Target of Opportunity

by Blaine Lee Pardoe

  “Knight Holt,” Legate Singh pleaded. “That terrain up there is rough. Our people are tired.”

  “We roll,” she said. “Better tired than dead.”

  “Knight Holt,” he persisted. “You must be objective. We are still talking about just one man, here. Is keeping hold of Tucker Harwell really worth all this risk? I’m asking you to at least entertain negotiations with Bannson’s folks, or even the Spirit Cats. So much loss of life for one man’s safety makes no sense.”

  Fear. She could almost smell it on the legate’s breath. “Tucker Harwell is a citizen of The Republic and deserves the same protection we would extend to anyone else. More important, he’s the best shot the Inner Sphere has at restoring the HPG network—maybe bringing an end to all of the fighting everywhere. For the last time, Legate, this is not up for debate.”

  “I am in charge of these forces,” Singh countered.

  “Ah. As a point of order, as Knight Errant, my authority supercedes yours. Up until now, I have been as diplomatic as possible to accommodate your existing infrastructure and your feelings. But I no longer feel obligated to do so. I am under orders from my Paladin to take whatever measures are necessary to secure Wyatt and protect Tucker Harwell. If that means relieving you of command, Legate,” she said in a tone pitched only for his ears, “then I’ll do it. Otherwise, deploy your forces as I have ordered. Have I made myself clear?”

  He was stung by her words, and he looked as if he were sucking something sour. “Yes, Knight Holt. I understand completely.”

  * * *

  Captain Rutger Chaffee saw his trike squad roar over the hill at full speed, heading straight toward him. He had lost their signal a few minutes ago, when they claimed that the militia Donar was harassing their position. Now they were running back. He swore he would chew them out good for leaving their post as forward fire observers.

  “Sweep Two,” he said, from the head-shaped cockpit of his Blade. “You mind telling me why you’re here?”

  “We were being fired on and jammed,” replied the squad leader’s voice. “Sir, I think the militia is moving out to the north.”

  “Trying to flee, most likely,” Rutger guessed. “They fought hard with the Spirit Cats. That had to cost them dearly. Nobody tangles with the Cats and walks away without some serious scratches. They know they’re not a match for us.”

  “Sir, they looked mostly operational,” the voice of Sweep Two contradicted. “I even saw some captured Spirit Cat gear.”

  Chaffee chuckled. “Trust me. They tangled with a Star of Clan warriors. These weekend fighters are no match for that kind of skill. We’ve got them on the run.” In a way, he was glad the militia was running. The rush to get up into the hills had spread his own company out over several kilometers, with the slower supply vehicles pulling up the rear. This meant the Cut-Throats were not at their peak in terms of strength, but in his mind they still were more than a match for the battered militia. “Stand by on my orders to head west to the highway. Upon intersect, we’ll start whittling away at their rear guard until they give in.”

  He had taken a single step forward in the Blade when a voice burst in his earpiece. It was clouded in static, hard to hear, but he knew it was one of his pickets. “. . .’Mechs on the outer marker . . .” it crackled.

  He boosted the gain on his comm gear to try to get a better signal. “Say again, unit reporting. Your message is breaking up.”

  There was a roar all around his Blade, manmade thunder that shook him wildly. His portly body slammed into the restraining straps and he felt them dig into his flesh. Orange and red fireballs and explosions rose up with rings of black everywhere he looked. He throttled the ’Mech into reverse, taking a step back, almost losing his balance. Artillery? Here? How? For a moment he felt a chill. Maybe the Spirit Cats had learned of his deception. That thought scared him more than any other. Or maybe the Clansmen had mistaken him for the militia. Over his comm system he heard multiple voices overlapping a wave of static that seemed to drown out everything audible.

  “Sit rep!” he barked. “Where in the hell is that artillery coming from?”

  Suddenly a voice came in loud and clear. “They’re on our flank! We’ve been turned!”

  He turned in time to see vehicles of the Wyatt Militia plow into his strung-out force.

  “Crudstunk!” he muttered, turning his Blade to face the battle line.

