BattleTech: Hector, page 4
Dragoons would be dying.
Kenner sat back down and sealed his hatch. Already the nets were screaming with reports of the Lyran air, screaming for air cover, and over it all Kenner heard the deep voice of Colonel Carmody, air commander, sending his fighters into the fray. Kenner sat still, in his cockpit, listening to the reports, not wanting to look out his canopy or through his HUD. He knew what was happening.
Even wrapped inside a drop cocoon a BattleMech was still a BattleMech. The weapons fire from an aerospace fighter would hurt it, maybe even kill it, but once free of the pod the ’Mech could fire back, could let its heavy armor take the damage. On the ground they could even hope to fire back anti-air, to bring the fighters down during their strafing runs. On the ground.
At twenty kilometers or more up all the ’Mech jocks could do was pray the Lyran fighters would shoot at the other guy, that the fighters would not shoot away his drop pack, that he wouldn’t be confined to a sixty-ton coffin falling at terminal velocity from that far up, watching the ground get closer and closer and knowing that even if his ’Mech mounted jump jets there’d be no way to slow that incredible velocity enough to survive the landing.
No. He didn’t want to see any part of that.
“Unity,” he whispered to himself, alone in the cockpit, “I hate Hesperus.”
CHAPTER THREE
Able Battalion Laager
Harkspur Mountains, Hesperus II
Lyran Commonwealth
14 June 3019
Duvall was shouting when Kenner walked up behind the APC that would carry a section of technicians. The target of his tirade was a junior astech carrying a noteputer. From the look of the equipment around him, Kenner figured the man was in charge of loading the supplies in the nearby flatbed truck. Another astech stood nearby in an exoskeleton, ready to move the heavy supply pallets, and another with a rolling jack waited in the bed of the truck.
“And what,” Duvall saying, “makes you think the first thing we’re going to need when we get to the forward repair area is the rations?”
“They’re the lightest,” the astech said.
“The lightest.”
“I wanted to get the heavy stuff—the ammo, sir—over the main axles. That’ll make sure it doesn’t shift.” He gestured with the noteputer at the terrain. “It isn’t exactly a smooth road here, sir.”
Kenner had to give the man credit. He looked past the loading area to the wide canyon Able Battalion was using to laager between rushes forward. His own company was emplaced on the far wall, nearest the forward exit, right where the assault company of a battalion should be. Nearest to the likeliest avenue of attack or defense.
The Harkspurs trailed down toward the plains that hosted the wide-bodied Erewhon River. The Colonel had decreed the flood plain the regimental rally point, and all four regiments currently engaged were headed that direction. It had been a hard week of fighting, engagements every day, damage every day. Kenner was exhausted, knew his troops were exhausted. They’d spent most of their rack time in the cockpit, and the stiffness in his back attested to the lack of comfort in a command couch. Kenner rolled his shoulder around beneath his cooling vest and then rocked his head from side to side, cracking the sinews in his neck. What I wouldn’t give for one good backrub, he thought. Kaley had been a master at backrubs.
“Well, son, that make a lot of sense,” Duvall said cordially. He took the astech by the shoulder and turned him to face the truck. “And you’re right, it won’t take much to shift that off when we get there. But let me ask you a question.” He looked over his shoulder, saw Kenner standing there, and nodded his head in greeting.
“Tell me, son… what do you think we’re going to be more short of in a combat zone? Bullets, or beans?” He made a knife-blade with his index and middle fingers and stabbed the astech in the chest. “Assuming we’re under fire, which is pretty damn likely?”
“Bullets, sir,” the astech said.
“That’s right, bullets. Unity, man… you think the troopers are going to be running back with empty rifles and shouting ‘thanks for the rations, we were getting low!’?” Duvall stepped back and folded his arms across his chest. “Beans can wait, son. If we need to move the big, heavy bullets to get them, then we bitch a little and we move them. But if we need the bullets first, Dragoons die trying to move that shit out of the way to get them.”
“I’ll get the load shifted, sir,” the astech said.
