Battletech: Shell Games: A BattleTech Novella, page 7
“Weird,” he whispered.
9
OUTSIDE MOUNT SHANYU
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
18 MARCH 3149
Arisia Nadine stood in her black skinsuit in front of her armor, safely hidden beneath the broad leaves of a widdlebark tree. Across the cleared plains that surrounded Mount Shanyu—across the killing fields, to give the thing its proper name—the mountain rose like a boil kilometers tall. It was an ancient uplift of granite, mostly. And now dug like an ant colony with the tunnels, bays, and bunkers of Fortress Dieron.
In a day or two, it would be hers.
She smiled. The Custos himself would be proud.
It was before dawn. Nadine could only make out the mountain where it occluded the stars in a clear night, and by the lights of the night defensive positions ringing it all across the bottom. There was no need for camouflage. The whole Inner Sphere knew where Fortress Dieron was. Its power lay in the sheer impenetrability of the mountain itself. Rebuilt after the Jihad almost a century earlier, it would shrug off anything up to midrange nuclear weapons.
Nadine smiled her shark’s smile.
It wouldn’t shrug off the Fides.
She brought a communicator to her lips.
“Execute.”
Captain Liz Getty sat in her Lament’s cockpit, cycling through view modes on her HUD. The mountain that nestled Fortress Dieron looked different under each one; dark, mostly, in visible light, with large glowing spots in infrared. In all of them it looked massive, imposing, and impenetrable.
“We’re going to take that?” MechWarrior Cabrera asked.
Getty looked away from the mountain, to where the young man’s Rifleman stood, like her Lament, waiting for the order.
“Not us,” she told him. “We’re just the distraction. The Fides have something special planned, is all the major would tell me.”
“Great,” Cabrera said.
An icon flashed in Getty’s HUD.
“Two minutes,” she sent, to all of Bravo Company.
“Two minutes to what?” Lieutenant Easton asked, on a discreet channel.
“I don’t know,” Getty admitted. “Battalion only told me we’d know it when we saw it.”
SAN MARTIN SPACEPORT
SAN MARTIN
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
18 MARCH 3149
Paladin Max Ergen checked the controls of his Doloire and then settled back into his command couch. The 80-ton OmniMech was secure, with its myomers hot and its gyro spun up. He trained his HUD on the DropShip Oberon’s nose two kilometers away.
“We’ve got the signal, Paladin,” crackled a voice in his neurohelmet.
“Proceed,” he told them. Then he grinned.
There was no way he was going to watch this from inside the DropShip’s CIC. He wanted to see this with his own eyes.
Smoke and flame erupted from the Duat-class ship’s nose. Three streaks of light atop pillars of smoke arrowed up into the sky. The contrails bent toward Mount Shanyu before the rocket boosters burned all their fuel and fell away. Ergen toggled a control and three carets appeared on his HUD, heading the same direction faster than the eye could follow. After a second or two they were gone, out of the ’Mech’s range.
“Damn,” Ergen whispered.
A moment later the same trio of contrails erupted again as Oberon continued her fire mission. Even two kilometers away, Ergen felt the OmniMech’s heavy frame reverberate with the sheer noise of the rocket motors. They must be shaking the gigantic DropShip like a leaf.
Ergen wished he’d be there to see the result.
MOUNT SHANYU
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
18 MARCH 3149
The command center for Fortress Dieron was every bit as elaborate and powerful as the room Warlord Okamoto occupied in the Dragon’s Roost in the Tatsuyama Mountains. At a map table identical to the Warlord’s, Tai-sho Johann Gonzalez stood looking at the icons showing the Republic forces surrounding his fortress.
He grunted. This was a scenario his troops trained for all the time.
“Tai-sho, lookouts report the Republic forces are marshaling,” called an officer from the plotting group.
Gonzalez waited until the map table updated. It looked like most of a ’Mech regiment getting ready to advance.
