BattleTech Legends: The Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, page 106
9 MAY 3052 (DAY 9 OF OPERATION SCORPION)
Assuming the stature of Atlas in his artificial world, the Precentor Martial stood in the Dinju Mountains and watched the Smoke Jaguars retreat. As the battle had evolved over the first eight days of the war, Focht realized the Smoke Jaguars had never correctly identified the Second Army as reinforcements for the Fifth Army division that had originally held the mountains. As a result, the Clan had expended incredible amounts of ammunition to eliminate what they believed were the last of the defenders. When the second half of the Fifth Army, fresh from killing the First Jaguar Cavaliers, came up from the Racice Delta to trap the Jaguars in the mountains, the end was in sight.
Focht smiled as he watched the Clansmen retreat and allowed himself to take some pride in the victory. The invasion’s original ilKhan, Leo Showers of the Smoke Jaguars, had been a particular annoyance in Focht’s mission to the Clans. It had also been the Smoke Jaguars who had laid waste to the city of Edo to suppress a rebellion on Turtle Bay. That they had been crushed made him feel happy.
Be careful, Anastasius. Do not believe you or your people are invincible. Even as he cautioned himself, he did acknowledge that his analysis of the Clans and their tactics had given him an advantage. His people had exploited that advantage, and turned it into a victory in the Dinju Mountains. The same outcome looked certain for the Prezno Plain, Hladno Springs, and even the Kozice Valley. If things did work out, that would give him victory over four of the Clans.
Still, that will not win you the war. Focht reached his right hand up and brought the viewing halo down. He selected the window that opened onto the Brzo theatre. As it expanded to replace the mountainscape far to the southeast, Focht opened a radio line to Hettig.
“Yes, Precentor Martial?”
“Any reports of activity by the Wolves, Mr. Hettig?”
“Checking, sir.”
Brzo, a fairly large agrocomplex, looked to the Precentor Martial much like a concrete disk sitting at the hub of a golden circle. Beyond it, the Pozoristu Mountains clawed at the sky with snow-sheathed fingers. In and around Brzo, he saw evidence of a few skirmishes, but no active fighting.
“Precentor Martial, it appears the Wolves are resupplying and waiting to head into the mountains. With the exception of the Wolf Spiders, all Wolf units appear willing to accept your invitation to fight in the mountains. Our Eleventh Army has already taken up defensive positions and are reported to be in good supply. The Ninth and Tenth Army fragments are likewise pulling back, though the 282nd is continuing to be harassed by the Wolf Spiders.”
Focht sighed heavily. “Have Precentor Wollam withdraw the 282nd and get them into the mountains.”
“He says he is trying to do that, and will accomplish it as soon as he can figure out where the Wolf Spiders are waiting for him.”
“With Natasha Kerensky leading them, that could be impossible.” He shook his head. “Have our scouts pinpoint all Wolf Clan supply bases on the plains below the mountains and target them for raids. If one appears to be near the 282nd, you can send Wollam after it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stroking his chin, Focht suddenly realized he’d picked up the mannerism from ilKhan Ulric. So what are you thinking, Ulric? Why are you accepting my choice of battlefield here in the mountains? Is it just to get my people out of the positions we have prepared and to stretch out supply lines as yours are stretched, or have you seen something I have not seen?
Phelan dropped his Wolfhound into a squat as three electric-blue PPC beams shot over his head. “Ax Star, pull back. We’ve got armor up ahead.” He flipped his radio over to ClusterTac. “Natasha, I’ve got armor holding the Bloody Basin Pass. Download coming.”
With the push of a button, Phelan started a datafeed to Natasha Kerensky in her Dire Wolf. Even with the brief glimpse of the forces opposing him, the computer had sorted out all the sensor data and provided a simple breakdown of the forces it had detected. “Looks like ComStar really wants to hold this pass.”
The computer reported that he faced a trio of Burke heavy tanks, two Fury heavies, and a single Rhino. The Burke sported a trio of PPCs in its turrets and an LRM launcher built into the front of the tracked vehicle. Though the Furies could kick out the most damage in one assault, they worried Phelan more because of their incredibly hard armor. Furies were known for slugging it out with ’Mechs, and his Wolfhound could not hold up to that kind of pounding.