“You do that, son,” Duvall said. “I see our esteemed ’Mech escort over there, so I’m going to go and tell him we’re ready to move when he is.” He smiled a lipless smile toward the man and walked away, toward Kenner.
“Nicely done,” Kenner said quietly, when Duvall approached.
“He’s had the course,” Duvall said. “Load sharing and priority is one of the first things we teach them. Unity, sir… even the cooks know bullets go nearer than the food.”
Kenner chuckled and gestured toward the waiting APC. They started walking that way, both men raising hands to shade their eyes from the morning sun. “You’ll be ready to go at jump-off, then?”
“Absolutely, sir,” Duvall said. “He’ll have the load shifted in half an hour, and I’ve already checked the other ten vehicles. Battalion gave me a jump-off of 0730 Zulu. We’ll be ready.”
Kenner checked his chrono. That was forty minutes away. He nodded once and then looked at the techs waiting in the shade of the APC’s rear door. They looked as worn out as his MechWarriors, and he knew they’d had even longer hours getting the ’Mechs put back together.
“How’re you guys holding up?” Kenner asked.
“We’ll do our part,” Duvall said without hesitation.
Kenner held up a hand in surrender and stopped walking. “I know that, Duvall. I don’t expect anything less from Dragoons, and I’ve not been disappointed. I just wanted to know how you’re doing. Got what you need?”
Duvall sighed. “Got what there is to be had, sir,” he said. “We’re running low on expendables, of course.” He grinned. “That’s your fault, of course, doing all that expending.” He wiped a hand across his face, smearing the red dust-encrusted sweat there. “Armor’s holding okay, and we’re getting a bit of salvage, but the ready stocks are gone. Plus we used a lot at Lamon.”
Kenner grunted. “I hear it’s the same with the other regiments.”
“Should be. We’re all here, after all, and there’s no tail back to Marik space.”
Kenner nodded his assent. They were far from the powerful factories of the Free Worlds, and while the Colonel had brought as much supplies as his DropShips would carry, and replenished a great deal along the way by raiding Lyran stockpiles, there was only so many things you could capture that you could use. Some things you made yourself, and the other guy didn’t. Some things only Dragoons made, and when they were gone, they were gone for good.
Kenner nodded again. Those thoughts didn’t help him at all today. “The Colonel’s sending us forward, and you’re coming with to set up forward repair spots. We’re getting close to the plain, so the tempo is going to pick up.”
Duvall stared. “Pick up.”
Kenner nodded. “If you can believe it.”
Duvall drew in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. “We go where the Colonel says, I guess.” He looked around, eyeing the transports, then shrugged. “I guess your big, bad ’Mechs will just have to shoot all the bad guys, Captain.”
Kenner’s communicator beeped. He looked down and pulled it off his belt. “That’s what we do, Senior Tech.” He frowned at the code. “Delta call.” He pressed a button to acknowledge the signal and then returned it to his belt. “Got to run.”
“We’ll be ready, sir,” Duvall said.
Kenner turned and ran for the battalion HQ.
Yukinov was waiting with the other captains by the time Kenner got to the HQ tent. It was a hard-shell reinforced structure, something the tech section lugged around and set up whenever the major stopped for more time than it took to piss outside his ’Mech. Yukinov was a very boots and saddles kind of officer, aggressive to the core and very much a field man. Kenner understood the thinking—the fighting was in the field, after all—and if an officer couldn’t see the fighting, he couldn’t give effective orders.
“Kenner,” he said. “Good, you’re all here. The Sevens got hit hard yesterday. Reis is dead and the teams are scattered.” There was silence. “Don’t everybody talk at once.”
“Who hit them, sir?” Kenner asked while his mind raced.
The Sevens—Seventh Kommando—were the Dragoons principal special operations units. For a Steiner unit to catch them all assembled and manage to get that damage in was impressive. Bad luck at the best, and really bad news at the worst. Either someone had stumbled onto the battalion in the field or Dragoon security was penetrated.
