BAMF- Broken Arrow Mercenary Force Omnibus

by Drew Avera

  “Incoming aircraft,” his mech’s tactical display warned him, flashing yellow. “Five thermal signatures consistent with Russian T-111B Tagan.”

  “Fuck,” he blurted.

  Russian Tagans were a good news-bad news joke. They’d be coming to defend their delegation, which meant they’d attack the Hellfires. And both of them were in Hellfires…

  “Svetlana, bail out! Franklin is getting away and we’re going to have to go after him on foot!”

  He killed his mech’s reactor with a swipe of his left hand over four switches, yanking the quick-release for his seat harness with the right. The Hellfire was still on its back and Nate had to scrabble down on his butt to the exit hatch, tossing away his helmet as he went. Gunfire was thudding chest-deep outside the chapel, and once the hatch opened, it hammered at his ears mercilessly, but he fought the urge to cover his ears, pulling his gun instead as he clambered out of the narrow egress.

  There were bodies scattered across the cracked and stained marble, all of them dressed in Russian pattern combat gear or dress uniforms. Svetlana dropped the two meters to the ground from the lower hatch of her Hellfire, landing as graceful as a dancer, her pistol already in her hands. She paused at the body of an older man in a dress uniform festooned with decorations and stained red, her expression bleak.

  “General Antonov,” she said. “We were too late to save him.”

  “Since he just sent a bunch of Tagans to attack Cheyenne Mountain, I’m not too broken up about it. But we can make sure Franklin doesn’t get to enjoy his success.”

  A chain of explosions rattled the building and nearly knocked them off their feet, sending a spray of dust and debris down from the hole in the roof.

  “Maybe,” he amended, “if we don’t get buried. You’re the commando ninja spy lady.” He waved toward the end of the chapel, into the haze of smoke. “You go first.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “We got company.”

  The words were off-hand, casual, as if Hector Ramirez had been hanging out at the Fry back in Norfolk, scoping out babes. But Rachel Mata saw the four squadrons of Hellfires jetting away from Cheyenne Mountain’s cargo entrance and she felt not nearly so casual and unconcerned.

  “Didn’t the Boss say this Franklin asshole was going to be bringing along his own army of clones?” she asked, then had to shut up and concentrate on keeping her breakfast from travelling up her throat as she spun her Hellfire 360 degrees trying to outmaneuver a Russian missile.

  Warning lights flashed yellow on her ammo readout as her machine gun turrets spoke again, then went red as the warhead erupted only sixty meters away. Metal fragments rang off her armor and she bit off a curse.

  “I am Winchester on machine gun ammo,” she reported, though to who she wasn’t sure. There wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do about it.

  The targeting reticle lit up over the Tagan that had launched on her and she fired off a pair of unguided rockets at the machine, then cursed again when she received yet another low-ammo warning for her rocket pods. This battle had gone on for minutes and she was nearly dry on everything except Vulcan ammo, and that wouldn’t last long.

  The Tagans had withdrawn into a pack, giving up on the idea of encircling the mercenary units now that the Army had joined in the fight, and pulling back just north of the mountain, away from the town. They had a respite, even if only for a few seconds, and she used it to warn the Army captain.

  “Church!” she transmitted, eyes flickering around to her sensors and her canopy, watching for threats. “You need to verify these Hellfires are friendlies! Franklin brought his own pilots.”

  “Goddamn, you’re just full of sunshine and sparkles, aren’t you, Roach?” Captain Church replied. “And damned if they’re not showing up blank on the IFF, either. Hold on, I’ll loop you in on the conversation.”

  She touched down on the road, the rest of Broken Arrow Mercenary Force following her lead, followed in delayed reaction by the other mercenary units. Westbridge and LV-426 had each lost most of their U-mechs and a couple of their crewed machines were down, though the pilots were alive and hiding out in the trees. Bubba Brooks had yelled at them to search for Olivia Savage, but they hadn’t reported back whether they’d found her yet. BAMF still had all four of their squadron intact, and she’d frankly been surprised by how well Jenny Armstrong could pilot a mech.