The Rhino was a heavily armored rocket-launcher with a couple of medium lasers to keep ’Mechs honest if the fighting got close. It was faster than the Burke, but couldn’t match the Furies’ pace if the unit was forced to move quickly. This, along with the fact that they had dug in, gave Phelan some ease of mind because it meant the tanks wouldn’t be rushing out toward his Star.
“Natasha, the tanks are dug in. Is Quarrel flight still available?”
“Ax One, please be advised that we are pushing the Com Guards around to your position. I suggest you move the armor and appropriate their fortifications. This is where you earn your pay, Phelan.”
“Roger, Black Widow.” Phelan knew his ’Mechs should be able to dislodge the armor, but its being dug in made the nut just that much harder to crack. “Do I have air?”
Carew’s voice cut in on the frequency. “ETA thirty seconds, Ax Star. Be ready to act then.”
“Roger, Quarrel One. We’ll take the pass.” Quickly he switched back to his own tactical frequency. “Heads up. We have an airstrike coming in. Thea and Ace, you’ll jump your ’Mechs in. Concentrate on the Rhino. It is a tough target, but they are known to explode if you hit them hard enough. The rest of us will hit the first Burke. The Furies have run speed, and they will if we give them the chance.”
“Roger, Star Commander. On the strike.”
Carew keyed his radio over to his wingman. “Cover me while I run in, Virgil, then I will cover you. ComStar has some other ships up, but I have nothing on my screen.”
“Roger, Carew.”
The Clan pilot switched his HUD to ground mode and kicked his Visigoth over into a steep, wide bank. His computer showed him the location of Phelan’s Star and the reported position of the ComStar armor. He set a course that connected the two lines, then dove the Visigoth until he screamed in at 650 knots only 500 meters above the ground.
For a millisecond, the ComStar armor flashed as viable targets on his HUD, but his finger hit the trigger buttons while they still remained on holograph. The PPC and twin medium lasers mounted in his nose backlit his canopy with a reddish-purple glow. Two flights of LRMs streaked out from the wing-mounted launchers and actually dropped his speed by 40 knots.
As the heat spiked in his cockpit, he hauled back on his stick and pointed the Visigoth into the sky. With a flip to the left, he spun the aerospace fighter into a barrel roll that took him out along a course at right angles to his strafing run. As he righted himself again, he switched his HUD over to air-to-air mode and saw Virgil begin his run.
Warning klaxons started going off in Carew’s cockpit. Instantly he spotted the fast-approaching pair of ComStar fighters. His computer immediately identified them as Rapiers, which meant he and Virgil were in for a nasty dogfight. “Break off, Virgil, we have company.”
Explosions still ringing in his ears, Acolyte R. G. Flute tightened the restraining strap holding him in the turret gunner’s seat of the Rhino. “Dammit, that run melted armor and it’s congealed in my turret drive. Anderson, get us ready to move, because we’re only going to be able to shoot at what you point us at.”
“No can do, Acolyte. I’ve got a damaged track. We’re not going anywhere.”
“Agree, Fury One is untouched, but Fury Two has a turret lock. Burke One is in the same shape we are, Burke Two lost armor, and Burke Three lost its missiles and one of the PPCs.” The radioman craned his neck back and peered up into the turret past Flute’s feet. “They want to know what to do.”
“Fight! What else is there to do here? Peace of Blake be with you, boys,” the Acolyte intoned solemnly. “Here they come.”
Phelan had his Wolfhound up and cruising in toward the gap as Virgil swooped in toward the pass. The second Visigoth let go with his PPC and lasers, but broke off in mid-run. The MechWarrior knew of only one thing that could possibly make a fighter stop a strafing run. That was the arrival of enemy fighters, and with memories of his bloodfight against Glynis flashing at the back of his mind, he did not want ComStar to return the favor of a strafing run on his ’Mechs.
Sprinting into the pass, Phelan saw how much damage Quarrel Flight had done to the tanks, and whispered a prayer to help Carew and Virgil in their battle with the ComStar fighters. Everything save one of the Furies looked as if it had been attacked with a blowtorch. Fire-blackened armor crisscrossed with laser and PPC scars covered the turrets and front ends of the vehicles. None had been destroyed by the run, but five of six had been softened up.