  * * *

  Alexi Holt was surprised at the small size of the mercenary force Chaffee had brought to engage her. Then she thought about it and realized how far his unit must be spread out, given the speed and distance they had been forced to cover to pursue the militia. The mercenaries thought the militia had been much more badly mauled than they were now learning—a mistake for which they would pay. She raised Miss Direction’s left arm with its deadly PPC and medium lasers and switched all those weapons to the same target interlock circuit. As she ran down the hill she locked onto the first ’Mech she saw, a Blade standing in the middle of a cratered piece of turf, compliments of her artillery barrage. With smooth precision she moved the targeting reticle onto the center of the Blade as it lifted its foot to move forward.

  As she fired, she felt a wave of heat rise in her cockpit and the hairs on her bare arms lift slightly as the particle projector cannon discharged its manmade lightning. The green laser beams seemed to coax the charged particle blast right into the lower torso of the Blade. The mercenary ’Mech rocked back as if it had been punched. Her lasers cut swaths, black and glowing red from the heat, along the crotch of the Blade while her PPC left a craterlike mark in the gut, sparks flying about wildly in the center of the blackened hole.

  Off to her right flank, she could see a squad of Cut-Throat minigun cycles rushing her ConstructionMech. These were nothing more than dirt bikes armed with a pair of side-mounted armor-piercing missiles. They roared up to almost point-blank range of the lumbering beast and fired. The missiles ripped into the underarmored sides and front of the ’Mech. It wobbled and attempted to turn. Sweeping out its excavator arm as it fought to stay upright, it struck one biker, sending him and his vehicle flying. A series of crimson laser bursts splattered up the side of the IndustrialMech, mauling the left claw arm and severing the hydraulics, spraying a cloud of white mist into the air. The ConstructionMech listed to the side and went down hard, grinding into the sod. Alexi noticed with some satisfaction that at least one of the minigun cycles had been too close when it fell and had been crushed under its weight.

  She turned to see where the shot had come from. A fifty-ton Ghost BattleMech, painted light green and bearing the insignia of Bannson’s Raiders on the torso, seemed to come out of nowhere, looming up near a Padilla artillery vehicle and blazing away with its large pulse lasers. The red bursts of energy were like fireworks all around her, some ripping into her right-arm replacement armor, splattering globs of the unpainted plates around as if they were mercury.

  Legate Singh’s still unsteady Panther stopped for a moment near her and fired at the Ghost. His shot was true, hitting one of the legs of the Ghost at the knee with a PPC shot that sent raw energy arcing around the waist of the merc. She turned her attention back to the Blade, which seemed to be targeting the militia’s J-37 ordnance transport. No, that vehicle was too damn precious. Not only could it ferry troops into battle, it was a repair vehicle. “Furies, concentrate on that Blade, now!” she barked as she lined up her own shot.

  The tiny dune buggy–like Shandra scout reacted first. It raced right at the Blade, apparently unafraid of its towering foe. The twin guns on the rear swung forward and fired. The shots hit, though the armor of the Blade seemed to mock them, sending more sparks up from ricochets than any real damage. But the Shandra didn’t slow down. It bore down and slammed into the left leg of the BattleMech, its rear rising slowly into the air, then dropping down with a thud as its bumper became tangled with the Blade’s shin.

  Alexi didn’t wait. She fired her left-arm PPC at the Blade, striking
again near her first hit. The shot dug in deep and cut a jagged, blackened rip in the armor. The Blade rocked back and toppled over, just in time for a squad of militia to swarm over it. She saw the arms flaying in the air, but there was no hope. They would be in the cockpit in a few heartbeats.

  The mercenary Ghost let go with a salvo of short-range missiles at the militia’s Tamerlane strike sled. The missiles crossed in the air with a larger salvo from the militia’s JES missile carrier, aimed at a hoverbike squad that disappeared in a cloud of smoke, shrapnel and death. The Tamerlane, struck by the Ghost, rocked sideways under the impact, scooting a full fifty meters into a clump of trees. The Ghost MechWarrior was good. He rushed in to draw fire from the already damaged Padilla artillery piece, giving the vehicle a chance to make a break for it. Legate Singh fired at the Ghost and missed, but the Ghost returned the salvo, this time with a full barrage from its pulse lasers. The legate’s ’Mech was pitted with black spots where the armor had been burned and melted from the onslaught. Wisps of smoke rose from the tiny holes as Singh throttled to a run, juking right, away from the fighting.