  “Unidentified Hellfires,” Church was broadcasting on the general military net, “this is Captain Church, Third Squadron, First Mech Wing. I am not receiving a standard IFF signal from your mechs. Please identify yourself, your unit and your commander.”

  There was no response for a long moment as the Hellfires edged closer, spreading out into multiple V formations.

  “Good morning, Captain Church.” She knew the voice. It wasn’t quite the same, had a bit more energy and vigor to it, less of the worn down, care-burdened version she was used to, but she knew it. “I see you’re having a little problem with the Russians. You’ll be happy to know my friends should have taken care of the Russian delegation by now, and we’ll be happy to take care of these for you, too. There’s only one thing you’ll need to do for us in return.”

  “And what would that be?” Church wondered, the wry smile evident in the even tone of his voice. Roach had never seen the man’s face, but she pictured him now in her mind as looking like her trainer in mech combat tactics during her qualification course to become a licensed and registered private military contractor. The man had been as cool as the other side of the pillow and seemed to be able to find the humor in any situation.

  “Would you like us to surrender?” Church went on. “Swear loyalty to your boss?”

  “No, Captain Church,” the Nate dupe replied, and a full wing of Hellfire mechs surged forward at his words. “We just want you to die.”

  “Well damn,” Jenny Armstrong said over the general net, apparently past caring. “And I so had hopes of living through all this.”

  “Aw, hell, honey,” James Fuller replied, “did you think we were going to die in bed?”

  “I wouldn’t have minded dying in bed,” Ramirez put in, a sigh in his voice. “Well, someone’s bed, anyway.”

  “Bubba, Catalina, Conrad,” Roach called. “You guys with me?”

  “Well, where the fuck else are we gonna go?” Barron replied.

  “Let’s take care of these assholes, girl,” Catalina said.

  A pause, and then Bubba spoke up, his tone so unlike the blissed out stoner she’d met just a few days ago.

  “I just wanna kill something and go to Valhalla with the blood of my enemies dripping from my sword.”

  “Where the fuck did you get a sword?” Ramirez wondered.

  “Come on, Broken Arrow Mercenary Force,” Roach said, stomping on her thruster controls and leaping into the air. “Let’s kick some ass.”

  Piotr Sverdlov punched the inside of his Tagan’s canopy and swore loud enough for the curses to echo back at him from the thermoplastic. He didn’t know if his mic was still keyed or not, and at this point, he didn’t much care. He’d begun this day with a hundred mechs under his command, enough to overwhelm the Americans before they’d even known he was coming, and yet somehow they’d been ready, had met him in the air. Now, less than half that number of Tagans were lined up in a loose, messy formation behind him on the highway north of the entrance to the Mountain, pinging and smoking as they let excess heat drain away, motionless.

  He wanted to blame Anton Varlamov, but he couldn’t. Those five mechs wouldn’t have made the difference, still wouldn’t have even if he’d had them back. Whoever these American pilots were, they were damned good, and now with four new squadrons of Hellfires emerging from the Mountain, he was beginning to come to the horrifying realization that he might be faced with the choice of retreat or fighting to the very last pilot.

  The heat gauge on his display plunged downward spitefully, daring him to order his mechs back into the air, to their deaths.


  “Colonel Sverdlov,” Captain Pugachev said, his voice hesitant, as if he feared to interrupt his superior’s foul mood. “Are those American mechs…are they attacking the other American mechs?”

  Sverdlov’s head snapped around, searching out the thermal sensors and damned if Pugachev wasn’t correct. The four new squadrons were engaging the Hellfires he and his Tagans had been fighting, the missiles streaking between them with white flares on the thermal scanners.

  “What the hell is going on?” he wondered. Why would the Americans be fighting amongst themselves? Unless...Franklin. He knew the man was a perfidious traitor, but had he finally betrayed the Americans as well? Was he making his power play? It would be the perfect time for it.