I hope that’s enough.
Up over him soared the Summoner and Viper. Thea’s Summoner sent two flights of LRMs streaking down at the Rhino. Over half of them impacted the ground in front of the hulking vehicle, but the remaining missiles further savaged the armor on the tank’s nose.
The Rhino’s gunner tracked the missile pods up and sent a full forty missiles back at the Summoner. His hurried aim and difficulty following the flight meant only a quarter of them hit their target. Explosions fragmented armor on the Summoner’s left arm and left leg. Nothing got through the armor, but any damage on ’Mechs so lightly armored hurt significantly, especially with the Furies and Burkes still operational.
Ace piloted his Viper with such skill that Phelan thought it could as easily have been a giant alien lifeform rather than a BattleMech. The squat juggernaut stabbed its left-arm PPC at the Rhino and sent a sizzling beam into the vehicle’s front armor. The beam of a medium pulse laser, mounted on the underside of the ’Mech’s right forearm joined the larger light shaft and punched through.
A single flash spit fire back out through the front of the craft, then a fireball ripped it apart from inside. Like an escape pod, the turret jetted straight up into the air. Before it reached the apex of its arc, the missiles in the starboard launcher cooked off and imparted a backward spin to the turret. It slammed into the mountainside, then tumbled back out of sight.
Somewhere beyond that something else exploded, but Phelan had no time to figure out what it was. He dodged to the left as one of the Burkes tried to impale him with a pair of azure PPC beams. They shot wide, but his evasive maneuver spoiled his aim against the damaged Fury. His large laser beam and two of the medium pulse laser beams chewed up the dirt in front of the the tank. Only one of the beams hit, and it just blistered off more front armor.
Initiate Elza Speer hauled back on both drive controls for the damaged Fury. On the holographic display surrounding her, she saw the golden crosshairs hanging in the center. Letting the left control slip forward for a second, she brought the cross to bear on the Wolfhound leading the charge.
“I lined him up for you, Perry. Bring him down.”
The Fury’s Gauss rifle pulsed out a silvery ball that caught the Wolfhound just below its right knee. Grinner half-stumbled in that direction, but Phelan fought gravity and kept the machine upright. Stravag! One more hit like that and I lose this leg. “Let’s shut these Furies down.”
The Clan Nova looked to Phelan like nothing so much as a large, aerodynamic toad bred for combat. The cylindrical autocannon that made up its right arm sent a stream of slugs tracing a straight line through the dirt up to the undamaged Fury, but never actually hit it. The Nova’s LRM swarm overshot the autocannon shells and wreathed the Fury’s turret with fire.
Apparently that attack did not impress the Fury’s crew. The turret swung around with ease and sent a Gauss rifle ball out to shatter the armor on the Nova’s left leg. Though the ’Mech had more armor than Phelan’s Wolfhound, the pilot realized that another shot in that leg from any of the weapons left operational would strip the leg down to bare bones and practically doom the Nova.
Dimitria’s Ice Ferret had drifted to the far left side of the formation. Its autocannon missed the targeted Burke, and the flight of LRMs she launched went dead-in, but exploded in the dirt. Only the medium laser from the Ice Ferret’s chest actually struck the target, doing no more than cause some armor to ooze away.
The Burke returned better than it got. Though one of its three PPCs missed high, the other two bracketed the Ice Ferret with electric fire. The beams stripped armor off each arm in equal proportions, leaving the Ice Ferret’s head and shoulders shrouded in armor vapor. Another Burke tried to add to the Ice Ferret’s misery, but its attacks missed.
Phelan shivered. This is harder going than I imagined. Please, God, let Carew keep the buzzards off us.
Carew pulled his fighter up and over through a split-S that brought him in above and behind where the Rapiers were setting up on Virgil. He rejoiced in the advantage that gave him, but the fact that they had position on Virgil filled him with dread. “Virg, you have two. Break right!”
Virgil’s Visigoth started its sharp right turn, but the lead Rapier hung with him and actually turned tighter than he did. With its twin, forward-jutting fangs and paired tails, the slender-winged fighter looked not nearly as menacing as Virgil’s compact craft. But it sailed in with the grace of a raptor, then opened up with the autocannon mounted in its nose.
