LE5760 - Ghost of Winter, page 5
Sturm took another look at his display. Holt’s Centurion was moving, but not to escape from the Clan ’Mechs. Although the Centurion was about as fast as the Panther, the lieutenant wasn’t following his two Mech Warriors. He was moving to cut off the invading ’Mechs and keep them from going after the rest of his lance. It was one medium Inner Sphere ’Mech against four vastly superior Clan ’Mechs. The lieutenant didn’t stand a chance. He had to know that.
He does know it, Sturm thought as he pushed the Thorn up to top speed again. He knows he can’t win, but he wants us to get away.
The young Mech Warrior glanced at the information his sensors were relaying. The Centurion was moving in an arc around the enemy ’Mechs, using evasive maneuvers to try and avoid their fire. Fire spat from Holt’s arm-mounted autocannon as a stream of heavy shells roared toward the enemy ’Mechs. Sturm saw as the fire stitched across the heavy armor of the Mad Cat, leaving pockmarks in its cerametallic skin, but otherwise causing no serious damage. The heavier ’Mech retaliated with four emerald lances of light from its blocky arms. The powerful lasers seared across the Centurion, melting and vaporizing armor plating, searing artificial muscles and internal structure.
Lieutenant Holt barely even slowed down. He let loose with everything his ’Mech had. The autocannon spat again, concentrating a stream of fire at the lead ’Mech, while Holt’s torso-mounted laser returned a red beam of coherent light at the larger ’Mech’s shoulder, aiming for the missile pod mounted there. The beam burned and scored armor, but didn’t damage the missile rack, as far as Sturm could tell. The Centurion sent a flight of LRMs arcing toward the Mad Cat, but Holt was too close for the unguided munitions to be very accurate. They overshot their target to explode uselessly against the ferrocrete. Sturm thought one or two of the LRMs might have hit the DropShip, but he doubted that a couple of missiles could have done more than dent the Tammuz’s heavy armor plating.
Holt was going all out, moving rapidly and firing all the Centurion’s weapons at once. The heat in his cockpit would be nearly intolerable by now. Sturm himself was covered in a light sheen of sweat from pushing his ’Mech’s speed, but he knew that was nothing compared to the oven the Centurion had to be. Even the superior heat-dissipating properties of Kore’s frigid environment wouldn’t be enough to reduce the ’Mech’s heat buildup.
"Volker, we’re gonna have company," Sturm said as he watched the monitors.
"I see them," Volker responded.
Two of the other Clan ’Mechs were breaking off from the fight and heading toward them. There was no way Holt could contain them; he had his hands full against the Mad Cat. Sturm ID’d them as the Puma and the Uller. Both were low-slung, crab-like designs, well-suited to the rough terrain and slippery ground. They were starting to move at a pretty fair clip, despite the heavy layer of snow. Sturm glanced at his own readings; he was at top speed now, moving at over ninety kilometers per hour. Volker’s Panther was lagging behind. The larger ’Mech’s top speed was only about sixty-five kph at best, and Volker seemed to be having more trouble with the terrain than Sturm. The enemy ’Mechs were gaining fast.
The commline crackled in Sturm’s ear, and he could hear Lieutenant Holt’s voice, as if from far away.
"Volker, Kintaro, it’s up to you. Try to send for help. Signal the company. They’re not—" The signal was cut off in a burst of hard static. Sturm looked at his heads-up display at the battle going on at the landing pad, now falling away in the distance. He could make out the Centurion, still moving, although its comm system must have been damaged. It was hemmed in, cornered near the DropShip by the Mad Cat and another Clan ’Mech, a Fenris. The Centurion showed up on the infrared scans like a small nova, its heat levels surely near critical, and there were indications its reactor was damaged. The ’Mech let loose at its tormentors with everything it had, but the two Clan ’Mechs were already closing in for the kill.
What are you doing, Lieutenant? Sturm thought. Eject! It was obvious Holt wasn’t going to be able to win the fight. It was over. If the lieutenant ejected from his ’Mech, he might just be taken prisoner. Why the hell didn’t he bail out?
The Mad Cat closed in like some kind of monstrous animal and swung one of its heavy arms like a club, striking the Centurion a mighty blow and sending it toppling over on its side.