  “Do we let them fight it out, sir?” Pugachev asked.

  He had to admit, it was a tempting idea. Let them fight each other, then hit whatever was left at the end. But he wasn’t fond of the idea of sitting around and doing nothing while a fight was going on, and he couldn’t take the chance Franklin might have another trick or two up his sleeve.

  “No,” he decided. “Up, warriors. Follow me. We take them now while they’re occupied with each other.”

  Sverdlov hit the thruster controls and leapt into the sky, leading his Tagans into battle once again.

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends…

  Phillip Geoffrey Brooks was not easily angered. He’d been raised in rural Alabama, on a sustenance farm by third-generation Asatru practitioners, drilled with the Norse virtues his whole life, accepting them, accepting the glorious life and death of a warrior, mostly because it made him happy. Accepting, welcoming death made every moment of life sweeter. When every kiss, every drink, every meal could be your last, it made sense to enjoy it all to the fullest.

  His fellow students at the contractor qualification course didn’t understand it, didn’t think someone like Bubba could be a good soldier. Except for John Monfries. He’d not only hired Bubba, he’d groomed him to be his replacement. Johnny had been a dupe, one of the last like this Nathan Stout, but even older. He’d only had a few years left and he’d used it building up his PMC, then looking for the right man or woman to take it over for him. The two he’d come up with had been Bubba Brooks and Olivia Savage. He hadn’t been able to decide before he died, so he’d left it to the two of them to choose which would lead the company that had become Die Valkyrie.

  As things had worked out, the two had fallen in love, Olivia had converted to Asatru along with most of their recruits, and he and Olivia had basically shared the leadership. And everything else. She was a firebrand, in bed and in battle, a contrast to his laid back cool.

  And now she was out there somewhere, maybe injured, maybe dying. Maybe dead already. And Bubba Brooks was fucking angry as hell.

  He was pissed at Nate Stout for convincing him to come, pissed at that idiot Wild Bill for bringing them, pissed at this Robert Franklin asshole for starting all this shit in the first place, and pissed as hell at the Russians. The damned Russians had shot down Olivia, and while she might be enjoying the halls of Valhalla already, he was stuck here in this shithole of a world without her.

  So even with the threat of Franklin’s Hellfires looming ahead, when the Russians came back into the fight, Bubba Brooks screamed a battle cry and launched his mech into the midst of them.

  “Bubba!” Junior yelled at him, a whining, nasal bray. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Bubba wanted to respond. Part of him heard the words echoing in his head to tell the boy that this was what he wanted, this was how he wanted to go out, that everyone else should stay where they were. But he’d gone past coherence, gone past reason, and the only reply he gave to Junior was a wordless howl.

  “He’s gone berserkergang,” Carlos said, his voice grim. Bubba couldn’t see him, but he could picture his multicolored Mohawk. Carlos was a true believer, not a convert out of convenience like some of the crew. “He can’t hear us, can’t speak to us.”

  I can hear you! Bubba wanted to scream it, but it was trapped inside the rage and the bloodlust and it bounced off the inside of his head and echoed around impotently.

  “What do we do?” Nasir asked. A good man, if a bit insecure. He hid his fear behind a face covered in tattoos.

  “I’m not letting him drink in the halls of Valhalla alone,” Carlos declared. “Follow Bubba! Slay the enemy! Die with their blood on your sword!”

  No! Don’t follow me! Let me die alone!

  Nothing came out. A Russian Tagan lit up in Bubba’s targeting reticle and he pulled the trigger. A hail of depleted-uranium slugs chopped through the air and first blood was drawn.

  There’d be no turning back now…

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Anton Varlamov scanned the wreckage of the Air Force Academy chapel on thermal and scowled at the taste of bitter failure. The slowly cooling bodies scattered on the floor beneath the partially-collapsed roof were all that was left of the Russian delegation, of that he was certain. They’d outsmarted themselves, thought this was an ambush for Robert Franklin when really it had been his ambush for them.

  All that was left was revenge.