Every Dragoon respected the Sevens. The ’Mechs of the regiments might be the public strength of the Dragoons, and the media whores, but most Dragoons knew the Sevens were the real operators. It was Dragoon special ops teams that got them most of their precious intel, and Dragoon special ops teams that infiltrated hard targets to open the gates for the regiments. For every open-field victory the Colonel won, there was a dark-corner knock-down that contributed just as much to the victory.
“Hansen’s Roughriders,” Yukinov said. He looked down at the map table and pointed to a point near the current laager. “About here, according to the survivors.”
“That’s pretty damn close to us,” Captain John Charleton said. “My Silver Bears haven’t seen anything over that way, but we’ve only been out a day.” The white-haired commander rubbed a hand through his hair and shrugged. “Don’t mean they’re not out there, of course. Just means we haven’t seen them.”
“Of course you haven’t seen them,” Captain Lauren Waller spat. “And of course they’re out there… a bunch of dead Sevens will attest to that.” The pugnacious commander stepped forward and stabbed a finger down on the map. “If they’re still out there, we need to hit them now, and hit them hard.”
“That’s stupid,” Kenner blurted, and immediately regretted it.
Waller turned her head slowly, as if it were a turret on a tank ring, and spitted him with a molten glare. “What did you say?”
I can’t get any deeper. “I said that’d be stupid,” he said. “That’s a heavy regiment, and a damned good one. Hansen and his boys would chew us up. We’re only a battalion, and we’ve been beating our away across these Unity-damned mountains against three regiments of Lyran Guards and the Hotheads.” He looked to Yukinov and Charleton, but the two men held their own counsel. Not that I blame them, he thought.
“If you’re afraid of the fight…” Waller said.
“Unity, woman!” he shouted. “Call me a coward again!” He didn’t realize he was shouting until he was done, and clapped his mouth shut. “I don’t care what you think of me, but my jocks have been hitting these bastards twice a day for six days, and I’m not taking any shit from you because you’re been guarding the goddamned supply lines.” His mind was marveling at the way he was shooting his own career in the foot, but another part was wondering why the hell the major wasn’t jumping all over him.
“If you think—” Waller started.
“What I think is that we should stick to the mission the Colonel gave us, which is to push through the Sixth and the Twenty-Fourth and get to the floodplain.” He took a deep breath and turned away from the other company commander to face Yukinov. “Hansen is out there, and we don’t have the recon lances to spare to go hunting for him. I’m sure the Lyrans would love for us to do just that,” he said. “But we need to punch through.” He pointed to the map. “I’m sorry as hell about the Sevens, but this doesn’t change anything. Hansen will hit us or he won’t.”
Yukinov smiled. “I love good subordinates, gentleman and lady,” he said. “Captain Kenner has just made my case for me.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Able First will lead the supply train forward. Your two companies,” he said, looking at Charleton and Waller, “will probe the flanks forward. Baker is advancing today, so the way forward should be clear.” He looked at Kenner again. “Questions.”
“No, sir,” Kenner said immediately. The other two captains replied the same, and then made their exits. Kenner waited until he was alone with Yukinov before spoke, drawing himself to attention as if he were in front of the Colonel himself again.
“Sir. No excuse for my actions, sir,” Kenner said.
Yukinov smiled. “A bit strong, I think, Luke,” he said. He gestured to a camp stool before collapsing into one. “How’re your people?”
“Tired, sir,” Kenner said. He lowered himself to the stool but kept his back erect. “We’re getting low on resupply, and I only just got Lorrel’s Zeus back from the repair shop.”
“Gyro, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Kenner shuddered inwardly. It had been a strong push by a striker company of the Sixth while they’d already been engaged with elements of the Twenty-Fourth. A pair of Griffins had snuck in behind Lorrel’s Zeus and torn out its gyro from the back before the rest of the company could respond. It had been four days—including two days of being carefully trucked back to the repair bays aboard Chieftain—before the Command Lance jock was back in the field.