“They can’t think this is going to work,” said Chu-sa Ikigawa, his tactical action officer. Ikigawa controlled Fortress Dieron’s vast weapons emplacements. “Not just one regiment.”
Gonzalez grunted again. He was a man of few words. Instead of speaking, he just looked at Ikigawa and nodded.
Ikigawa turned away, back to his own section. “Let’s get their reception warmed up,” he ordered. “Activate the minefields. Unmask the first-rank batteries. And tell the artillery weapons-free, tube only.”
Teams sprang into action.
Any fortress could be overwhelmed. Gonzalez knew that. It had been true of warfare since long before mankind left Terra. But a modern fortress exacted a terrible toll on its attacker. A toll in men and machines few were willing to pay.
Turning away from the map table, he retreated to his office. It was Ikigawa’s fight now.
Gonzalez needed to be ready for the next phase. Several junior officers, his aides, were already waiting in the office for him.
“Warn the Second Dieron Regulars,” he told them. “The attack is coming.”
A dull boom echoed through the rock of the walls. Dust, jostled loose, flickered in the actinic lights. Several of the aides looked up at the ceiling as two more booms echoed an instant later.
“In case they didn’t hear that,” Gonzalez said.
Liz Getty actually flinched when three bright boils of light erupted against the mountainside. The explosions strobed for an instant, highlighting the rock face. A couple seconds later the dull, reverberating booms echoed across the plain.
“I think that’s the signal,” she sent. “Let’s go.”
She pushed the Lament’s throttle forward. Behind her, the rest of Bravo Company advanced with her, and sensors told her Alpha and Charlie companies were advancing on their flanks. An observer in the mountain would see a battalion-front of the Tenth Hastati moving toward them. It would make for an imposing sight.
She certainly wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.
“Energy weapons only,” she called. “Fire at will.”
Double-clicks broke squelch to confirm.
Getty laid her crosshairs across the black shape of the mountain and squeezed the trigger. Her heavy PPC thrummed and fired, brilliant blue-white in the predawn darkness. She didn’t see where she hit—it was far too far away, kilometers too far—but knew she had caused one of the pinpricks of light spreading across the base of the mountain.
BattleMech warfare was fought at ranges an earlier warfighter would have called ridiculous. Energy weapons like lasers and her PPCs had theoretically no range limit—missed laser shots into the sky just kept going, assuming the bolt didn’t degrade too far in the kilometers and kilometers of atmosphere. But the realities of targeting and control meant no one could really hit anything ’Mech-sized or smaller beyond a little less than a kilometer.
’Mech-sized or smaller.
A mountain could be struck from anywhere in line of sight. It was as easy as shooting the wall, if you didn’t care where on the wall you struck.
Besides, she told herself as her capacitors cycled, we’re only a distraction anyway.
Ahead of her, three more gigantic explosions lit the night as Oberon’s cruise missiles arrived.
Then a new series of flashes lit the mountain, in strings and clusters all across its face.
Getty’s skin went cold. She recognized that fire.
“Artillery incoming,” she told her company.
Sometimes the wall shoots back.
Nadine watched the cruise missiles strike and the Hastati begin their advance. It was an impressive sight, even from behind it all. She watched for a few minutes, until the first Snake artillery stonk screamed down among the Hastati ’Mechs. Then she toggled another key on her communicator.
“Air ops. Go.”
Another trio of cruise missiles struck. Enough fire had hit the mountain that much of the facing side was on fire. The light flickered across the landscape. In the distance, the first precursor of dawn lit the horizon.
What that must sound like inside, she thought.
Then she chuckled and climbed into her armor.
Behind her, a hover APC spun up its fans.
Tanaka stood along the wall of the repair bay the Red Ring Stalkers were assigned to, looking at the tactical repeater display along with his chu-is and Kashira Sakura. The display was fuzzy with distortion, and a spike of white jagged static rezzed across it whenever the mountain shook from whatever the hell was hitting it.
DropShips, it felt like.