  The Hellfires struck first, two Mark-Ex missiles streaking upward only half a second before his own missile shot free of the launcher on his shoulder. He clenched his teeth in utter helplessness as the American missiles zipped by his Tagan, missing by meters thanks to his mech’s ECM and from the benefit of how close he was and how little time they’d had to lock onto him.

  The squadron of Tagans flying in behind him were not so lucky.

  Anton barely noticed the explosions behind him, as focused as he was on the half-dozen Hellfires less than a hundred meters in front of him. His own missile barely had time to arm and when it struck one of the enemy mechs, the concussion was close enough to jolt him sideways in the air as he came down nearly in the middle of the enemy squadron. He hit hard, off-balance, and the damage alerts began sounding their annoying, insistent beeps, flashing yellow warning lights over the right hip of the Tagan’s outline in his Heads-Up Display, and he gradually began to realize he wasn’t an experienced mech pilot and he’d made a serious tactical error.

  Anton Varlamov was a career Spetsnaz officer who had killed more men than he’d had birthdays, who’d been shot at more times than he could remember. He was not a man to panic, but he was close to panic now. He wanted badly to take off again, to get space and allow the squadron following him to have a clear shot at the Hellfires, but he’d pushed his jets too hard on the flight in. His heat gauges were spiked and the turbines would have come apart like tissue paper if he didn’t give them a few minutes to cool down.

  He fired his chain gun and stumbled backwards, the overtaxed right hip joint of the Tagan nearly giving out, yellow flashing to red as the Tagan stepped onto the loose debris from the crumbled wall. The 25mm slugs smashed into the left shoulder of one of the Hellfires, flares of sublimated armor and sparking power leads shining a yellow halo around the arm of the mech and rocking it in its stance. Things were happening too fast, too much information flooding his senses, and not in a way that his infantryman’s brain could sort.

  The machine he’d hit with his missile strike was tumbling to the ground, smoke pouring out of the ruin of its torso from a flame so hot it burned metal. Threat indicators were blinking and flashing and buzzing in his HUD, too many for him to get a clear idea who was shooting at him, and slugs were sparking against the metal of his chest and legs, leaving pockmarked scars across the armor and sending menacing cracks through his canopy. Explosions tore apart the air around his Tagan, burying him in gouts of black smoke and rocking his mech from side to side like a redwood in a storm.

  He could see nothing either out of his cracked canopy or through the optical cameras, and the sensor data was abstract and distorted by how close he was to the enemy…and to his friends. Missiles had hit far too close and damage indicators were blinking yellow and red all over his Tagan and flight was no longer
an option because his left hand thruster exhaust port had taken a direct hit and was so much scrap metal. The only thing he knew for sure came from his IFF transponder receiver, and the tale it told was one he didn’t want to hear.

  Four mechs had followed him at Sverdlov’s orders, Lt. Chapayev’s squadron. Three of them were black on the transponder list, their reactors dead, and Chapayev himself was flashing red.

  Fuck! I’ve gotten them all killed!

  Anton growled deep in his throat and charged forward blindly into the closest thermal signature on his screen that wasn’t Chapayev. Unable to see even clearly enough to try to shoot the mech, he rammed into it with his Tagan’s left shoulder, his teeth clacking together at the impact. He’d been in a car accident once, when he was a young officer, a collision between a military vehicle and a civilian tractor on a dark, foggy road at night, and the sounds and feelings and the uncertainty were all the same.

  Pieces of his canopy fell away under the impact and the rich, acrid smell of smoke came through strong enough to set him coughing, but he could finally see a bit better. The picture wasn’t pretty. Burning mechs and parts of mechs littered the ground around the Academy chapel, a graveyard of charred and blackened metal, and Chapayev’s own Tagan didn’t seem as if it would be on its feet much longer. The mech’s left arm was hanging off the shoulder by a stretched thread of electrofiber muscle cable and sparking, smoking 20mm holes crossed the left side of the Tagan’s chest plastron.