Operation Excalibur, page 28
part #31 of BattleTech Series
They'd been stopped, barely. That first battle had lasted for over two hours, and at one point had been a hand-to-hand affair at the very thresholds of the gates, but the Legion positioning—and the fact that each 'Mech manning the barricade could rotate back in safety to rearm and cool off periodically—had given them a tremendous advantage. They'd used wreckage from the Gareth 'Mechs littering the three courtyards after the first attack to build barricades, five- to eight-meter-tall walls composed of BattleMech slab armor and body parts.
Lori had lost track of how many times they'd come since that first, wild rush. Some of the attacks had overlapped one another, as Gareth tried to carry at least one of the gates by wave assault.
That hadn't worked either, and by now, Gareth must be getting more than a little frantic. If he couldn't recapture the central portion of the factory complex soon, he could become vulnerable to counterattacks by LAAF reinforcements, which surely would be entering the Hesperan system just as soon as they got word of Gareth's insurrection. No doubt, his plan had called for him to be inside these tunnels if and when the Lyrans showed up.
"Colonel!" a voice snapped in her headset. It was Orloffski, in the 80-ton Victor holding the gate with her at the moment. "I've got movement! On the left, one hundred meters!"
Lori turned slightly, scanning the smoky ruin there. Yes, she saw them. 'Mechs were moving again beyond the spill of fire-blackened rubble that once had been the far wall of the courtyard. A Trebuchet hulked behind the tumble-down wall opposite. As it strode closer, it paused, left and right arms raised to volley-fire their three lasers in rippling spurts of brilliant white light. Other 'Mechs, shadowy figures in the clinging, opaque smoke, moved closer.
Gunfire spat from the shadows as infantry tried to rush the gate under cover of their larger and more deadly comrades. Lori loosed a flight of missiles, the explosions tearing through the tight-knit clots of running men-and scattering them like torn, ragged cloth dolls.
Then the 'Mechs closed in, another rush. The Trebuchet came out of the battle fog in the lead, followed closely by an UrbanMech and a pair of 65-ton Catapults. Lori raised her right arm, moving her HUD's targeting cross hairs onto the lead Catapult, tagging it as the most dangerous of the quartet. As autocannons roared and lasers hissed, she triggered a full volley from her LRM-15 pack. The warheads shrieked and whined across a range too short for decent accuracy in a long-ranged missile, but better than half of the volley caught the target in a thundering fusillade of explosions rippling across its legs and torso. Several of the LRMs that missed their intended target slashed into the second Catapult coming up behind the first. Lori had her left-hand Defiance autocannon in action now, the solid, rippling thunder of the heavy weapon hurling high-explosive charges into the oncoming 'Mechs with a booming, wild and terrifying randomness.
Orloffski had his Victor in action at the barricades to her left, sending a devasting avalanche of heavy autocannon fire into the attackers, concentrating on the two lighter 'Mechs Lori had ignored, the Treb and the UrbanMech.
Laser fire sparked and seared. Lori took a deep hit in her Zeus's torso, the burn scoring across armor and gouging deep into steel and ferrofibrous plate. She pivoted, firing back, sending a quick volley of laser bolts back along the path the incoming lasers had followed. Her heat levels were starting to rise, but she ignored the gauge, concentrating on managing her fire in short but accurate bursts.
One of the Catapults loosed both LRM-15 pods in a ripple-fire volley from a range of ninety meters, and suddenly the air was filled with writhing, lancing contrails and the crack and thump of detonating warheads. One explosion cracked sharply alongside her head; a second and a third rocket struck her right arm close to the muzzle of her missile launcher. Still another LRM flashed in through the smoke, striking the damaged spot on her armor with a sharp, ringing bang that staggered Lori, knocking her Zeus back a step. Four more missiles followed the first into the same general area, a savage, deadly clustering of explosions low in her side that peeled back a meter-wide section of plate armor and exposed a tangle of wiring and power conduits inside.
