Black dragon

by Victor Milán

  A whine of servos and the thump of a 'Mech footfall made her jump and spin. Raven's phony JagerMech had come to stand beside her hiding-place. It wasn't increasing her exposure: except for the occasional reflex shot, the Black Dragons were showing good discipline in ignoring the false BattleMechs.

  Raven had popped the viewscreen and the belly panel that covered it, actually a vitryl sheet with a light spray of paint over it that matched the rest of the Jag's exterior but didn't interfere much with the pilot's vision. She leaned forward to give Kali the paper-wraps-stone gesture that meant I'll cover you. In the process she would also get closer to her own ride.

  Kali returned the traditional Southwestern acknowledgement, extending her left forefinger and thumb and "shooting" the other woman as with a gun. She started running forward.

  A clump of enemy commandos huddled behind the blocky and disproportionately small feet of the Awesome that once belonged to Reb Perez, and had been taken over by Tyree Manygoats, a Navajo from Sierra, after Reb was killed during the Seventeenth's stint on Hachiman two years before. They caught sight of Kali and opened up on her with assault rifles.

  A burst drew sparks from a Jenner's shin right over her head. Kali threw herself forward, tucked her good shoulder, rolled, fired laser bolts, bright red in the milky half-light. She didn't know if she hit anything; probably not.

  Momentum gave her the necessary boost back to her feet. She darted to cover behind the legs of another parked machine. Ahead she saw Don Carlos' Naginata, undoubtedly under enemy control, standing in the midst of the First Battalion square. That was the least of her worries at the moment; the commandos would knock her down before she could reach her own machine, which stood on the far side of the commandeered BattleMech. To try to reach it was certain death.

  Failure to reach the Mad Cat was certain death delayed a little longer. She broke from cover and ran with all the speed her long legs could give her.

  * * *

  Exhilaration filled Tai-i Achilles Daw as he surveyed the chaos of the 'Mech enclosure from his high perch. As a trained commando he was capable of ice-cold detachment—but as one of General Kiguri's hand-picked elite-within-the-elite he had also been trained not to disregard his feelings, when they did not tempt to dishonor. Ninyo was one thing, a warrior's passion another.

  Like the other DEST commandos who had been dispatched to Eiga-toshi under his command, Daw was a qualified MechWarrior. But he had seldom seen the inside of an assault 'Mech except in computer simulators, never tasted actual BattleMech combat at all. The sense of sheer un-equaled power produced by sitting in that Naginata hit him like a dose of hiropon, the methamphetamine derivative certain DCMS commanders—and Black Dragon infantry officers on Towne—had been known to distribute to uncertain troops before battle.

  His exaltation made it easy to overlook the fact he wasn't sure what to do. As a dedicated command machine the Naginata was never intended for in-fighting. Its Coventry long-range missile packs and its Lord's Light 2 extended-range PPC were intended to help it keep trouble at a respectful distance so its pilot could concentrate on running the show. There seemed to be enemies swarming everywhere at this point, but most of the ones he could see were too close.

  A JagerMech came running almost at him. He raised the PPC that made up most of the Naginata's left arm. But no, the yakuza scum who had done such a disgraceful job of keeping the gaijin money-troopers away from their machines had warned him over his own command net that it was a fake, a movie prop. A target unworthy of a warrior.

  There. A hundred meters away he saw a single small figure struggling up a rope hanging down the back of an Enforcer to a rear-mounted hatch. He aimed the left arm, loosed a raw blue-white gout of lightning. Hit. The tiny figure flashed momentarily brighter than the eye-hurting stream of charged particles, and was gone.

  Behind the visor of his neurohelmet, Daw grinned.

  * * *

  With every stride she took Kali MacDougall expected to be knocked sprawling by a burst of gunfire. Instead, with a rapid thudding of heavy feet, Raven accompanied her in the fake Jag. The black-clad commandoes by the Awesome's feet were well disciplined and apparentiy alerted that the huge BattleMech bearing down on them was a mere mock-up. They never faltered in shooting at the fleeting Kali.

  The AgroMech hidden beneath the built-up superstructure massed a mere fifteen tons. Nothing at all by BattleMech standards, though it was still a lot of weight.