  The two minigun cycle squads swung around for a parting shot at the Shandra as it wrenched itself free from the leg of the defeated Blade with a metallic moan. They hit it from behind and the tiny scout bloomed with yellow flames and black, rolling smoke. The gunner and driver never had a chance. Alexi did not mourn them yet; instead, she turned her attention back to the Ghost in hopes of another shot.

  Another Bannson vehicle, a low-riding Mars assault tank, came up on Alexi’s tactical display. It appeared at the top of a nearby hill long enough to unleash a hellish barrage of missiles. The wave of death and destruction rose up over the battlefield in a long arc, then dropped down on the Locust, which was blasting away at a squad of nearby infantry. The light ’Mech, more parts than original equipment, was engulfed in a series of tiny yellow explosions. The Knight could only make out the raised, podlike missile laser racks on the sides. As the smoke cleared, the remains of the Locust came into view. This time there would be no repair. It listed slightly, then collapsed. The Mars vehicle broke into a flat-out flight before anyone could lock onto it.

  Across the battlefield, the Cut-Throats Ghost was a fading image, retreating over the crest of the green hill before she could acquire a weapons lock. Surveying the battlefield, she saw parts of the Padilla artillery vehicle marking a trail to where it had finally ground to a halt. A JES III missile carrier lay on its side, belching gray smoke from what had been its cockpit. A roaring fire rose from what was left of the Militia’s ConstructionMech. They had taken down the lightweight Blade, but the Ghost had gotten away. The Ghost had to be Chaffee—merc commanders almost always piloted the heavier BattleMechs.

  The mobile HQ appeared over the ridge behind her. Then, and only then, did she know that they had won the battle. But are we in any condition to win the war?

  * * *

  Captain Casson swung his Sun Cobra to a stop at the edge of the wooded area and checked his long-range sensors. His scouts were out ahead, tasked with creating a picture for him of what they were facing. They had been on planet for a few days now, and the situation was shaping up to be intriguing, to say the least.

  The satellite report from his deep-cover operative had told him that the militia was on Highway Seven outside Kinross, heading north. And there were two other military forces on Wyatt. The Spirit Cats had tangled with the Wyatt Militia and had been lured into an ambush by the Knight Errant. What was her name? Ah yes, Alexi Holt.

  In addition, Jacob Bannson had a little-known mercenary unit, Chaffee’s Cut-Throats, on Wyatt. They had rushed in to catch the militia out in the open following the militia’s battle with the Spirit Cats, apparently assuming that the planetary defenders would simply succumb to them. Far from rolling over, the militia had slammed into the leading edge of the spread-out mercenary force and had driven them back, at least for the moment.

  Casson figured Knight Holt was going to be a problem. His source said that she was taking Harwell’s safety as her personal responsibility and keeping him buttoned up in the mobile HQ. That being the case, acquiring the ComStar adept would be tricky. Harwell was only of use if he was alive, and mobile HQs were slow vehicles, lightly armed and armored—easy to destroy, but hard to capture.

  Ivan Casson planned to leverage the strategy that Bannson’s people had tried. Each fight that the Wyatt Militia engaged in weakened them; one more battle should soften up everyone involved enough so that his Talons could ride in and sweep the battlefield. Not that Captain Casson was not afraid of a tough battle. He had fought and been badly injured in the fighting for Ohrensen, so he knew how to survive a stand-up fight. But on this mission, his goal was simply to secure Tucker Harwell and get off-world with minimal losses.

  His scouts reported that the Spirit Cats were nearly ready to resume the fight. The Cut-Throats were regrouping for a counterassault. Let them both hit the militia at least one more time.

