, I don't like it at all, and I will see justice done. The person responsible for the death of Subcommander Stiibel will be found out and will be brought to justice. And if the Count's courts can't do it, I will."
Veck left Kelly with his lancemates after that. They all sat in a patch of shade, shocked and silent, while Veck and Chun talked with the base. The equally quiet Champions sat in a separate patch of shade. They all waited until a flight of Cavalry VTOL transports blasted in for a dusty landing. The base personnel in the transports didn't have business with the MechWarriors, so they did some more waiting. Finally the recovery vehicle for the downed Commando rumbled into the canyon and the waiting was over. Kelly observed that Force Commander LaJoy-Bua was notably absent from the technical crew who hopped off and began to work on the downed 'Mech.
The dispirited trainees didn't pilot their 'Mechs back to the base. The "special manual" pilots who had come on the transports helped the techs do that. The MechWarriors went back in the transports, each lance in its own. Veck saw them all settled, then went forward to ride with the driver. He was on the commo to base before the pilot compartment's hatch shut and sealed him off from the main cabin.
Sam sat beside Kelly. In the thunder of the transport's engines, they might have been alone. She put her arm across his shoulder, but her warmth didn't do much to stop his shivering. Still, he was glad to have her near.
"Thanks," he said.
"For what?"
"For what you said to Veck. For being here. For keeping me grounded when I feel like I'm drifting away. But I can't agree with you here. I—well—thanks."
"Hey, what are lancemates for?" Her hand against his cheek suggested a somewhat more personal fondness. "We've got to look out for each other."
JJ and Slug sat opposite Sam and Kelly in the cramped confines of the transport, busy looking elsewhere. Kelly appreciated the discretion, barely. Even Sam's shift in attitude hardly registered. He kept seeing the rear of Stiibel's Commando erupting in debris and flames. And for some reason, he heard his father's voice. There's more to lose than just a leg.
* * *
Back at the base, word of the accident had spread. Everyone told Kelly that is wasn't his fault. Everyone except Stiibel's lancemates; they had nothing to say to Kelly. Sten had plenty to say and none of it complimentary, but Kelly heard little of the Blowhard's vitriol.
Kelly spent a long, sleepless night, not getting any rest until he stumbled during morning PT and Veck sent him to the infirmary where a medtech gave him something that laid him out for hours. When he awoke he was rested, but far from fit and ready. His mind remained shadowed in a way he doubted any Warrior House scion's would ever be.
Why did he feel so guilty? Stiibel's death was an accident. Kelly hadn't deliberately killed the man. But his spirit seemed unable to accept what his mind told it. It told him so in nightmares and daily bouts of recrimination. He did his best to soldier on. He had to. Life, and training, weren't stopping and waiting until he was ready.
Sten's harassment went on, too, but one or another of Kelly's lancemates always seemed to be around to head Sten off. Usually Sam. Once she and Sten disappeared for a while. Both of them came backing limping and bruised. Sten stayed away from Kelly for a whole week after that.
Veck's promised inquiry began. Kelly had sessions with officers in the uniform of Count Shu's security team. Scuttlebutt said the finger had been pointed when LaJoy-Bua was escorted off base by two guys from the security office. Kelly wished he could believe it, but he had trouble understanding how the tech could be the one who had jiggered the umpire. Sure, she had put the unit in herself. She'd made no secret of it. Such openness seemed foolish for a saboteur. Besides, she'd made plays for him regularly since his first test. Why would she want to see him in trouble?
He also had therapy sessions with the base chaplain, but neither spiritual counseling nor investigative analysis did much to cut down on his nightmares.
When Colonel Bua's ferrets came and took LaJoy-Bua away, some of the trainees predicted that would be the end of it, but the chief tech's departure didn't change life on the base much. There were still ferrets rooting about, though the interviews became more rare. Technical glitches got a little more common, but nobody else died, and that was good.