“Hope they’re right about this place,” Chu-i Koto said.
“It’s a mountain,” Emilia Jonas told him. “Relax.”
“It doesn’t help feeling penned up in here while someone else does the fighting,” Tanaka said to the whole group. If he was feeling it, he was sure they were feeling the same. Voicing it didn’t make it any less true. He hoped it would at least help them feel less alone with their fear.
It helped him feel that way.
But you’re probably lying to yourself, his mother’s voice put in.
From the look of the tactical screen, the Rep regiments outside were starting to move. When he put his hand on the wall, Tanaka could feel the slam of friendly artillery firing at them. And he’d seen the approaches to the Fortress once, on a tour.
Kilometers of minefields and fixed pillboxes. Bunkers. Big anti-’Mech turrets at the base of the mountain, quad ER PPC turrets and worse. Spotter hides for target acquisition gear–equipped specialist infantry to spot for gigantic Arrow IV missile artillery launchers.
“Let them come through all that,” Tanaka whispered.
“Sir?” Sakura asked.
“I said let them come through that,” he said, loud enough for all his officers to hear. “Let them wear themselves down with the fixed defenses. Then we’ll sally and crush them.”
“If they’re stupid enough to do that,” Sakura said.
Koto gestured at the screen. “Look at them, Kashira. What else could they be doing?”
New icons appeared on the display. Tanaka leaned in closer, squinting, but Jonas read it first.
“Oh good,” she said. “Rep air is here.”
Liz Getty squeezed her controls as a nearby artillery shell burst. The compression wave shoved her ’Mech, all 65 tons of it, two steps to her left. No damage was done, but the shells were getting closer. Or at least it seemed that way. The Lament staggered back into the line of advance with the rest of Bravo.
They were being adjusted.
Or Bravo Company’s luck was running out.
Getty shook off the thought and triggered her heavy PPC at the mountain again. It was her job—Bravo Company’s job—to be a distraction. It didn’t matter whether the PPC was hitting anything as long as it hit the mountain.
Sometimes something as harmless as the rain was enough to ruin someone’s concentration.
It was affecting hers.
This felt useless.
And she knew from briefings there were mines up ahead. She didn’t want to walk her company into that for a distraction.
Her radio crackled. “Bravo Six, Halberd.”
Getty frowned. Halberd was Major Benton, First Battalion’s commander.
“Bravo Six,” she sent.
“Bravo—” the transmission was interrupted. The Lament lurched again, not this time from a nearby explosion, but because a solid wall of sound assaulted the ’Mech’s frame. The Lament shook in the wash as dozens of aerospace fighters, some as low as 100 meters above the ground, flickered past above her. The fighters were large and fast enough to cause a whirlwind.
“Halberd, say again,” Getty sent as soon as the roar died down. Even through her cockpit armor, even with the neurohelmet’s active sound cancelling, the low-frequency rumble covered everything.
“I say again, RTB, over.”
Getty frowned. “Repeat your last, Halberd?”
“RTB, Bravo. Take your company back to San Martin. Report to First Army Headquarters.”
“Uh…”
“You say ‘roger’ here, Bravo.”
“Roger, sir. Out.”
She drew the Lament’s throttles back, slowing the heavy machine. She toggled the company-wide channel. “Bravo Company, new orders. RTB San Martin. Lance commanders acknowledge.”
“Liz?” Master Sergeant Kline asked.
“I have no idea,” she told him.
About sixty meters ahead of her a trio of artillery shells exploded, close enough together that if she’d continued her pace, they’d have bracketed her ’Mech and done real damage. She turned the Lament and pushed the throttle forward.
“Come on, Bravos,” she told everyone. “This is no place to stand around.”
Behind her, in the compressed view her HUD gave her, she saw the leading edges of the fighter advance erupt in fire and explosions as they reached the anti-air envelope of the mountain.
“Good luck,” she whispered.
The sun broke the horizon a moment later.