  More than enough to crush three DEST commandos and smash the leg of a fourth as it literally ran over them.

  A PPC cracked like thunder over Kali's head, so close the heat felt like sunburn on her face and hands, and the hairs at the back of her neck stood up. The Naginata was shooting at something—somebody. She felt a flash of pity for whoever it was. She was vaguely aware of other forms lying still around her, some clad in DEST black, too many not. No time to grieve—

  Somehow she was there, panting by the splayed two-toed foot of her Mad Cat, parked next to the hangar, which now had a huge hole in the wall where the Naginata had emerged. As usual, she had left the 'Mech hunkered down on its backward-kneed legs. That meant she had a climb of just over three meters to reach the hatch, and an easy climb, given the design of the legs—for someone with two arms.

  Well, what the hey, I have motivation. She started climbing up the smooth housing that shielded the foot actuators.

  Just to the north was parked the BJ-2 Blackjack belonging to Terry Carrington, a Galisteo native who had joined the regiment right before Towne. Difficult to see against the Blackjack's glossy black paint job, a female DEST agent was scaling the front of the machine. Though she had to climb much farther than Kali up the Blackjack's twelve-meter height, she was making much better time proportionately. As Kali struggled upward with explosions and laser-cracks threatening to punch through her eardrums, she had to admire the lithe way the other woman swarmed up— Like a Cerillos three-tailed squirrel, she thought. Of course, the other also had both her arms, and was probably better trained at that sort of thing than Kali was.

  The problem was, she was clearly going to win the race to get into the cockpit first. Kali's Mad Cat was, after all, the genuine Clantech article, not some General Motors knockoff, and would normally eat thirty-tons-lighter Spheroid 'Mechs like s'mores. But once Kali was in the cockpit it would still take a certain amount of time for her to get the beast fired up and ready to rumble. If the DEST hijacker got far enough ahead of her, that Blackjack would turn into a viable fighting machine while her Sword of Kali remained just a 75-ton paperweight. It could literally push the bigger 'Mech over and stomp it like a barroom brawler.

  Kali caught frantically at the top of the Mad Cat's leg, hauled herself upward with all her strength. The DEST commando reached the sloped ledge of the Blackjack's upper torso, popped the hatch—

  And was swatted away from the 'Mech's face like a mosquito by an invisible hand. As Kali's hand hit the quick-open release for her own cockpit, she heard a heavy thudding crack, like a sledgehammer splitting a two-by-four. Zeus rifle, she thought. Guess Marly worked her way to a new position. And while that little girl was cultivating a crop of personality disorders that threatened to make Cassie seem like Melissa Steiner, right this moment Kali MacDougall was infinitely grateful for the girl's fixity of purpose.

  The gasket-seal broke with a pop as the canopy raised. Kali hoisted her rump to the edge of the narrow cockpit, swung her long legs over, and almost fell into the form-fitting seat. She jacked her neurohelmet into the console.

  Feeling the giant war machine begin to come alive around her was almost sexual relief.

  As the canopy descended she looked past the Mad Cat's narrow snout. And saw the Naginata facing her, raising its PPC arm.

  29

  Cinema City, Luthien

  Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

  1 July 3058

  No red telltales flickered in Terence O'Hanrahan's heads-up display this time, either, but he knew in hi
s belly that no barrage of harmless skyrockets had struck his Bushwacker. Those are SRMs, or I'm a Davion!

  Quickly he looked to his 360 display. MechWarrior Choiseul's Hornet was bleeding copious smoke from the CASE vents; his LRM reloads had gone up, but the little 'Mech was still standing. The other 'Mechs in view looked intact.

  Startled reports buzzed like static on the company chan-' nel: "Groundpounders! Firing SRMs from behind us!"

  "Ignore them," O'Hanrahan snarled. "If these bastards start getting into their 'Mechs, it's worse things than short-range missiles we'll have to worry about!"

  * * *

  A tawny mass filled Kali's field of vision, so abruptly that she jerked back in her seat. It was Raven's imitation Jager-Mech, interposing itself between Kali and—

  Hideous blue-white glare backlit the phony Jag. The superstructure—and the unarmored AgroMech within—blew into thousands of flaming fragments.