Veck's Vigilantes continued to go out on exercises, but they went short-handed. "Real-world roster exercises," Veck called them. Yeah, sure, Kelly thought. It was true that military units in the real world were rarely up to full strength at any given moment, but Kelly doubted there would have been any such thing had he not been prohibited from the M-v-M exercises.
Kelly's restricted military activity was a sure sign that he was not free of the shadow of Stiibel's death. He was confined to the simulators and the firing range, and he got to work the latter only when he had someone riding in the jumpseat behind him. He would have been restricted even further except that Veck had stood up for him. The commander never said a word about it, but JJ's connections reported a royal knock-down-drag-out between the Whipmaster and the Phantom Major.
"Don't swell your head, Mr. Chill," JJ warned. "Word is that the paranoid Phantom Major wanted to put the entire lance on ice till the whole mes—er, till things settle down. The Whipmaster was fighting for the whole lance. Your improved situation is just collateral damage to the Major's position."
Kelly wondered how a Warrior House pilot might handle his situation. He didn't have anything to go by; those elite Mech Warriors never seemed to get into such situations. At least not in vids or stories, and that was all Kelly had to go by.
He did what he could. He exercised and studied and ran with whatever training he was offered. His ratings on the firing range actually improved, but in simulator sessions he flubbed it any time the opposition forces included a Commando. That wasn't the sort of problem that could be allowed in a fighting MechWarrior. A House warrior would have been disgraced.
For the first time in his life, Kelly was sure that he was experiencing life as a House warrior would: he felt disgraced. Stiibel's death hung on him. The counselors said it probably always would, but that he could put it in perspective. They said he needed "closure."
Like he was going to get that before the board handed down its ruling?
When he awoke, sweating, in the small hours of the night, he thought that even with a decision handed down, for or against him, he would go on seeing that exploding Commando in his dreams.
Yet there was a bright spot to his revised life. Sam. She was still as competitive as ever, still pressing him on the firing range and agility courses, but out of her 'Mech, she had a different, warmer attitude. She dropped hints that she was ready to help him back from the pit in any way she could. And Kelly, even in the depths of his bouts of remorse, knew that he was on the edge of falling into Sam's comfort. He wanted to, surely he did, but he wasn't willing to let himself go. Not before he was cleared. She didn't deserve the crap she'd catch if he did go down for Stiibel's death. He didn't want her to have to live with being linked to a washed-out killer.
15
Grene District
County Shu, Epsilon Eridani
Chaos March
13 January 3062
One thing a prudent MechWarrior knew was that BattleMechs weren't the answer to everything, and the pilot of the unmarked Axman considered himself a prudent MechWarrior. This deep raid into County Shu was one of those times when keeping the Axman out of sight was the optimal use of it. So it sat in the best position he could find to give it short distance routes to its three possible action stations. The first was the ta
rget, the sleepy town of Barrhead, where Snatch & Grab should already be hard at work. The second was the high probability location, a suitable choke point on the mountain road that eventually led to the Garret Cleft, the passage through the Grene Mountains and down onto the western coastal plains through which someone looking to disrupt the operation would come. The third was another such route, the nearest ford over the Barr River, but it was also the best way back to base. If everything went well, that was the route he'd be taking and nary a laser to fire.
Bloody unlikely!
But until a call to action came, he'd be what he already was: bored. There wasn't a lot to do in a 'Mech that was shut down to standby status. Listening to the news passed the time as well as being informative, and that's what the pilot did. The Shoes, as they'd nicknamed the people in this county with derision, were falling all over themselves. He'd already heard the report about the bombing of the Trade Union Building, listened to the commentators gassing to fill the airwaves while they waited for something real to report, laughed out loud when they fell all over themselves to finger whoever was behind the call from "the Free Trade Underground" who were claiming responsibility for the bombing, and nodded with satisfaction at the early reports of rioting. From everything he heard, it was clear that the clueless Shoes of the Barrhead civil authority and emergency services were stretched to their limits.