Sparks crackled and flashed from severed cables. Red warning lights flickered on her console. Power to the medium laser in the Zeus's center torso mount had just been cut, the primary feed severed by the detonation of an LRM warhead inside the protective swaddling of her armor. She searched for a way to reroute the feed, but the damage in her midsection was bad, too bad for a programmed field repair, maybe even too bad for battlefield maintenance to handle. She decided to ignore the downgrudged laser; she still had the large laser in her left torso, her autocannon, and eight missiles remaining for her LRM launcher.
Scratch that... damnl One of those winking red lights was a downgrudge warning on her right-arm LRM launch system.
Two of her weapons down now, leaving her with a single large laser mounted forward, plus the medium Martell in its rear mount—and her left-arm autocannon, of course, though she was down to just three cassettes of A/C ammo now. Three more five-round bursts, and the Defiance autocannon would be dry.
She had a more pressing problem than expendables, though. Since the onset of this latest attack, her heat levels had been building rapidly, climbing each time she triggered a weapon or took serious damage, and the multiple-warhead hit she'd just taken in her torso had smashed two more of her heat sinks, which would make heat management all the more difficult now. Still, she kept firing, triggering the large laser, then letting her heat gauge drop back a few points on the readout before she fired it again. She held the autocannon in reserve for a decent target.
At her side, Orloffski's Victor kept up its full, devastating broadside of fire, his armor marred and torn in places by the Catapult's LRM volley but his weapons still fully functional and his rate of fire undiminished. The Gareth UrbanMech, a 30-tonner armed only with a small laser and an autocannon, thoroughly outclassed, outmatched, and outgunned, went down in a shrill clattering of parts, a severed leg, a fragmenting sheet of plate steel. An instant later, the Trebuchet lurched sideways, smashing into a wall, bouncing off, and collapsing, as an avalanche of stone and rock pelted it from the cliff face above.
Which left the Catapults, steadily mincing across the fire-torn courtyard, slowing to pick their way past the steel carcasses of fallen comrades. They'd already taken their share of damage in the brief battle so far but they were continuing to press forward. Each was a heavy 'Mech, massing 65 tons and mounting no fewer than four Martell medium lasers and two LRM-15 racks in the place of arms.
"Colonel!" Orloffski called. "You all right?"
"I'm fine, but I'm down to only two weapons," she replied. "Davis! You read me?"
"I'm here, Colonel. How bad is it?"
"Bad enough. I'm going to need someone to replace me up here while I get patched up and reloaded."
"Aye. DeVries, are y' ready to move up?"
Another volley of LRMs thundered around Lori's machine, most of the warheads striking the ruin of the gate doors and the rock face above her, but some of the missiles smashing into her right arm and already damaged torso. "Negative, Davis!" she called. "We're facing two Catapults up here. Caitlin's Centurion wouldn't last three minutes!"
"It sounds like you're in worse shape."
"Who do we have with a heavy? Denniken?"
"His Cataphract's still down. Looks like it's time for me to take th' watch again. Hang on, lassie! I'm on m' way!"
Lori caught her lower lip between her teeth. If they hadn't yet suffered heavy casualties among their 'Mech force yet, they'd nonetheless taken a hell of a lot of damage. And most of that damage was cumulative, weapons smashed and armor torn that they wouldn't be able to replace or repair on the battlefield. Davis's Highlander had taken a beating already, and she'd hoped he'd be able to complete repairs to his leg and torso armor before bringing it to the front again.
But it looked like he wasn't going to get that chance. Any moment now, Legion 'Mechs were going to start dying as the relentless pounding they'd been taking for three days finally caught up with them.
Not good. Not good at all....
* * *
Like dancers in a slow and exquisite ballet, the pair of Leopard DropShips closed with one another at the Hesperus nadir point, Europa rotating during her approach so that the two ships were aligned back to back. When they'd closed to within ten meters of one another, the Europa extruded a collapsible docking tunnel that locked home to the docking collar encircling the Io's dorsal personnel transfer hatch. With a thump that echoed through both vessels, followed by the rapid-fire rattle of magnetic locks slamming home in sequence, the two Leopards established a solid lock.
Minutes later, Grayson was gliding through the connecting tunnel, hauling himself hand-over-hand. The tunnel walls, in vacuum just moments before, were still frigid to the touch, and Grayson's breath came in small puffs of white vapor.