Virgil’s maneuver brought his ship up into the stream of shells. They peppered the sleek craft’s fuselage, stripping away sheets of armor that followed the Visigoth like a glittering rain. A PPC beam sliced off more armor, then LRMs arrowed out from the Rapier and skewered the damaged craft. With a flash and puff of black smoke, the Visigoth began to break apart in mid-air.
Virgil’s icon vanished from Carew’s holographic battle-scape and the lead Rapier cut up and toward the sky as his outline burned white on the infrared scale. Whipping the Visigoth into a right spiral, the Wolf Clan pilot brought it out of its spin and watched the Rapier’s wingman follow the leader right into his sights.
Both medium lasers raked claws through the armor over the single aft thruster, and half the missiles Carew launched similarly blasted away shards of ferro-ceramics. Other missiles corkscrewed into the fuselage and left wing, shattering armor and denting the Rapier’s aerodynamic profile.
The damaged Rapier dropped its left wing and started to pull around in a tight circle while his wingman continued to pull up and to the right. If I go after you, wounded duckling, your mate will pounce on me. No! Carew refused the gambit and pulled his ship up to the right. We play this game by my rules.
As he expected, the wounded aerofighter leveled out when the Visigoth declined to chase him. Carew kept the crosshairs on target and triggered the two aft-arc medium lasers the Visigoth carried. One burned away more armor from the engine while the other further clipped the Rapier’s left wing.
Carew smiled involuntarily as the fighter in front of him pulled a tight series of twists. Yes, you know how to fight better than your wingman. It will come down to the two of us, but I owe you for Virgil. His teeth clenched, Carew pushed down on the thruster pedals and brought the Visigoth around to again join the battle.
On the ground, Phelan glanced at his auxiliary monitor, and learned that the distant explosion must have been from the crash of one of the two fighters. I hope to God it’s not Carew! Then he noticed that two Rapiers and one Visigoth still fought in the skies above him and he truly did not know if he wished Carew already dead or about to die in the battle with two enemies overhead.
The ground war gave him no time for any thoughts beyond that. Lee’s Nova drifted across in front of him, eclipsing his view of the Fury that had hit him before. The Nova poured both autocannon and LRM fire into the Fury, chipping away at yet more of the front armor. In return, the Fury backed up and jerked to the right, then delivered a shot with the Gauss rifle that opened a great rent in the Nova’s center torso armor.
Phelan brought Grinner to the right to complete a crossing pattern with the Nova. Sprinting forward, he flanked one of the Burkes. He opened up with all his weapons, but the large laser that replaced his ’Mech’s right hand missed high. The trio of pulse lasers stitched back and forth across the Burke’s left side. They reduced all its armor to molten slag that dripped thickly from the shredded tread on that side.
Because its turret was locked in the forward position, the Burke could not bring its gun to bear on Grinner. Unable to move and with its gun locked in one position, the Burke was as good as out of the fight. Phelan hoped its crew realized it, too, because he had no desire to kill them if it wasn’t necessary.
Ace’s Viper touched down in front of the Fury the strafing had left untouched. The ’Mech’s PPC fused armor plates on the Fury’s nose into a molten lump, then its medium laser chipped away at the armor left behind. The Fury brought its gun around and pounded a silver ball into the Viper’s chest, half-slewing it around to the left.
Dimitria’s Ice Ferret brought its weapons to bear on another of the Burkes, but the tangle with the first Burke had shaken the pilot. The autocannon, medium laser, and LRMs all missed their target, while the Burke’s crew brought its PPCs around. Two blue bolts of man-made lightning blazed into the Ice Ferret. One carved armor from the center of the ’Mech’s chest. The second beam flayed the rest of the armor from the Ice Ferret’s left arm and started grinding away at the metal bones and myomer muscles inside.
The third Burke lashed out with two PPC beams at the Summoner. As with the Ice Ferret, the Summoner lost steaming shards of armor from its left arm and chest, but Thea weathered the storm without losing her weapons lock on the Burke. Two LRM flights shot out from the launchers and burst through the armor on the Burke’s nose.