As intended.
If all continued to go according to plan, Snatch & Grab and his scavenger team would be taking over the target warehouse. Once they secured the place, they'd begin loading the trucks that would empty the building. The loaded trucks would head out across the disrupted town, taking safe routes Sneak & Peak Four would give them. A quiet roll through the suburbs, then out into the countryside, but not on the roads. Once they got far enough out, they'd head out cross-country to the rendezvous: a big fat King Karnov, an up-sized variant of the Karnov UR transport aircraft that was just waiting for them to roll into her belly. Then she could waddle across the plain, lift, and carry the goods low and slow under the Shoe radar net to the base the pilot and his fellow raiders were calling home.
Unfortunately, when his commo crackled with an incoming message, it wasn't Snatch & Grab reporting success.
"Sneak & Peak Three to Slash & Burn. Do you copy?"
The pilot killed the news report. "Slash & Burn here. Go."
"We've got ants swarming on the horizon. Mag det says four marks, and the dust they're raising says they're in a humping hurry."
Three was the first, and so far only, scout to report hostile activity. She was watching the Garret Cleft, which meant the nearest local militia units were reacting, but apparently not all of them. "Just the one lance?"
"Roger that."
"Which lance?"
"They're just coming into visual." A pause. "I've got the lead vehicle. I make it to be a Goblin, Slash & Burn. Mag det says all four are same mass."
Goblins were a bastardized combination of tank and armored personnel carrier. They weren't the best at either job, but they were popular with leaders who wanted to stretch their C-bills. Count Shu had a reputation as a penny pincher and from what the pilot could see the Shoe militia forces showed it. God knew he wouldn't have wanted to go to battle in the retread cast-offs that Shu foisted on his soldiers.
"So, we've got the infantry coming," the pilot observed aloud. That probably meant the Shoes were reacting to lhe civil disturbance. He curled his lips up in the grin his guys called his "eat 'em up" smile.
The road through the Grene Mountains wasn't exactly high traffic. It wasn't an easy route for heavily loaded transports, being steep and full of scenic vistas born of sheer-sided mountain slopes. It was, however, the shortest route for ground-bound vehicles, which the tread-laying Goblins most definitely were. If they wanted to get to Barrhead some time before rioters burned the place down, they would have to take the road.
He roused the Axman and started marching it toward the spot the scouts had picked. On his way he got the "all trucks rolling" from Snatch & Grab. He checked the Goblins' position. It would take them another half hour of driving time past his ambush point for them to reach the outskirts of Barrhead. Even assuming that they could cross the town in a timely fashion, the trucks and their loot would be long vanished into the bush. He could just pull a fade. The Shoes need never know he was here.
But what was the fun in that?
Just as he had when the Vedettes had closed on him back in Severagol, he put his money on the first shot being the best, but this time he had no fragile CargoMech to nursemaid. He didn't have to pop the hostiles as soon as they came into sight. He could safely wait and let the tanks close, the better to use the Axman's big gun. The Luxor Devastator had an impressive punch, but its accuracy over any distance sucked more than a fusion-powered vacuum cleaner.
The Shoes obliged him, motoring fat and dumb right into him. He unloaded on the lead Goblin. The driver must have caught a glimpse of the ambushing 'Mech just before it fired because he reacted incredibly fast, slewing his vehicle to one side, trying to cut the penetration by offering fresh armor for the ravening beams. Both of the Axman's big bore lasers clawed into the tank's side, making a mockery of the driver's attempt. And the kinetic mass of the Devastator autocannon shell was his doom, bursting the armored vehicle open like a squashed fruit. Physically displaced sideways across the road, the Goblin's churning treads scraped asphalt into marbled pellets that it flung every which way. Its port tread shifted from clawing gravel to clawing air as it slid from the roadway and out over the sheer drop. The Goblin teetered on its belly, poised on the brink of a two hundred meter fall.
