Double-Blind

by Loren L. Coleman

  "Skyhook One to Skyhook Three and Four, Daniels is down." He kept his voice calm despite the emotion that threatened to choke off his words. "Incoming hostiles at ten o'clock and very high. Rise up to meet them." Keppler wanted another piece of the raider 'Mechs, but he knew where his skills would best serve the mercenaries fighting down below for his world.

  "Keep them off the mudsloggers for as long as you can," he said. "I'm putting up 1,000 C-bills from my own promotion fund for every kill."

  * * *

  "I'm moving in!"

  The call came over general frequencies, routed around Ki-Lynn so all could hear it Marcus looked at his HUD to see Ensign Tracy Williams move her Trebuchet forward from its somewhat protected position. The plan had been to bloody the raiders' noses, forcing them to fall back and regroup. To make them feel defeated. Then the Angels, including those still in hiding, would advance on the offensive. The raiders weren't falling back, though, but responding with greater organization than Marcus would have thought possible. For any of his small force to advance now...

  Marcus slapped at his communications override. "Williams, remain at your position. Dammit, fall back." She was advancing directly at the Shootist, possibly thinking to take it down before it could clear that path through the Thunder mines.

  Marcus swore to himself, knowing the Trebuchet couldn't hope to last long. All their 'Mechs had taken damage, though it would have been worst if they hadn't been springing first one surprise and then another on the raiders. Only one more trick left, Marcus thought, stabbing a button on the comm panel that would relay a signal through Ki-Lynn. Let's see just how tough the raider commander thinks he is.

  16

  Ordnance Depot

  Indian Island, Marantha

  Magistracy of Canopus

  The Periphery

  18 May 3058

  From the hills north of the battle, not quite half a kilometer up from where the raiders had emerged, Charlene and the remaining twelve Angel 'Mechs stepped out of hiding at Marcus' signal. Leading the way in her 65-ton JagerMech, its huge form rocking from side to side with its distinctive swaggering gait, Charlene traversed one of the five safe corridors Faber had scouted after the Thunder minefield had been laid. She hammered at the raider 'Mechs from extreme ranges with her small auto-cannon, and joined in almost at once with her Mydron Model C mediums. Each depleted-uranium slug shattered armor plates of enemy 'Mechs or flew onward to tear holes out of the trees or the now severely scarred ground.

  Two minutes. A digital timer, located on the upper-left corner of her instrument panel, counted down from 120 seconds in bright red numbers. We've got to press them for two minutes.

  Charlene checked the head's up display. Her JagerMech and Brent Karrskhov's Phoenix Hawk led the charge, though the others weren't far behind. The blue-white lightning of a PPC blast slammed into the Jag's torso just beneath the cockpit, its harsh flash forcing her to avert her gaze even as red bolts of coherent light stitched their way up her right leg and probed into the cavity left by the PPC. But her 'Mech weathered the damage. The rough treatment did bounce her around against the restraining straps of her command couch, but with the neurohelmet feeding signals from her inner ear to the 'Mech's huge gyro Charlene kept the JagerMech upright and moving forward. The wire-line damage schematic on an auxiliary monitor showed the loss of upwards of two tons of armor, most in her right torso.

  Got to watch that, she thought, trying to blink away the blue-black ghost image the PPC had burned across her cornea. She glanced between HUD and the real-life scene outside her viewport, searching for the offending raider as she torso-twisted her 'Mech. As if summoned, the Awesome stepped from the knot of BattleMechs that held the center of the clearing and delivered a full barrage of three PPC blasts straight into the JagerMech.

  * * *

  They've got to turn, Marcus kept repeating to himself as he walked the Warhammer forward and down the hill. They have to.

  Raiders weren't supposed to have this kind of staying power. It wasn't worth the damage to stand and slug it out; not when there were easier targets elsewhere. That was the advantage of the raider. That was what the Angels relied on in their own tactics. But here Marcus watched as the enemy force smoothly shifted their focus ninety degrees to meet the challenge of Charlene's command as it moved south to reinforce Marcus' flank. Marcus hadn't seen this kind of relentless grinding since the Clans .. . and that thought raised a dark specter in his mind.