C’mon, Lieutenant, Sturm thought, get out of there, get out of there before…
Standing over the fallen ’Mech, the Mad Cat leveled its arms toward it. A hellish green light flared, and the Centurion’s upper body was slagged by the tremendous heat of the powerful lasers. Sturm double-checked, thinking maybe Lieutenant Holt had bailed out before… no. There was no way. The commander’s ’Mech was totaled and no one could have survived the damage. Lieutenant Holt was dead. For just a moment Sturm wondered if that was how his mother had died, sacrificing herself to give the warriors of her command a precious few more seconds.
Sturm also saw the two other Clan ’Mechs still closing in. He read their speed at nearly equal his own, much faster than Volker’s Panther. There was no way Volker could outrun them. He had a head start, but the Clan ’Mechs would overtake him.
Suddenly, an indicator flared on Sturm’s monitors as the Puma opened fire on the Panther. With incredible accuracy, the Clan ’Mech’s twin PPCs sent blue-white bolts of energy slamming into the Panther’s back, where its armor was weakest, shearing off both left and right torsos with savage fury. The ’Mech’s internal gyroscope fought to maintain its balance, but the blast caused Volker’s Panther to lose its traction on the slippery ground and the devastating loss of so much structural weight threw the ’Mech completely off balance.
Sturm started to slow his Thorn and turn back. Volker was a sitting duck. His rear armor must have been vaporized by the blast, and the enemy ’Mechs were closing in on him fast. There was no way he could survive unless…
"Don’t be stupid, kid." Volker’s voice came over the commline, almost like he was reading Sturm’s mind. "Keep going. Get out of here, while you still can!"
"I’m not going to leave you, too!" Sturm said.
"There’s nothing you can do! Listen, I’m giving you an order, mister. Get the hell out of here. If you can, find some way to contact the ’Riders. Get some help. I can take care of myself!"
Sturm hesitated. The Clan ’Mechs would be on top of Volker any second. He might be able to help hold them off, help Volker to get clear, but the Clan ’Mechs were about as fast as the Thorn. Unless he could seriously damage them, it was highly unlikely either of them would escape if Sturm slowed down to the Panther’s top speed, especially if that PPC blast had damaged any of the Panther’s internal systems. If he went back to help Volker, it was far more likely they would both end up dead or captured.
"Only an idiot stays and fights when he knows he can’t win," Krenner had said. "A MechWarrior is also expected to know when he can serve himself and his unit better by retreating."
Sturm recalled the sergeant’s words to him earlier that morning and forced himself to fight down his desire to go back and help Volker, to throw everything he had at the invaders who killed his lieutenant and his fellow MechWarrior. Volker was right: Sturm couldn’t do any good against those Clan ’Mechs but, if he escaped, he might somehow be able to warn the rest of the company about what was happening on Kore. As long as Sturm stayed free, there was a chance.
"Good luck, Volker," he said into his helmet mike as he turned the Thorn toward the mountains and pushed it as fast as it would go. He heard Volker answer him as the Panther rapidly fell away behind him.
"You, too, kid. Good luck." The Clan ’Mechs slowed as they approached the fallen Panther. Volker didn’t even try to right his ’Mech as they trained their weapons on him. There was nothing he could offer except a meaningless act of defiance.
Sturm turned away from the scene and focused his attention on the dark peaks of the Jotun Mountains rising in the distance, offering the hope of sanctuary, for a while at least. He had to reach the mountains, and he had to find some way to send out a call for help.
He was on his own.
7
Jotun Mountains
Kore
The Periphery
11 April 3060
It seemed to take hours for Sturm’s Thorn to cover the twenty or so kilometers to the Jotun Mountains, even though he actually made the distance in less than twenty minutes at top speed. By the time the high mountain peaks loomed overhead, Sturm was starting to feel the initial adrenaline surge from the battle at the landing pad—if such a slaughter could be called a battle—beginning to wear off. He was covered in sweat from the heat in the cockpit, and the Thorn’s armor had suffered some minor damage from a near PPC hit during his flight.
Sturm checked his display. His pursuer was still there, following only a few kilometers behind now. Both pursuing Clan ’Mechs had stopped to assess Volker’s situation when his damaged Panther fell onto the snowy tundra. The Uller apparently remained behind to finish Volker off or to capture him, Sturm didn’t know which. Meanwhile, the Puma resumed chasing Sturm’s Thorn.