  This is far too easy. . . . He throttled his Sun Cobra into a faster stride. Behind him, the rest of his company pulled into formation and followed. With any luck, this fighting would be over in a day or two, and when the dust settled, the Oriente Protectorate, the last true fragment of the once-great Free Worlds League, would control the fate of The Republic of the Sphere. Once more, we will assume our rightful place in the seats of power. . . .

  He keyed in the encryption codes and transmitted a coded message to the DropShip at the LZ, then activated the relay coding to bounce and boost the signal up to the satellite in orbit. He needed more intelligence in order to proceed, something that his operative would be able to provide him. His fingers rapped on the keyboard, coding the message for the deep-cover agent. All that remained was to designate a code signal for when to strike.

  Book Three

  The Peace of Focht Be with You

  “We were in the Allegheny Operations Theatre, Roanoke Valley. It might have been 3078—no, maybe 3077. Wait, that’s right, it was in the Midwest, outside of Cleveland. All right, it was Terra—I’m sure of that much. You’ll have to forgive my memory—like a lot of us, it’s fading (crowd laughs).

  “We were rooting out the last desperate little fragment of the Word of Blake. That’s when I first met him. I reported to his mobile HQ with my new orders and he came out just as I got there. I saluted him. Just stood there like a jackass, facing one of the greatest military leaders in the history of mankind.

  “Anastasius Focht looked a lot older than I expected. His role in the Jihad had been more political than in the field, so why he was there, I don’t know. I just know this, it was a real treat to see him. My father and my grandfather both knew the man. He returned my salute and took a glance at my noteputer with my orders on it. He asked me if I was related to Demi-Precentor Seagrams Harwell. I told him I was his son. He told me that he knew my father and thought highly of him.

  “He was just handing back my orders when an artillery round came down on the far side of that mobile HQ. It went off like a thunderclap. I was tossed around and landed on top of Focht. I remember spitting the dirt out of my mouth and checking him, rolling him over, to make sure he was all right. He was a little dazed, so was I.

  “I asked him if he was okay and he said he was. I let out a sigh and said, ‘Peace of Focht be with us.’ That lit him up. He got to his feet and told me to never say that again. The old man told me that so many crimes had been committed by the Word of Blake as their warriors screamed, ‘Peace of Blake be with you,’ that he hated that we had changed it to reflect him. I apologized like hell; I admit it—I was embarrassed.

  “You know what he did? He smiled at me and said that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our past. ComStar was, and is a great organization, he said, but no single man, him and Blake included, deserved to have their name be used as a prayer, and he didn’t want to hear Com Guards members say that sort of thing. ‘I’m just a man doing a man’s work,’ he said.

  “There aren�
��t many of us left. Most of our comrades were purged, and Focht is gone. I marched in the ceremony to honor him and served as part of the honor guard. And I never forgot what he said to me that day.”

  —Com Guards Veterans Association,

  Terra Chapter 4 Gathering

  8 November 3129

  Presentation by Demi-Precentor (Retired) Drake Harwell

  22

  Reynolds Plains

  North of Kinross, Wyatt

  The Republic, Prefecture VIII

  19 May 3135

  “So there you have it,” Legate Singh said wearily, leaning against one of the consoles in the cramped space inside the mobile HQ as he surveyed his officers. “We’ve suffered nearly fifty-five percent casualties since we left Kinross.”

  Alexi didn’t flinch at the numbers. She had expected worse losses for a planetary militia unit going up against a Clan and a trained mercenary unit. The choice was to see the glass half empty or half full. “Legate, your assessment is correct. We lost our ConstructionMech and the Locust we repaired. We recovered the Blade, several of those missile-armed motorcycles and a hoverbike or two. The Blade can probably be repaired. And we captured several prisoners.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that we’re way below our operational combat strength. These kinds of casualties—well, we need to consider another option.” His gaze drifted over to the corner where Tucker stood. Displaced by the impromptu meeting, he and his sister Patricia stood in the farthest corner of the HQ vehicle. Tucker felt the stares of everyone in the tight quarters, but crossed his arms and said nothing.