  "Raven!" Kali shouted. But it was too late—her friend was gone, and her sacrifice had not been quite enough. Through the swirling, flaming debris Kali could see the muzzle of the PPC still locked on her machine. As soon as it recharged it would begin blasting chunks from her 'Mech. If I only had a few seconds more—

  Behind the Naginata a 'Mech rose into the air, the flares of the jump jets in its legs bright against the pale morning sky. Not one of the humanoid BattleMechs, its hunched-over shape resembled a Jenner or a miniature version of Kali's Mad Cat. It was a Firefly. Kali barely had time to wonder which side was piloting it before it began to plunge toward the hijacked command 'Mech in a classic death-from-above attack.

  Kali now recognized it as the 'Mech belonging to "Frenchfry" Ames, Adelante Company's commander—and Raven's husband.

  The Firefly's three torso-mounted medium lasers stabbed for the Naginata without regard to heat buildup. Sparks flared from hits on the other 'Mech's rear armor. Its pilot chose to react to the actual immediate threat, rather than the potential one of the still-dormant Mad Cat. He swiveled the 95-ton 'Mech's torso and took a turning step, brought up the extended-range PPC to blast the descending light BattleMech once, twice.

  The Firefly slammed the hard-packed soil of Luthien almost at the Naginata's feet with a terrific crash and squeal of rending metal.

  And the extended-range PPCs that tipped the flexible arms of Kali's Mad Cat rose with a whine and locked into place. Green lights woke in Kali's display.

  "All right, you culebra son of a bitch," Kali said. "It's time for you and me to dance."

  * * *

  Panting like his totem animal, Robert "Navajo Wolf" Begay, newest and most controversial of the Seventeenth's battalion commanders, knelt for a moment over the body of his fallen foe.

  If the DEST commando's ki had been on this day he wouldn't even have tried to fight: he would have known he was beaten from a single glance at Bobby the Wolfs handsome, mad face. Here was a man who had chosen names for himself and his 'Mechs—Navajo Wolf and Skin Walker, both meaning the same thing: a shape-changing witch— which were so ultimately ill-favored that none of his own people would have anything to do with him, nor would any of the Caballeros' numerous Apaches. A man who carefully cultivated his sense of rage against all Creation, and lived for the moments he could let it out. A man who believed in Power, and had it upon him.

  Instead, the black-clad commando had faced him squarely, seemingly glad for the chance to dispatch a foe with his sword. Especially a foe armed with nothing more threatening than a meter-long wrecking bar.

  Bobby the Wolf reached down to dab a stripe of his enemy's blood beneath each eye. That was another major hint that he was seriously not to be messed with. Sane Athabaskans held corpses and anything associated with them in a horror that made the Buddhist-inspired Drac fear of defilement look like necrophilia.

  The DEST commando was beyond the "hint" stage. That polymerized-steel wrecking bar was another 'Mech-rescue tool. Its first downward stroke snapped the DEST man's 1400-year-old katana a handsbreadth from the hilt. The second snapped his clavicle between neck and right shoulder, meaning that no matter how strong his ki or how much adrenaline the fightIflight reflex had pumped into his system, the commando could no more raise that arm than if it belonged to someone else in a different county. A flailing fury of blows had continued until the black helmet and its contents went sort of soft. For good measure Bobby the Wolf had finished by punching the end of the wrecking bar through the red visor.

  Leaving it there, he stood and began swarming up the new BattleMech he'd won on Towne.

  * * *

  The pilot in the Naginata was good enough to spot the motion from Kali's 'Mech. Rather than gloat over his kill of Frenchfry Ames' Firefly he immediately began swinging back to face her. The huge mass of the Nag's torso turned ponderously, though, and Kali was not standing still.

  With two extra double-capacity heat sinks mounted in either arm, the Mad Cat could fire all its energy weapons— without raising a single degree of heat. Since the 'Mech could also cruise as fast as the Naginata could run flat-out, Kali was willing to accept a minor heat buildup to keep her weaponry playing on the enemy machine's slightly thinner side armor as long as possible—and also delay the Drac's retaliation. She started the Cat striding counterclockwise around the Naginata, lighting its left side and PPC arm with her own two extended-range PPCs and the pair of medium pulse lasers mounted along the bullet-like fuselage.