The Clan ’Mech was just as fast, even though it outweighed the Thorn by a good fifteen tons. It mounted an extended-range PPC on each arm, and it was damned accurate with them. Sturm probably would have reached the mountains sooner but for the need to follow a zigzagging course across the tundra, attempting to avoid incoming fire from the enemy ’Mech. Sturm remembered learning that Pumas usually carried advanced Clan targeting systems, making their weapons more accurate than the manually targeted weapons of most Inner Sphere ’Mechs. It was little wonder the Puma had been able to hit Volker’s Panther in the back while going full tilt.
Fortunately, Sturm was able to stay at the extreme edge of the PPC’s range, making it more difficult for the Puma to tag him. Still, he’d suffered some minor damage to his armor already, and his left-rear torso was entirely gone from a glancing shot. Sturm was only grateful that the shot hadn’t hit the missile launcher mounted in his right side. Had a PPC beam cut through his armor there it might have detonated his remaining missile ammo, finishing him for sure.
To Sturm’s advantage, the Puma’s PPCs seemed to generate a lot of waste heat, which sometimes forced the ’Mech to slow its pursuit a bit until its heat sinks could compensate. Sturm maintained a steady lead all the way to the mountains. He was also more experienced than the Clan pilot at handling his ’Mech over the snow-covered terrain, having logged hundreds of hours of simulator time and plenty of field experience. The Puma pilot occasionally slipped or faltered, although never enough to seriously damage his ’Mech or slow him down sufficiently for Sturm to escape. Out on the open tundra of Kore there were very few places a ’Mech could hide. Sturm knew of a few: crevasses and canyons covered with layers of snow, but he never gained enough distance to make use of them without the Puma spotting him.
He tried to lure the other ’Mech into one of the larger crevasses, running toward it at full speed, then dodging around it. That didn’t fool the Puma pilot, who simply followed Sturm’s course. Had the Thorn been equipped with jump jets, he might have been able to pull it off, but his ’Mech wasn’t jump-capable. Sturm was just grateful the Puma wasn’t either.
I’ve got to find some way to shake him, he thought for maybe the hundredth time. He keyed open the commline.
"C&C, this is Kintaro. Do you read? C&C, come in. This is Kintaro, under attack by enemy ’Mechs showing Clan Jade Falcon colors. Repeat, under attack. Do you copy?"
Nothing but static came in response. Sturm had been trying constantly to raise someone in Command and Control, but with no success. Either C&C was being jammed by the Clan invaders, or it had already fallen and the only people around to listen to his calls for help were the enemy. In either case, Sturm couldn’t expect any help from the Lancers’ ground forces and he definitely couldn’t expect any help from his fellow MechWarriors. He was on his own.
He needed breathing room, a chance to hide out somewhere, take stock of his resources, and come up with some kind of a plan. To do that, he needed to deal with the Puma. The other ’Mech outclassed Sturm’s Thorn. There was practically no way he’d be able to take the heavier Clan ’Mech in a straight-out fight. He had to use his other advantages against the Clan machine. The Puma might have the edge in armor and armament, but Sturm knew the terrain. The trick with the crevasse didn’t work, but maybe something else would.
Sturm angled the Thorn toward Giant’s Pass, as he himself had named it. His father had sent him through that pass into the mountains several times in the past few months to gather geological data. The pass was just wide enough to allow something as massive as a BattleMech through it, and Sturm had mapped the whole area and maneuvered through several times, so he knew the best route to take. The satellite and computer maps of the pass were still loaded in the Thorn’s computer systems, in fact, since the survey wasn’t yet complete. Sturm had figured he’d be visiting the pass again, although he’d never expected it would be with an enemy ’Mech close on his tail.
Kore had a lot of metallic ores and deposits, which made it attractive to the mining corporation. Those same metallic ores were found in abundance in the mountains. Dr. Kintaro speculated that they were responsible for some of the unusual magnetic flux readings Sturm had picked up in his surveys. Additionally, the Jotun range was still volcanically active to some degree; geysers and hot steam vents were common. The combination of the powerful magnetic fields and the extremes of heat and cold played merry hell with a ’Mech’s sensors. Sturm knew that. If he could make it through the pass, there was a chance he might be able to confuse his pursuer and throw him off the trail.