Lieutenant David Longo, the Io's skipper, was waiting for him by the open hatch. "Welcome aboard, Colonel."
"Hey, Lieutenant. What's this I hear about a mutiny?"
Longo chuckled. "Ah. Is that the story you used?"
"It is. Haven't you been listening in on our chatter with the station?"
"Oh, certainly. But we know better than to believe everything we hear over the comm channels."
"Well, I'm here to personally put down this dreadful and unlawful insurrection against my legal authority."
The lo's captain looked past Grayson into the tunnel. "Where's your shadow? Or do they trust you out on your own?"
"Oh, I've got one. But he's indisposed right now." Grayson stuck a forefinger into his open mouth, moving it quickly in and out several times.
"Gotcha. Well, come aboard and make yourself at home."
"You have my armor?"
"As specified. Colonel. And you'll be wanting to see the boys and girls."
Longo led the way into the Io's main lounge, the only compartment aboard the cramped little Leopard large enough for everyone to assemble at once. It was considerably warmer inside. Fifty men and women were waiting there, showing a remarkable uniformity considering the fact that in microgravity the tendency was for people to orient themselves in any direction that felt convenient at the moment. These people, however, had aligned themselves in ranks, as though posing for a school photograph, though each looked more like a robotic machine than like a human being. They hadn't sealed their helmets yet, so the heads that turned to face Grayson as he floated into the compartment were human. Their bodies, however, were encased in bulky armor, layers of plastic-diacarb laminate as tough—if considerably thinner—as the armor plate on a BattleMech. All were painted in camouflage colors, a mottled gray and black that would break up the suit's outline both in the blackness of space and in the gray-painted sameness of a space station's interior passageways.
"Welcome, sir," Captain Matthew Gerard, the CO of the Legion's special infantry assault group, said. "It's good to see you again."
"It's good to be here." Grayson's eyes narrowed, reading the unit device on Gerard's chest.
It was a new unit logo, one he'd not seen before. On each shoulder and left breast was the Gray Death's white-on-gray skull; around it were the words "Carlyle's Commandos," in black-outlined red.
Grayson didn't trust himself to speak for a moment. He floated there, clinging to a bulkhead handhold, and wondered whether it would be too obvious if he tried reaching up and wiping his eyes. Carlyle's Commandos. That had been the name of his dad's mercenary BattleMech unit, a good many years ago now.
"Who thought up the name?" he asked, trying to steady his voice.
Lieutenant Chrissie MacGiver, her short blond hair seeming out of place framing her head against the gray and black menace of her armor, grinned at him. "That was Major McCall's idea, sir. He thought you'd approve."
"Well, I'll tell you," Grayson said slowly, "that particular name belonged to another unit, another mercenary unit, about forty years ago. Do you all know about that?"
Half of the men and women in the compartment were grinning, and Grayson saw several nodding their heads. Trust McCall to think about giving them a history lesson that went back to his dad's old regiment. Hell, most of these kids hadn't even been born back then.
"Well, then," he continued, "if you people are going to take that name, you're going to have to demonstrate to me, right now, that you've earned it. Will you do that for me?"
The cheer that answered him, ringing off deck and overhead and bulkheads, was deafening. "Lieutenant?" he said. "Let's see a screen."
"Sure thing, Colonel."
A display screen on the bulkhead winked on, showing a computer-generated map that plotted, in three dimensions, the locations of each ship at the jump point in relation to the big Olympus Station. The five JumpShips were crowded together—a cluster much tighter than their skippers must care for, with the constant danger of one ship entangling or tearing the running rigging or sail of another. Circling warily outside that group was a single Star Republic DropShip—a Union Class vessel named Ravager that appeared to be guarding the JumpShip cluster like a sheep dog watching over a flock of sheep. They'd already monitored several radioed warnings from the Ravager to one JumpShip that seemed to be having difficulty keeping station.
"Our ultimate goal, of course," he told them, "is the recharge station. But they're alert, thanks to the fighting back on Hesperus, and if we just go charging in there directly, we're going to take some heavy losses."
