BattleTech: Hector, page 7
“Major Yukinov’s compliments, Captain,” the man outside said. “A change of orders. Alpha will be making the lead river assault. Able First is directed to take the first position after Charlie and Baker secure a beachhead.”
“Acknowledged.” Kenner slipped his boot knife back into its sheath and wiped a hand across the stubble on his chin. “And tomorrow?”
“The Major says take a rest, sir.” The smile in the sentry’s voice was evident. “You’ll need it once you get to the water.”
“Roger that,” Kenner said.
“What’s going on?” Laskowski whispered. Kenner looked away from the tent flap. In the dim light he saw her looking at him from beneath a corona of hair, only one eye and half a smile visible. He grinned at her and held a finger to his lips.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” the sentry said.
“Yes?”
“Could you tell Captain Laskowski she’s to lead her company out at first light, sir?”
Laskowski broke into a fit of giggles and tried to stifle them into the thin field pillow. Kenner just stared at her until she looked up, and then gave her a stern look. She burst into more laughter and covered her head with the blanket.
“I’ll tell her when I see her, trooper,” Kenner finally said.
“Roger that, sir,” the sentry said. Kenner heard footsteps as the man retreated. He waited until the sound was gone, and then crawled back to the cot. He pulled the corner of the blanket back until he revealed Laskowski’s head. She looked up at him from beneath blonde bangs and grinned an imp’s grin.
“Orders, sir?” she asked.
“You move out at first light,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Kenner stared at her for a moment, fighting it, but then smiled. “The sentries know about us,” he said.
“You think?” Laskowski reached out and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “You should grow this out,” she said. “Might make you look more like the Colonel.”
Kenner jerked his head out of her grasp. “Not a chance, kid. It’ll itch like hell inside a neurohelmet.” He brushed a lock of her hair away from her forehead and smiled at her. “Is this going to cause trouble for you?”
“Us?” He nodded. “Wow, so serious all the sudden.” She pulled herself up on her elbows and looked at the ceiling of the tent. “Not a bit, but it’s sweet of you to ask.” She looked down at him, smiling again. “But then, I’m not the one with an ex-girlfriend in camp.”
“You know about her,” he said.
“The whole regiment knows, Luke,” Laskowski said. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Kenner blinked. “Seems an odd thing to say, under the circumstances,” he said, lifting the blanket enough to look down the shaded path of her naked body. She looked where he was and giggled.
“Oh, don’t worry, loverboy,” she said. “This is fun—a lot of fun—but don’t think I’m going to settle down with you.” She cradled her chin on her hands and fluttered her eyebrows at him. “Don’t think I’m falling for your so-called seductions.”
“Oh, surely not,” Kenner said. Then he stood. “Move over.”
“Over where? It’s a cot, genius.”
Kenner lifted the edge of the blanket and slid next to her on the narrow cot. She twisted onto her side to make room, then jerked the blanket back up enough that only their noses poked out from the blanket.
“It’s cold out there,” she whined.
“I have to be up in a few hours,” he grumbled. “And I’m never going to sleep with all this adrenaline.” Laskowski’s eyes crinkled as an unseen grin blossomed. “Although…”
“Captain Kenner, I don’t think this tactic is conducive to good morale,” she said.
Kenner raised an eyebrow. “Oh. So that was complaining earlier?”
“Well…”
Kenner pulled the blanket up over her head before she could say another word.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Erewhon River Floodplain
Hesperus II
Lyran Commonwealth
22 June 3019
The air screamed as the barrage from Alpha’s artillery train slammed overhead on its way across the river. Kenner dialed up the magnification on his display to watch the stonk land, hoping it would catch some of the Lyran ’Mechs on the riverbank before they had a chance to duck to safety in the murky brown waters of the river. The hogs had been firing since before dawn, and the Lyrans hadn’t seemed to have brought any artillery of their own to the forward defense.
“Any minute now,” Foster said on the lance channel.
“Copy,” Kenner said, and adjusted his view.