Sturm entered the pass and moved as quickly as he dared between the looming black cliffs above. The floor of the pass was worn smooth by some ancient glacier, covered with scattered rocks and boulders that could become treacherous if stepped on the wrong way. Sturm once slipped on a mass of loose, icy rock and his ’Mech took a spill that damaged one of the arm actuators. Krenner had him pulling extra hours in the simulator in addition to helping the techs replace the actuator. Lieutenant Holt really chewed him out for that mistake.
Holt. Sturm couldn’t forget the sight of his commanding officer’s Centurion lying on the ferrocrete landing pad near the DropShip as the giant Mad Cat loomed over it. Lieutenant Holt had given Sturm the chance to become a Mech Warrior, accepted him as an apprentice with the Lancers, and given him the opportunity to fulfill his dream. He’d sacrificed himself so the men of his command could get away and have a chance. Sturm wanted to make sure that sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
The pass opened up into a mountain valley, a deep gash cut between the high mountain peaks overhead, filled with snow and ice and broken, barren stretches of gray rock. Small, twisted trees and ground-covering plants clung to the rocks wherever they could find purchase, and more foliage huddled near the steam vents, soaking in the moisture and the heat to sustain themselves. Checking his display, Sturm saw that he was out of the Puma’s sight for now, shielded by the rock of the mountains. He estimated that he had only a few minutes to put his plan into action before the Puma came through the pass.
He aimed his lasers at a steam vent on the far side of the valley he’d mapped out previously. Twin beams of ruby light speared out for a split-second, superheating the rock around the vent and sending powerful gouts of steam shooting upward.
He moved the Thorn over to the edge of a crevasse he’d also mapped out in the valley. It was about seven meters deep and filled to the top with snow, almost invisible to the naked eye, but his sensors were just barely able to make it out. Sturm had nearly stumbled into it before, but his earlier experience in the pass made him more wary of potential pitfalls. This time, however, he deliberately walked the Thorn out onto the crevasse, holding tightly to the controls and praying for the internal gyroscope to keep the ’Mech upright.
The packed snow was not nearly strong enough to support the weight of a twenty-ton BattleMech, and the Thorn sank rapidly. Sturm managed to keep the ’Mech upright as it slid down into the hard-packed snow until it stopped sinking. He crouched the Thorn down as much as possible, keeping its head just at the edge of the crevasse.
Painted in arctic camouflage, the Thorn practically disappeared against the frozen terrain. When the Puma came into the valley, its scanners would pick up all sorts of magnetic and temperature anomalies, any one of which could be a concealed BattleMech, while the metallic rock strata shielded the Thorn’s own signals.
Sturm quickly powered down all of the ’Mech’s non-essential systems to minimize its profile and shut down the heat sinks. The heat from the Thorn’s hull was already melting the snow around it, and Sturm knew he didn’t have long. The temperature in the cabin was hot from the long run to the mountain, and Sturm sat in the dimness, sweating and watching his displays for some sign of his opponent.
There he is, he thought as the Puma came through Giant’s Pass. The wide, low-slung Clan ’Mech was obviously having some trouble maneuvering through the pass, although not as much as Sturm had hoped. It stopped near the entrance to the valley and began to turn from side to side. It was scanning for him. Sturm held his breath as if that might help keep him hidden from the enemy ’Mech’s sensors. Time ticked by with painful slowness. If the Puma pilot discovered him and moved in for the kill, Sturm was in a lousy position to do anything about it. He just had to hope his enemy would take the bait.
The other ’Mech turned toward the steam vent. It was the most powerful heat source at the moment, and the aftereffects of Sturm’s lasers clearly showed. The geysering steam was creating a dense fog at the far end of the valley, an ideal place to hide something as large as a BattleMech. With a lurch, the Puma began stalking toward the mist.
That’s right, Sturm thought, keep going, just a little further. The Puma stepped into fog and was quickly lost from sight, becoming a faint shadow moving through the mist. The Thorn’s scanners were barely able to track it through the interference. Sturm doubted he could hit the Puma reliably at this distance, even with his LRMs, which would never do enough damage in one shot to disable the other ’Mech. He bit his lip and waited as the seconds ticked by. He had to time this exactly right. If he estimated the other ’Mech’s speed correctly, the Puma should have arrived near the steam vent, and its pilot was probably just starting to figure out that Sturm wasn’t there.