  The Drac was shrewd. He immediately rotated his 'Mech's torso in the other direction, pivoting clockwise to catch the moving Mad Cat with a cross-body blast of its own PPC. Kali's lips fixed in a taut grin as the particle beam etched a glowing line down the side of her 'Mech's torso. Its frontal armor was almost the same as that of the Naginata. With her edge in short-range firepower the Mad Cat could hang and bang with the larger 'Mech and win despite giving away twenty tons. But that wasn't Kali's style. Even when she piloted a 100-ton Atlas she surprised foes with the mobility she was able to coax out of the lumbering monster. With a wicked-fast heavy Clan Omni under her butt she meant to move.

  She kept up the rapid pacing, pulsing blasts from her weapons between the parked 'Mechs of her battalion. The fight might've been over quicker if she'd just gone mano-a-mano with the Naginata. But she risked a lucky shot locking an actuator, knocking out a weapon, or even killing her, and she had a lot more fish to fry than just el Patron's purloined ride.

  She grimaced as a glancing bolt gouged the transpex canopy, too close to her face for comfort—she could feel the heat soar in the almost-cramped cockpit. Maybe these black-clad buckaroos can do fancy tricks with swords and climb like monkeys, she thought. But that doesn't make 'em MechWarriors. She was confident she had the edge in skill, and she meant to make it count.

  That wasn't the only edge she held. But she had no way of knowing that.

  * * *

  Tai-i Achilles Daw squinted his eyes against the heat that parched his eyeballs so that the lids stuck to them every time he blinked. Red lights were glaring from his HUD and the BattleMech was slowing perceptibly beneath him. The reactor-shutdown warning shrilled in his ears as his black-gloved finger stabbed at the override.

  "Nan da kor'ya!" he shouted in rage, what the hell? He hadn't taken a serious hit yet. And the single PPC he was able to get into action couldn't come close to taxing his heat sinks—

  The Mad Cat came rushing at him as if it meant to run into him and knock him down. The PPCs in its arms were crazy blazes, sublimating the tough Durallex Heavy Special plate like ice cream under a blowtorch and filling the cockpit with hideous flickering blue glare as if Daw were arc-welding in there. Daw roared wordlessly and fired.

  He had been doing too good a job forcing overrides. This time the computer decided an engine explosion was probable, shut the reactor down, and fired the top of the Naginata's head, and Achilles Daw, right up into the milky morning sky.

  Once you leached all the self-comforting 'Mech jock Bravo Sierra and bravado out of the proposition, just being a q
ualified 'Mech pilot really didn't make you into a Mech Warrior. Because of the fifteen double heat sinks the Naginata mounted, ten of them had been dismounted for cleaning and stacked under plastic back in the hangar. The tale Zuma had spun about a bum bearing in the hip had been true enough—but that problem was under control, and had nothing to do with why Don Carlos' 'Mech was in the barn. It was routine maintenance, cleaning the crud out of the grilles. Zuma's gnomes had been in the process of slipping the scrubbed-out sinks, which were well-designed for easy removal and replacement, back in place when the commandos burst in and captured them. Zuma had kept the commando leader distracted—and then, at the end, jimmied the telltales so they wouldn't betray the heat sinks' absence. With typical DEST arrogance, Daw had assumed he had overawed the gaijin tech into serving faithfully—and hadn't bothered to make his own walkaround inspection.

  * * *

  The torso of her Mad Cat tilted back, Kali watched the tiny black blot arc well over the plain to the east, saw the yellow and red chute stream up and blossom. From chatter on the comm net she knew her opponent was the enemy leader, and had murdered Richard Gallegos in cold blood. Her thumbs tightened on the firing buttons. I should fry the bastard as he floats.

  But her heart was not good for shooting a Mech Warrior in his chute, no matter what he had done. She didn't buy into much of the 'Mech-pilot hero-warrior-jock routine. But that was one section of the code she couldn't bring herself to break. Maybe I'm too damned sensitive, she thought.