10
ABOVE MOUNT SHANYU
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
18 MARCH 3149
Master Sergeant Madeline Eve hated flying. She hated the dark. She hated feeling helpless. She hated feeling trapped. And being strapped into the battle-armor compartment of a Troika aerospace fighter arrowing toward a monster Combine fortress was all of those things.
She hated it.
Eve closed her eyes and prayed a sub-capital laser would wipe the fighter carrying her squad out of the sky. That at least would be fast. And it meant that she wouldn’t have to experience—
—the compartment clamshelled open and pistons drove her armor out of the compartment and toward the ground—
—wouldn’t have to experience falling toward the ground during a major battle.
She also hated falling.
Luckily, it didn’t last long. She barely had time to swing her armor’s legs toward the ground and crush the jump jet activation stud before deceleration threatened to drag all the blood from her head. She struck the ground with a jarring impact and rolled, trying to shed the inertia. She came to a halt and rolled to one knee, extended-range small laser pointed.
Despite the armor, everything hurt. Armor, myomers, and padding did nothing for inertia.
“Loki’s balls, that sucked,” she muttered. She swore then and there that if she made it through this, she’d go straight to the hall of the gods and sacrifice to every one, Odin on down, if she never had to do that again.
Just like last time.
The other three suits of her squad were already up and bounding toward her. She could barely see the Purifier battlesuits through their adaptive camouflage. The sun had just cracked the dawn, so most of the light was fires.
“We where we’re supposed to be?” Sergeant McCann asked.
“You see the landmarks?” she demanded.
“I think…yeah, over there,” Sergeant Simmons said. He pointed with his own laser. “See the rocks and the trees?”
“Yeah, I been here before,” McCann said.
“Nice job, airedales,” the final member of the squad, Sergeant Fletcher, put in. “I expected to have to hump half the mountain.”
Eve grinned inside her helmet and blinked for a comm preset. Once it scrolled into view, she blinked to send the preset message to indicate Four-seven squad was down and on-target. Then she made the move signal and started toward the landmark.
McCann was right. They had been there before.
Four-seven was one of the squads who’d broken the Wall before the main attack on intelligence-gathering raids. She’d been to Dieron twice in the last three years, both times crawling across the face of Mount Shanyu. The first time their cover had been tourists from deeper inside the Combine. The second time had been covert, in armor, to test the work of the previous visit.
It had worked.
And it looked like this one was working, too.
A few seconds later she knelt at the base of a giant widdlebark tree, back to the trunk, weapons trained out. They were high on the mountain, above the primary artillery ring, and far above where the random fire from the Tenth Hastati Sentinels was landing.
“Yeah, it’s right…” Simmons muttered, loud enough to activate his comm, and then her Purifier’s sensors passed the sound of a clank and a hiss as a hatch unsealed. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw what had looked like a giant stone rising on unseen hinges to reveal an interior stairway. McCann and Fletcher knelt, lasers presented, while Simmons worked.
Another flight of aerospace fighters screamed overhead, but this time they were just ground-attack birds. No more suits of powered armor falling from the sky.
Yet.
“We’re in,” Simmons finally said.
“Go,” Eve told them.
One by one, they stepped off the ledge to land in myomer-assisted crouches. McCann touched a control and the rock swung closed above them.
In the darkness, her hatred forgotten, Madeline Eve grinned.
She and the Four-seven were inside Fortress Dieron.
And the hatch she was looking at still had a Republic of the Sphere insignia painted on it.
Which meant they were in clean.
Tai-sho Gonzalez stared at the display and tried to make sense of the Republic actions. From the outside, he was sure it looked impressive. Cruise missiles arriving in waves from out-theater to blast near-nuclear-sized chunks of the mountain away. ’Mechs firing randomly, setting much of one face of the mountain on fire. Aerospace fighters dropping bomb after bomb. It would be a sight straight out of a holovid, with his defensive batteries pounding out fire as fast as they could cycle.