As he spoke, a 3-D diagram of the Olympus station appeared in one corner of the screen, a long-stemmed mushroom shape drawn in lines of green light, along with a column of text describing its systems, its defenses, and its dimensions. The list of weapons alone was a long one, scrolling off the screen, including dozens of lasers of all sizes, short- and long-range missiles, twelve particle projection cannons, and a number of autocannons, a bristling defensive array that would make the station a very tough nut to crack.
"We are, therefore," Grayson continued, "going to take the indirect route." He indicated one of the JumpShips, the vessel closest to the Olympus and farthest from the sheep-dog Union DropShip.
"This," he said, "is Merchant Class JumpShip Caliban, Mindy Cain, commanding.
"And we're going to pay her a little visit...."
23
Defiance Industries Complex,
Maria's Elegy Hesperus II,
Rahneshire Lyran Alliance
1345 hours (local), 21 December 3057
"All right, Lori," Davis McCall's voice said in her headset phones. "On my mark, duck back and I'll step in, coming from your left."
"Rog!"
The two Catapults had planted themselves fifty meters away from the mouth of the tunnel and were hammering away at the barricade now. Lori thought they were concentrating more on the barricade, in fact, than on the defenders, no doubt with the notion of smashing the pile of junk out of the way so that more 'Mechs could rush the place.
"And three!" McCall called.
Lori raised herself above the barricade, bringing her autocannon to bear on the more damaged of the two Ironhand BattleMechs. As her targeting cross hairs connected with the smoke-blurred image, she thumbed the autocannon trigger, cutting loose a banging fusillade of high-explosive shells. Her first burst of five rounds walked up the Cat's right side and smashed into its right LRM pack, ripping the boxy structure open, then tearing it from the machine's shoulder in a spinning tangle of shredded wires and circuitry.
"And two!"
Unfortunately, the 'Mech's LRM supply had already been exhausted in the first few minutes of its attack. The Catapult rocked to the left, pivoting, and opened fire with all four lasers, with Lori's battered Zeus as its target. She kept holding down the trigger, ignoring the fast-climbing temperature indicator on her console. The empty autocannon cassette spun clear of its breech, and a fresh mag slammed home. Five more rounds rammed into the Catapult, hitting it high in its bullet-shaped fuselage, rocking it back on its hydraulics.
"And one!" McCall called, still counting down. "And ... mark!"
Still she kept pressing the autocannon's trigger. The cassette clicked dry and was ejected; a fresh magazine— her last—snapped home and engaged. McCall was moving past her on her left. Lori took two steps backward as the right arm of his Highlander clashed noisily across the pauldron of her left arm. She kept her left arm raised and steady, however, still drawing a bead on the hapless Catapult, which was now backpedaling to move out of the field of her deadly, accurate fire.
Five more times in rapid succession her autocannon barked, smashing bits of armor off the Cat's side and left leg in sprays of shrapnel. Her autocannon snapped empty, this time for good, the last of her ammo expended. She fired her remaining weapon, the left-torso laser, mangling an already cratered stretch of armor on the target just above and behind the cockpit, before turning and moving back into the cool, dark depths of the tunnel, letting McCall take her place.
"Take tha', y' bluidy damned heathen Sassannach!" she heard him yell over the tactical channel, a battle cry abruptly lost in a burst of static as his Gauss rifle's magnetics fired. Sassannach or not, she was damned glad to be off the firing line for the moment. Her heat indicator was showing well into the red and was coming down too damned slow. The mere act of walking down that tunnel drove her heat levels a point or two higher, eliciting a warning buzzer and the threat of immediate power-plant shut-down.
The heat wasn't critical yet, however; her Zeus, she'd learned, had a pretty generous safety margin in its heat envelope. She hit the shutdown override and kept walking, maneuvering her damaged 'Mech deeper into the mountain. Turning left at the intersection and moving past a roadblock of Legion troops, she reached the assembly bay, scene of the first 'Mech fighting three days ago.
"Hey, Colonel!" A man wearing the comm headset and green coveralls of a maintenance technician stepped into her path. "You're not looking so hot."
