1
It was a work in progress, never got beyond what is presented here with exams looming at the time, then I never came back to it.
Aside from probably some really bad spelling mistakes and grammar, using a planet that's on the opposite end of the innersphere to the clans and the fact it's written in first person I hope you can enjoy this little story.
So for your reading pleasure I present to you the beginning of Lieutenant Alan Grant's story. [of House Davion ofcourse].
EDIT: I called it Desert Gambit, because that's where it starts and it sounds coolish.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Desert Outpost, Randis IV
The Periphery
30 October 3070
The neurohelmet of my mech was heavy on my head and shoulders. Sweat trickled down my thighs onto the bare skin of my lower legs. The muscles of my shoulders flexed as I moved the control stick to my right, manoeuvring my mech into place for the third time. The cockpit was hot, well above 40 degrees Celsius; I pushed the button on the control stick firing two of the large lasers on the chest of my Wolfhound. The heat soured into the cockpit increasing the temperature by a factor of five. The sensation of the cooling vest on my body that I could feel a few second before disappeared; my body broke out into a whole new cycle of sweating. I was feeling dizzy, but I kept my composure, if I lost my sense of direction the mech that I was controlling would loose all balance, making it tip over and leaving me vulnerable. A few seconds past and the cooling fluid that was running through the veins of the mech rushed into the tubes connecting the cooling vest to the mech itself. My body temperature down considerably, but not by much, but enough to stop me from fainting.
I looked at the mech ahead of me, it stood 6 feet lower then mine. Although it was hard for me to target it, it also meant its centre of gravity was lower, so it had less chance of tipping over than my Wolfhound did. But never the less my laser fire had done considerable damage. I could see an arch across its chest where my lasers had melted armour and mymoer muscles on the mech. It was in pretty bad shape, one of its legs were showing its internal skeleton, another shot there and it would be crippled, primed for me to cut it to pieces. But I wasn't in good shape either, the secondary screen in my cockpit showing the damage to my mech indicated that I was running hot, anymore rapid laser fire and I would shut down, leaving me as crippled as the Cougar would have been if I got the next shot on target. I decided I would take the chance, I was already in the red, my armour in many places had been ripped off exposing the internal structure of my mech, any well placed shots there and I would be dead. I brought my Wolfhound about for another round of laser shots. I aimed the red crosshairs on my viewing screen towards the legs of the Cougar. I didn’t see the Cougar’s pilot begin a barrage of fire from the autocannon in the mechs right arm. The High-Explosive Armor-Piercing rounds hit my mech with a fury of a thousand punches, ripping the last of the armour off the Wolfhound's chest. My targeting was knocked off by a few centimetres, as my finger closed around the buttons for the large and small lasers. I missed the leg which I had been aiming for, but two of the large lasers and three small laser hit with full force into the Cougar’s chest, melting all the armour from the area, opaque smoked was all that was left of the armour. One of the large lasers scrapped across the chest and managed to do some considerable damage to the right arm. So much damaged that I saw a flash from the barrel of the autocannon, indicating that the weapon had been destroyed when the ammo dump ignited. The force of the other four lasers was enough to breach the chest of the Cougar exposing its nuclear fusion engine.
I heard warning claxons going off inside my mech, the mech’s female voice telling me the heat was critical and shut down was immanent. I ignored the warning; I knew the Cougar was in bad shape. A similar voice would be muttering similar warnings, but they would be warning the pilot of engine failure.
We were in the desert, so there was no chance of me finding a body of water to cool of in fast enough before the Wolfhound shut down. However, the enemy mech wasn't returning fire. In the last attack I must have damaged its targeting system; the pilot wouldn't dare heat the mech up firing blindly, when it was in such bad shape. I moved my mech forward, so that I could keep the pilot occupied keeping an eye on me, whilst I let the desert air slowly but surely cool my mech down. I would have flushed some cooling fluid, but I needed what was left to keep my body cool when I fired the next set of lasers. I circled the Cougar, and watched as the other mech slowly turned on the spot keeping me in its forward sights.
I hit a switch opening a tactical frequency for us to talk across.
"You’re finished, surrender now, and I won't destroy your mech," a slight pause, "or kill you."
I waited for a few seconds for the enemy pilot to reply. I waited a good minute, and thought I wasn't going to get a reply when I heard the pilots’ voice.
"I will never surrender to a freebirth. Finish me off and give me a true warriors death." it was a woman who spoke, I was taken back a little by the pure hatred I heard in her voice.
She was a clan warrior; I knew this from the moment I arrived. I had been called out to intercept an unknown mech out here in the desert. When I found the Cougar I could clearly see the insignia of the Clan Snow Raven on the battlemech. I realised at that moment that this would be a tough battle. Clan warriors were genetically bread, adding knew meaning to test tube baby, so that they could become the best of warriors. All through out their lives they were tested to make sure they were measuring up to become elite warriors. The fact I now faced one of these warriors instantly made me realise I was going head to head with the best of the best, and that without any back up too. I could only prey that when I saw the lone mech perched on the hilltop as I came over mine that it had no back up either, if it did, I would be dead long before the battle got started.
"There’s no point wasting you life here," I said over the comm. frequency again. "There are many more battles and trials to face. If you won't surrender willingly, I can always lay claim to you as a bondsman, and you will have no choice but to surrender."
She snorted showing her defiance to what I had said. "I still have my mech, and even with my targeting out I will destroy you. If you survive I will take you as a bondsman for Clan Jade Falcon."
That was a Clan Warrior for you, defiant till the last breath. I was surprised at what she said. Not the fact that her targeting computer was out; I had come to that conclusion myself. What surprised me was that she said she was from Clan Jade Falcon, even though her mech had clearly the insignia of Clan Snow Raven all over it. Something was going on and I intended to find out what. I checked my heat meter, it was in the yellow, I could get a shot off and not risk shutdown.
"Fine clan warrior, have it your way."
I took aim again, putting the red crosshairs over the almost crippled leg. A golden dot appeared in the middle of the crosshairs confirming I had a lock; I fired my full laser arsenal. Three medium, three small and two large lasers streaked brightly out across the red desert sand, lighting it up with, more red, green and blue light. My mech was over heating as soon as I pressed the triggers, but I wasn't worried, I knew even if it shut down there was nothing the other battlemech could do to me. The Cougar's leg severed at the knee and the lower half of the leg flipped out and flew ten meters landing in a hail of red sand behind the mech. The mech now legless toppled over like a tree falling in a forest. As the mech hit the ground its left arm was ripped off and rendered useless. The other arm was already dead from our battle before. The mech was totally immobilised. There was no way it could cause me anymore damage. As I had known my mech's alarms blared into my skull, it was overheating, and there was nothing I could do to stop from shutting down, but I wasn't worried.
I shrugged of my neurohelmet and placed it above the command couch on its designated shelf. I opened the hatch above me and climbed out into the desert heat, but compared to the heat of the cockpit it was rather pleasant. I looked over at the downed Cougar, the pilot hadn't come out. I climbed down the mech using the rope ladder that I had extended from beneath the mech’s head before I had exited.
Laser pistol in hand, I approached the clan mech with caution. I popped open the hatch to the clan warrior's Cougar, I noticed that the clan woman had been knocked unconscious, which made my job a **** of a lot easier. I pulled her out and dragged her to the desert floor and lay her there so she could rest in a more comfortable position. Pulling out my pocket radio, I signalled my base to send a crew out to pick up the downed mech, and mine, which probably wouldn't make it out of the desert unaided.
Edited by alan grant, 31 October 2011 - 03:29 PM.