  These aren't the Clans, his new mantra began to loop within his mind. These aren't...

  He tightened his white-knuckled grip on the Warhammer's control sticks and fired a brace of shots into the Shootist. A moment before, with the aide of a Tempest and its Gauss rifle, the Shootist had shredded Williams' Trebuchet and left it sprawled over the ground with severe internal damage and barely enough armor to protect it from a determined squad of infantry. Now Marcus led the remaining three 'Mechs of his small force forward from their defensive positions, trying to draw fire away from the wounded 'Mech and give Williams a chance to withdraw with her life. This maneuver hadn't been a part of the plan, but the numbers were shot to hell anyway. If the raiders made it out of the Thunder-mined area, the Angels would never turn them away.

  Turning back has to look better to them than coming forward, and that's all we've get left. That, and the second half of our reinforcements. He watched the digital timer on his control panel count down past 60 seconds.

  * * *

  Brent Karrskhov watched in growing horror as the Awesome unloaded point-blank into Charlene's JagerMech, a trio of PPCs coring into the Jag's torso followed by a barrage of short-range missiles that left four lines of white smoke connecting the two BattleMechs for an instant. As though shoved by an invisible giant hand, the JagerMech fell back, but from the awkward play of its legs Brent knew a gyro hit was the least of Charlene's worries.

  With a small jet of released gases and smoke, the upper panels of the JagerMech's domed cockpit blew off and Charlene's ejection seat shot up through the opening. She rode the ejection blast a good hundred meters into the air, and at the apex deployed the parafoil that would bring her back down.

  Would, except for the Awesome that was tracking her flight in an obvious effort to finish her off.

  Brent quickly activated his jump jets, shoving down on them so hard that his body strained against his restraints. The output of the 'Mech's fusion engine was routed through specially designed exhaust ports mounted externally on the rear of his left and right torso. As the 45-ton Phoenix Hawk rose on twin columns of superheated plasma, the jump carried him straight at the Awesome, putting his Hawk between Charlene's parafoil and the assault 'Mech's single PPC blast.

  The young Angel had thoughts of neither glory nor vengeance as the azure stream slammed into the head of his rising BattleMech, the thin armor melting as it ran. And it wasn't even the love he felt for Charlene that kept him fighting the controls, even as he screamed in agony at the intense heat leaking through several rents in his cockpit armor.

  The last of his protection fell away in a fog of molten metal, the PPC blast filling his cockpit with hellish energy, and Brent Karrskhov died simply trying to guard the life of another Angel.

  * * *

  Charlene beat against the arms of her command couch and shouted to Brent as the Phoenix Hawk began a slow, graceful tumble on unguided jump jets. Her screams echoed sharply inside her neurohelmet as she willed the built-in comm circuit to function even without its tie to the now-dead JagerMech. Railing against the straps holding her down almost as if she would fling herself from the descending ejection seat, she watched through tear-blurred eyes as the dying Phoenix Hawk began its ungainly descent.

  Then as if still guided by live hands, the Phoenix Hawk turned again along its original course and fell onto the Awesome. The Hawk's right shoulder caved in a portion of the Awesome's left torso. As Brent's headless machine drove in to entangle itself around the legs of the assault machine, the Awesome t
ipped back and fell onto its right side. The right arm snapped off under the huge machine's own weight, but luckily for the raider pilot he hadn't landed on more Thunder mines.

  Charlene maneuvered toward an edge of the field where she hoped no mines awaited her landing as the seemingly indestructible Awesome extracted itself and rose again to its feet. It stood there for several incredibly long seconds, the battle raging around it but leaving the assault 'Mech untouched.

  At that moment a large explosion shattered several trees along the forest edge and tore up a chunk of ground. A second ripped into a Hunchback further along the field, taking off its right-side leg and arm. Charlene noted the events mechanically, tears salty on her lips, and stared at the broad-shouldered Awesome where it stood majestically over the fallen Phoenix Hawk. It was battered and scorched and Charlene doubted it carried more than a fourth of the armor it had walked onto the field with. But somehow the blue-and-black knight symbol of the Marian Hegemony remained intact on the lower-left torso.