Almost a whole week had passed since the Lyrans had withdrawn—or rather, had seemed to withdraw. Although ’Mechs had been observed crossing the river and blowing the bridges, the Fifteenth Lyran had remained behind, using the edge of the mountains as cover, and pounced on Delta Regiment as it had come down into the floodplain. As the rest of the Dragoons moved to support their embattled regiment, the Hotheads had reappeared, striking in company-strength slasher runs all along the Dragoon lines. The pair of regiments had fought and faded for days, trading space and time for damage on the Dragoons. The Lyrans had the massive facilities of Defiance Industries to fall back on—the Dragoons had only what they’d carried with them.
And that was running out.
“This is a bad idea,” Foster said. Kenner looked away from where the artillery was falling, noting the discrete telltale. “I don’t want to fight underwater.” He looked up at his three-sixty vision strip and picked out her Atlas, waiting with the rest of his Command Lance for the cue to begin operations. He’d never say that the 100-ton assault ’Mech looked nervous, but he did know body language. And that ’Mech didn’t look confident.
“Well, unless you can fly, this is where we’re going,” Kenner said.
“Funny,” Foster replied.
“Stick close to me,” Kenner said, injecting a note of seriousness into his voice. “You’re going to be down to two lasers down there, and neither of us are going to be breaking any speed records. Just stay on your feet and keep moving.”
“Copy,” Foster said, and closed the channel.
Kenner looked at her ’Mech for a moment longer, and then at Lorrel’s Zeus and Barrows’ Awesome. He keyed the lance channel. “Barrows, I want you to keep close to Lorrel. Your PPCs are the only firepower we’re going to have down there.”
“Copy,” Barrows said.
“My savior,” Lorrel quipped.
“Just get across the river,” Kenner said, biting back his grin. “Our objective is the opposite bank. If you meet Lyran ’Mechs in the water, deal with them. Evade if you can—chances are they’ve trained for this.” He didn’t add that Dragoons trained for underwater ops, too. He remembered a few hazy lessons while he’d been with Training Command, and the gist he remembered was “don’t fight underwater.”
“Who else is going with us, sir?” Lieutenant James asked.
“All of Able,” Kenner said. “And downstream, Gamma and pieces of Epsilon.”
“Epsilon?” Dumphries interjected. “I thought they were still on reserve?”
“The Colonel brought a battalion forward,” Kenner said. “They’re on the far downstream flank, just in case. Fresh jocks, fresh ’Mechs.”
“Yeah, but they’re still Epsilon,” Dumphries sneered.
Unity, that woman hates everyone. Kenner started to say more, but stopped as a telltale blinked on his console. “Pre-movement light,” he said instead. “Able First, thirty seconds.” He adjusted the straps on his command couch and cycled the coolant in his cooling vest. The murky brown water of the Erewhon lapped at the sandy banks in front of him. Kenner stared at them, letting his mind wander over his deployment orders, trying to find any last minute flaws.
Able First was in the center of the Alpha Regiment advance sector, with Waller’s Company upstream—to the left—and Charleton’s Silver Bears downstream—to the right. Kenner had organized Able First with his own lance in the center, Jennings’ Attack Lance on the downstream side and Dumphries on the upstream. His thinking was that the lighter ’Mechs of the Attack Lance would be able to move against the river current in support of the other two lances more easily, and the current itself would aid the heavier Heavy and Command Lance ’Mechs should it become necessary to move to the right.
“I’ll see you all on the other side,” Kenner said, as the flashing yellow switched to a burning solid red glow. He pushed the Marauder II forward, making sure his ’Mech was the first to reach the water’s edge and plunge in, the great clawed feet of the ’Mech sinking a meter and a half into the soft silt of the river bottom.
The Marauder II’s computer reported a drop in the ’Mech’s internal temperature as the various heat sinks scattered throughout the ’Mech were immersed in the river’s water. Direct convection carried waste heat out of the exchangers much more efficiently than the thinner air did, but Kenner didn’t feel comforted. For every advantage his ’Mech gained fighting underwater it gained twice as many disadvantages. Alarms sprang to life on his HUD as the Marauder’s cockpit and sensor assemblies fell beneath the lip of the water. Kenner canceled them and dialed his displays for visual light and magnetics. Nothing else was going to work down here, and BattleMechs were not equipped with sonar.