Need a little help?
The Axman moved forward. One massive leg swung back, then forward. The kick was all the impetus needed to send the tank over the edge. The Axman's pilot started to turn his 'Mech away. He didn't need to see the Goblin fall; he could imagine it turning over and over, spilling dead and soon-to-be dead infantrymen the whole way till the sudden stop and all consuming fireball at the end. The explosion would echo very satisfactorily from the mountainsides.
Almost immediately the pilot regretted his move to help the Shoe tank along. Doing so exposed him to the others, and they let him know it. Three large lasers speared out. Two took the Axman on the left arm. The third burned into its back, stabbing deep and boring into the internal structure.
Warning alarms sounded and the board lit red. Heat flushed the cockpit as shielding failed on the 'Mech's nuclear heart.
But only partially. Though the reactor was bleeding heat, the core hadn't been breached. The extra burden would make the Axman sluggish and any full weapon volleys would push the machine's capacity into the danger zone. Still alive and knowing how near sudden death he had come, the pilot spun the Axman, sidestepping to avoid the Goblins's next strike while picking the first victim of his revenge.
Goblin lasers snapped out again, but the 'Mech's sudden movement meant one only burned air. The other two went home. The first blasted shards from the Axman's chest, and the second devoured the last of the armor on its left arm. The pilot snarled as the function lights winked out on his pulse laser.
Damn them! Damn those lousy Shoe turtles!
He triggered the Devastator, sending a massive auto-cannon shell into one of the Goblins. The target shuddered as a great gouge was ripped into its turret armor, but the autocannon shell failed to penetrate. Heedless of the heat cost, the Axman's pilot loosed his right-arm laser array on another of the tanks. Ravening energy chewed at the glacis of the Goblin.
With clockwork precision that the pilot might have admired under other circumstances, the Goblins fired again. The Axman shuddered under triple assault. Shredding armor, it staggered back.
The pilot managed to keep the 'Mech on its feet, but it was obvious to him that close work was as advantageous to the tankers' gunnery as his own. These turtles hadn't spooked as easily as the Vedettes, and his heat load was running too high for a prolonged fight. He ripped off
another shot with the Devastator as he ducked the Axman for cover. He didn't see if he scored, but only two ruby beams slashed the air where the Axman had been.
Crouched once again in cover, he considered the situation. The Shoe turtles were out of sight around a bend in the road. As time passed the Axman would dump heat and he'd edge away from the chance of an ammo cook-off, but the longer he waited, the more likely it was that the Shoes would be calling up reinforcements. The Axman had been roughly handled by the damned turtles. Still, he was sure he could take them, but it would be a cat-and-mouse game that would eat time and it would cost the Axman. Not a good trade.
Well, he had killed one and probably at least crippled another. They'd be a while working up their courage to stick their heads around the corner again. Which meant they had no chance to catch the scavenger team's trucks. Which meant he'd done his job. Which meant he had no good reason to trade shots with the Shoes. Which made his decision easy.
He backed off a bit and sent an autocannon round into the mountainside wall right at the bend. The explosion of rock and debris was gratifying. The pile of boulders, rubble, and fragments that slumped across the road was even more gratifying. The Shoes would be hours clearing that.
Satisfied, he turned the Axman and headed for home.
16
Mirandagol District
County Shu, Epsilon Eridani
Chaos March
13 February 3062
The days had dragged on for Kelly in an almost timeless progression, with still no word on an ultimate verdict regarding Sttibel's death. He was still living in a gray limbo that was occasionally penetrated by moments of relief like the one he was in now. He was sitting in Hall A with Sam and Slug, knocking back some cold Kai Lung and gassing over how hard the Whipmaster had ridden everyone during the day's M-v-M and agility course. In the middle of the good-natured banter, JJ hustled in, dripping with the evening's storm. The conversation dropped as he slumped into a seat and announced, "A ferret transport just came in from the capital."
Initiation to War Page 10