  With deliberate malice, the assault 'mech positioned itself and delivered several well-placed kicks into the hulk of the downed Hawk. Then, turning away from the battle with almost an air of disdain, the large machine began to thread its way back through the minefield. So skillful was the pilot that the Awesome barely missed a step where an earlier footprint had not already been stamped into the soft ground.

  Charlene watched it go and then looked back at the ruined Phoenix Hawk. "Damn you, Brent Karrskhov," she whispered into the insulated privacy of her neurohelmet.

  * * *

  A flight of twelve long-range missiles pounded into Marcus' Warhammer, shattering armor plates and driving the machine back. Then came the red staccato darts of pulse lasers biting into the 'Mech, making armor melt and slough off. A grayish-green mist erupted from a right-torso breech as the probing lasers ruptured the coolant chamber of a heat sink.

  Sweat ran down Marcus' face and arms as use of both his medium lasers and his PPCs slowly drove the cockpit heat up through the cautionary yellow scale and into the red. The Trebuchet he had moved forward to protect lay just behind him, lifeless and discarded like some giant's unstrung metal puppet. Marcus didn't know whether the pilot was still alive; he blocked the bottleneck now for no other reason than to keep the raiders at bay. Ki's Archer and Jericho's Griffin continued to offer support from the lower reaches of their hill, but Faber's Marauder had long since fallen, its gyro spilling out in large chunks from a cavity in his center torso.

  And I'm about to join him. Marcus twisted the Warhammer's torso over to the extreme right, trying to keep the raiders from further piercing into the heart of his 'Mech as he snapped off a single PPC blast toward an approaching Hunchback.

  "Rogue," came Ki-Lynn's whisper through his comm^ set, in sharp contrast to the violent explosions of the battlefield. "Rogue, this is Umbrella One. Backboard One is down on the field, Four is down and out. Backboard Two reporting heavy opposition."

  An empty, sinking sensation pulled at Marcus' stomach as Ki's words registered. Charlene had been shot out of her 'Mech but remained in danger on the field. Karrskhov was probably dead. Paula Jacobs in her Valkyrie was left in command, but her light 'Mech would only last so long in a stand-up fight like this. He swore in frustration. The Thunder minefield hadn't worked. The Sparrowhawk strafing run had turned into a disaster. And now the first half of his reinforcement ploy was in danger of total collapse.

  The Warhammer rocked back a step as a slug from the Hunchback's large autocannon slammed into Marcus dead center. A fresh surge of heat washed over him as his heat scale jumped further into the red. Engine hit, he thought, checking the damage schematic of his 'Mech. I've lost shielding.

  The first blast, shattering a few large pines into match sticks in the backfield, didn't even register with Marcus, whose attention was focused on his tactical display. Then the Hunchback that had been closing disappeared from view as the ground next to it erupted in a shower of earth and smoke. When it reappeared, the raider 'Mech was lying on its side missing both right leg and arm. Marcus' first thought was of the Thunder mines they'd laid down. Then he noticed the digital timer reading zeros straight across the display. He checked the HUD for new signals and found what he was looking for in the far-right corner of the compressed 360-degree display. Two new points of light were moving forward, the computer tagging them as the Heaven Sent and the Pinhead.

  The second half of his reinforcements had arrived.

  "Turn!" he yelled at the raiders, pumping another lance of blue-white PPC energy into the Hunchback to make sure it stayed down as the Angels' Fortress Class Drop-Ship hit the battlefield with another volley from its nose-mounted Long Tom artillery cannon. Now you've got to turn.

  * * *

  St. Jamais watched as the two DropShips braked hard over the Indian Island facility, thrusters flaring to hold the ships against the pull of gravity. The Fortress Class ship pumped out artillery fire onto the rear portions of the battlefield to threaten only his raiders. The Union Class began to settle onto the depot's drop pad, vanishing from sight beyond the low hills just as its 'Mech bay doors began to crank open.