Radar did not penetrate the water with any accuracy, and thermal and IR were hopelessly distorted by the rushing currents. The sound of the Marauder’s fusion engine seemed louder in the sealed cockpit, making Kenner nervous. Intellectually he knew the closed environment was transmitting the sound of the engine through the Marauder II’s bones, and that if anything the water would be bleeding off more of the sound waves, not fewer, but that didn’t stop his heartbeat from increasing a little.
“Com check,” he said.
“Two, check,” Foster said. Her voice was bit scratchy, but he understood her. He saw the ping on his magres scan that noted her Atlas, behind him and to the left, but he couldn’t see her.
“Three, check,” Lorrel said.
“Four—eck,” Barrows said, his transmission cutting out.
“Attack?” Nothing. “Heavy?”
“Just us,” Foster said.
“This is insane,” Kenner muttered. He looked through his canopy, but it was pointless. If the water was just right he could see the tip of the Marauder II’s arm, but nothing more. His magres scanner was painting targets all over the place, but Kenner knew most of them—if not all of them—were sensor ghosts, metal-heavy rock outcroppings or boulders.
Or even just steel derelicts acting as decoys, he thought. Or ’Mechs.
“Keep on course,” he said, adjusting the Marauder II’s course. He looked at his speed indicator. “Although at this rate, it’ll be the heat-death of the universe before we get across.”
“There are shallows on the maps,” Foster said. “We might be able to broach and get our bearings.”
“And be a target for everything on both sides of the river,” Kenner muttered.
Four minutes passed as the ’Mechs slogged forward, the longest four minutes of Kenner’s life. He spent most of his time negotiating the ’Mech over or around obstacles on the river bottom, swearing each time the 100-ton ’Mech’s foot came down on something too slippery or two soft to support its weight. Lorrel’s Zeus fell down six times.
Six times, in four minutes.
“I’ve lost my left arm,” Lorrel reported after the last time. “Breached through the weapon ports, I think. It’s flooded.”
“Unity,” Kenner whispered. “This is ridiculous.”
“We could turn around.”
“And leave the rest of the battalion hanging on the other side?” Kenner snarled and clenched his jaw, teeth grinding. “We push forward.”
“The others can’t be doing any better than we are.” Foster’s voice was tight, hard. She was scared. “And there’s a whole bunch of pissed off Elsies over there, and our artillery landing all around us.”
“We keep going,” Kenner said.
Blue-white light flashed through the hazy water to his left. Kenner jumped in his seat and jerked the Marauder II to the side. “Contact!” he shouted. “PPC fire, I think.”
“Confirmed,” Foster said. “Bastard hit me in the chest.”
“How bad?”
“No breaches,” Foster said. “But I can’t see him.”
“Lucky shot?”
“Might as well have been,” she said. “I can’t find him.”
“Then I’ll go,” Kenner said. He turned the Marauder toward where the light had come from and pushed his throttle forward. The magres scanner pinged at him, locating a contact along that bearing, but he couldn’t get a lock or range. He hit Foster from there, Kenner told himself. He has to be close enough. He adjusted his guns to level and fired.
Sparks and bubbles erupted across his canopy as the PPCs snarled their way through the water. Although mostly energy the “shot” of a PPC had a kinetic component, and the shock of those ions crushing their way through the water rocked the Marauder II. A fresh dose of silt rose and obscured what little visibility he had. This is pointless.
“Anything?” Foster asked.
“Unity, how should I know?” Kenner snarled.
“No contacts,” Lorrel reported. “Maybe we should spread out?”
“No,” Kenner said. “Stick together.” He slowed the Marauder enough for Foster to start closing the distance and swept his sensors around, trying to pick up a contact. In the forty seconds it took her to close he got several shadowy contacts but nothing firm, and no further firing was detected.
“We’re almost there,” Lorrel reported. “The floor is starting to slope up again.”