“Everyone’s light,” Yukinov said. “Nothing to be done but go forward, and look ahead to looting what we need from the factories.” He shook his head and then looked at Kenner. “You need watch it with Waller.”
“No excuse, sir,” Kenner said again. He was replaying the conversation in his mind, trying to figure out where the sudden rage had come from. He knew Waller, more by reputation than personally, but he didn’t usually let people get him like that. Waller was known as a bit of man-hater—to most of the jocks she’d be a lesbian, if she had any time for even another woman outside of her ’Mech—and no one would ever call her proper or even polite, but he was used to that. The same could almost be said of him.
“You were right in what you said, but so was she.” Yukinov raised a finger. “In any other setting we’d want secure flanks, so we’d get out there and tie up Hansen while the Colonel brought in Beta or even Epsilon to pound them. Or maybe even Zeta—Pollock would love to beat on a unit like the Roughriders.” Now he waggled the finger. “But this one is different, see? The mountains guard our flanks. Sure, they might have a route and might get the drop on us, but the plan is to be out of here by tomorrow, so that won’t matter. As long as we keep moving, the best they can hope for is the same luck they used to catch the Sevens.”
“Yes, sir,” Kenner said.
Yukinov grinned. “You’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.”
“You’re the major, sir,” Kenner said. “But yes… I’m the junior company commander, sir, I know that.”
“You’re the commander of Able First, Luke,” Yukinov said. “Able First, lead company of Alpha Regiment, which is lead regiment of Wolf’s Dragoons. You’re the point of the sword.” He stood, and Kenner stood up immediately to join him. “Now go out there and drive that point a little deeper in the Lyrans, would you? I’m getting sick of looking at this canyon.”
“Sir,” Kenner said, and left the tent.
CHAPTER FOUR
Harkspur Mountains
Hesperus II
Lyran Commonwealth
14 June 3019
The convoy was barely four kilometers into the twisting canyons of the route to the new location before one of the pickets beeped an alert at him. Kenner had been moving his ’Mech more or less on autopilot while his eyes watched the landscape around him. He was watching for ambushers, of course, but his sensors would almost certainly see any Lyran ’Mechs well before his eyes did. In truth he was just admiring the landscape.
Unlike the massive walls back at the regimental landing zone the terrain on this side of the mountains was more broken, harsher. The canyon—really a wide ravine—the convoy was moving through was barely a hundred meters across and crooked, so that the longest line-of-sight Kenner had yet measured was barely three hundred meters. The banks of the canyon were lined with withered but strong-looking trees and scrub, and his thermal sensors picked out small animals, rodents or small mammals, in the shaded spots where the background heat didn’t wash the sensors out complete.
At the picket’s alert Kenner hitched the Marauder II out of its stately measured pace of thirty-four kilometers per hour and accelerated to fifty-four kph, moving toward the alert signal at the head of the column. His eyes looked down at the alert bar on his com board but he didn’t press it—the sentry’s signal had been contact but he hadn’t called the alarm himself, which meant it may not be a hostile.
And it turned out it wasn’t. It was a helicopter.
Two Dragoons in faded brown-and-tan desert camouflage leaned against the Peregrine’s fuselage, both of them cradling TK assault rifles. Kenner dialed up his magnification and then chuckled at the expressions the men wore. He brought the Marauder II to a halt a few meters from the Peregrine and dialed a specific code on his com board. Far below the cockpit a small panel popped open on the ’Mech’s shin, revealing a sound-powered phone. One of the infantrymen slung his rifle and stepped away from the helicopter to pick up the phone.
“You need to halt this convoy for an hour or so, Captain,” the infantryman said.
“You’ll have to do better than that, trooper,” Kenner said. The bravado confirmed his initial hypothesis: these were not ordinary Dragoon infantrymen. They were Sevens.
“There’s an Elsie column moving slightly parallel to your route of march,” the trooper said. “Two companies worth plus a few stragglers. They got the drek pounded out of them by Delta-Charlie this morning and they’re on their way back for refit.” The trooper turned and pointed west. “That way.”