  Now it was clear. The mercenaries had been playing at delaying tactics while their DropShips had gone for reinforcements. They'd kept his unit off balance and spread out to the point that combined fire had worked only for the mercenaries. He saw that now as the Angels retreated back toward the ordnance facility to regroup with the new arrivals. St. Jamais smashed his gloved right hand into a side panel, shattering the glass cover on the Awesome"s magnetic back-up compass.

  "All units pull back," he commanded, biting off every word. "Jumpers, straight into the trees. Everyone else follow your original line."

  As artillery continued to harass his force, St. Jamais surveyed the battlefield. Eight 'Mechs of his eighteen had fallen, though three were being helped from the field and would return to battle. The Angels had lost only six. In monetary terms the Angels had been hurt deeply. But that they had controlled the battlefield so well, and could inflict so much damage so quickly . . .

  Out of sheer frustration, St. Jamais kicked at the nearby hulk of the downed Phoenix Hawk, caving in its left torso even more and crushing its engine under the force of his Awesome's 80 tons. "That's one more thing for them to fix," he muttered grimly.

  Then he turned and followed his original course off the field. Once safely hidden by the trees, he quickly threw some switches to select his downed 'Mechs. A single stab of a button, and St. Jamais watched as various explosions blossomed out on the field. Fusion engines, their containment ruptured by his transmission, expanded to blow apart three of the five downed 'Mechs; the other two were in engine shutdown and so protected. But that will limit their precious salvage, he thought with satisfaction.

  It wasn't over yet, he promised himself. Piloting his Awesome back toward the pick-up site, he began to formulate plans that would finish the Angels for good. He could learn from his mistakes.

  You beat a warrior on the battlefield, he thought. But you can defeat a mercenary through his purse.

  17

  Ordnance Depot

  Indian Island, Marantha

  Magistracy of Canopus

  The Periphery

  19 May 3058

  The sun had barely peaked over the mountain range far to the east as Jericho Ryan watched Ensign Kepplej's SPR-H5 Sparrowhawk nose down through the cloud base at minimum thrust, dropping low to skim over the trees at a hundred meters. NOE, what they call Nape of the Earth. Rolling the Sparrowhawk over onto its right wing and feathering its engines, Keppler performed a tight, slow turn over the field on which Brent Karrskhov had fought and died, and now the Angels stood in silent contemplation. She couldn't see it, but she knew that a special panel opened in the aerofighter just then, scattering Brent's ashes from the air.

  Not exactly Brent's ashes, though. Jericho had been there when Marcus and Charlene first inspected the wreckage of the Phoenix Hawk. Not much of its head
remained, and the only traces of its pilot were what might have been a few pieces of charred bone. Subjected to the full force of the Awesome's PPC blast, Brent Karrskhov had been caught in a ready-made crematorium. Marcus had pulled a knife from his boot and used it like a small trowel to scoop up ashes and small bits of blackened metal, which he dumped carefully into a satchel Charlene had brought.

  The final mix of man and machine.

  On the field, the Angels came to attention under Marcus' order and each rendered his own personal salute. Most of the unit's non-combatants wore black, though the occasional uniform stood out. Ki-Lynn was easy to spot, making her bow of respect wearing the white of mourning favored by the Draconis Combine's Japanese culture. A few others of Combine origin also wore white. Thomas Faber and Charlene were dressed in the last uniform each had worn in service to the Successor States; he in the brown and tan field uniform of the DCMS and Charlene in the Federated Commonwealth dress uniform, but minus both rank and unit affiliation insignia. Faber bowed along with Ki, his massive frame slowly tilting downward and then back up. Charlene gave a clenched-fist-over-heart salute.

  As always, it was Marcus who puzzled Jericho. The service over, he walked from the field with barely a nod to Charlene, while others stopped for a longer word with her. Jericho knew from talking with other members of the company that Marcus came from the Isle of Skye in the former Federated Commonwealth, and had last served in the DCMS along with Thomas and Charlene. Still he had chosen not to wear any previous uniform, dressed instead in simple black trousers and shirt. Appropriate colors, but the lack of formality also separated him from the others.