“Then let’s go,” Kenner said. “I want to be out of this muck. Where I can kill something I can see.” He pointed the Marauder’s snout toward the opposite bank and vowed to himself to not stop until he saw the sky again.
Fifty seconds later he got his wish.
The Marauder II’s upper carapace cleared the water and was immediately struck by autocannon fire. Kenner grunted as the impacts threatened to push him back into the river and lurched the assault ’Mech forward. Lasers flashed against the armor over his right arm and thigh, and a PPC tore into the freshly-exposed left knee. The Marauder II stumbled until Kenner brought it upright and looked around.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered.
The better part of a Lyran Guards battalion was within range of the water’s edge, already engaged with what looked like two lances of Waller’s Company and a company from Gamma. Kenner trudged the Marauder out of the water, cursing while his sensors cycled and then painted an update on his tactical screen. He cut right, clearing a path for Foster and the others to exit the water, and looked down. We’re going back in the water.
“Hit ‘em!” he shouted. There was a chance, if they could force a beachhead. It’s just an old-fashioned assault, he thought. And this is an assault company.
He stepped onto the firmer soil further from the water’s edge and brought his weapons to bear on a Lyran Crusader venturing closer to the water’s edge. The support ’Mech saw him coming and twisted, raising the big missile batteries on his arms to spout a flaming wall of long-range missiles that arrowed toward him. Kenner looked, saw that he had nowhere to go, swore, and fired. And then he braced himself, trusting the Marauder II’s battle computer to keep track of what his shots did.
Of the thirty missiles fired at him, only twenty-two struck, flaying armor from over his side torso and legs. The 100 tons of the Marauder II’s mass shook with the damage, but Kenner held the machine upright and kept it moving, out of the cloud the explosions had created around him. The recharge indicator on the lasers beeped readiness, and he searched for his target.
The Crusader limped to the side. The computer reported laser and PPC damage to both of the ’Mech’s legs, with its left knee fused by a lucky strike from Kenner’s PPCs. He laughed and moved the Marauder II forward, intent on finishing the handicapped ’Mech off. The PPCs came up and blazed to life, striking powerful energy maces against the thick armor of the Crusader’s chest. The Lyran jock, already struggling with a gimped knee, toppled backward as the impacts shoved him over.
“Any sign of the Silver Bears?” Kenner asked. Another Crusader moved forward to support its mate, but Kenner ignored it. Its barrage of missiles flew wide, spreading explosions across the turbulent water behind the Dragoon company.
“Look across the river,” came Dumphries’ snarled reply.
Kenner panted in the hot cockpit and moved the Marauder II to the side, trying to open the distance as far as he could between himself and the downed Crusader. He kept his laser trained forward while his PPCs recharged, and then spared two seconds to zoom in on the opposite bank of the river.
Charleton’s ’Mech stood at the bank, covered in half-dried river mud, watching the action on the kilometer-distant shore.
“Son of a bitch,” Kenner spat. “Able First to any unit—who’s senior on the far shore, over?”
“You are, Captain,” a voice said.
“Waller?”
“Stuck on the bottom, sir,” one her jocks reported. “She told us to move on and support you and Captain Charleton.” That Dragoon traded shots with a Lyran Zeus, but got the worse end of the deal when her Shadow Hawk was riddled with cannon and missile fire.
“Gamma?”
“That’s our captain there, sir,” one of the Gamma ’Mechs said, pointing to the decapitated hulk of a Dragoon BattleMaster.
Kenner swore under his breath, but that was all he had time for. The second Lyran Crusader hit him with a double-flight of missiles, scattering more damage across the front angles of his ’Mech. The Marauder II shook with the damage but didn’t fall, and Kenner ignored the new threat to focus on the original Crusader, just now climbing clumsily to its feet. He waited two fast heartbeats until the PPCs were recharged and then fired again, this time adding his large laser to the mix. The laser missed, but both PPCs combined to rip the Crusader’s left arm off at the shoulder. The unbalanced machine tottered and went down again without firing a shot, and Kenner yelled his triumph in the solitude of his cockpit.
