3
Vihreä Hills,
Lahti,
Free Worlds League,
April 1st, 3027
“All contacts down or running for it, Cardinal.”
I can't help but grin as the reports come in. A pirate raid successfully driven off, another mark in the win column and not soon enough. There isn't much left of the lights and mediums they threw at us to salvage but after that **** Greg pulled at the last staff meeting about “the responsibilities of command” what this will do for the unit, for me, is worth more than a thousand tons of salvage.
“Roger that 1-9. Musketeers good job today. Now let's pack it in folks let's see if-”[
“Check! Check!” A voice young and eager rings in my ear and I snap to attention. “Check” is a command override call for company commanders to issue so that they have clear coms, it allows crucial messages can be relayed in the heat of battle. We drill the command constantly, even during briefings and or off duty days so that it's second nature to shut up the moment we hear it. I know it seems...intense, but I swear It'll save all of ours lives one day.
I can't place the voice. My heads up display says it belongs to one of third companies scouts. It's hard to pinpoint exactly whose voice it is over the constant thrum of my Marauder’s fusion engine but if I had to guess it's Butterball. No one else has the gumption to issue a unit wide command while not holding rank.
“Silas, This is the Cardinal. Go ahead.” Silas, he's a good kid. Hell, I shouldn't even think of him as a kid, after all he's the same age as Sandy and after another year or two I'll hand the unit off to her. He's just excitable is all. Maybe a little accident prone, but reliable. I'm hoping that'll rub off on the rest of third company. Reliability is a rare trait in the unit these days. Yeah, Silas is one of the good ones. Goes by Butterfly, and I'll admit he can make that Cicada 3C of his float, but no one calls him that. After so many slips and falls and bumps on the way out of the dropship he's just Butters, or Butterfinger, Butterball. Sometimes I think he has more nicknames than we have pilots in the battalion.
“Sir! Oh man, Jackpot....sir, I'm picking up the raider's radio frequency, patching it in live. Listen to this!”
“...Damnit. Ton for ton they beat us. Pull back to the dropship before we lose anyone else. Fu....ing mercenaries. Again all units fall back to the following coordinates. Let's get the hell out of here before they follow us home...”
Suddenly I’m as excited as Butters. If we weren't in multi ton war machines and few kilometers apart I could hug him. This is...this is incredible.
“All units, this is Cardinal. We all just heard the same thing. Punch those cords into your navcomputers and get ready to move as a group, march speed. Our luck just turned around!”
People are cheering. My heart races faster and faster. We haven't had a proper cheer since mom passed away. They know what this means. A dropship is worth a fortune. Even if we can't afford to maintain it we could sell it to the Mairks for hard cash or use it to haggle for a better contract, a real contract, no more under the table raids, no more 'questionable acts'. My palms are sweating. I knew we'd have our comeuppance if we just stayed together.
“1-12 to Cardinal. Permission to scout ahead?” I catch myself before I groan into the comset. 1-12, Zach Humbolt, Smokey. He's been a constant headache since he joined the unit. I've read that scouts especially Firestarter pilots are known for their “independent natures” but he's by far the worst I've ran across. Sometimes I think that Captain Keyes is encouraging his attitude just to undermine me.
“Negative 1-12. Negative. We don't want to spook them if they ping a lone scout. We'll hit them as a wall.”
“Sir, they'll never see me coming. Let me lead us in.”
“Damnit, Smokey. If I see your Firestarter come off the line so much as an inch I'll donate her to the locals.” The threat of being dispossessed, a mechless mechwarrior, is enough to cow 1-12 back into formation. I understand that he's just trying to do his job, but if we scare the dropship off we've lost our prize. The risk is worth the reward. Besides, we've driven the raiders off once how big of a threat could they be?
First and second companies have already started moving towards the objective. Unfortunately third company is scattered across hell's half acre. We don't have time to wait for them to join us.
“3-1, You have rear guard. Everyone else move up!”
“Roger that Card. 3-Command, 3-Support form up. 3-Pursuit get your as-....”
I cut unit coms off. Captain Cartman can herd third company without my help, he's an old school colour sergeant. The last of the “old guard” from the Avalon Hussars and I know he'll keep the Pranksters in line.
“2-5, This is Cardinal do you read.” I say as I open a private comlink.
“Card, 2-5. Go ahead.”
“Sandy, I want you to take point on this one. Move the Bullies up front, I want everyone to see this as your victory.”
“Okay Dad.” I can hear the smile in her voice.[
I cut the link before I say something embarrassing. She doesn't need her old man telling her how proud of her he is all the time.
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“Ambush! Ambush!”
A pit forms in my stomach. I'm moving up a long ridge line, a mixed force of second and first company is already on the other side making their way down the opposite side of the hill. I can't see anything save Longshot's Warhammer in front of me but I can hear the detonations of LRM even from here.
“Repeat?” I shout over the coms. It takes just a few seconds but it feels like hours before I hear anything back.
“Four...six...Ten contacts..Medium/Heavy. They're hitting us at range-” The voice belongs to Conner O'Casey. A Griffin pilot attached to Carpeaux's Battle Lance. He's tweaked that old 1N's sensors way beyond anything Apple Interstellar ever intended.
“Everyone forward. Flank speed. Close with them. Push, Push, Push!” I throttle my engine to max speed and race up the incline with the majority of the Musketeers around me. Even over the sounds of battle and the crunching of my own mechs footfalls I hear the telltale sound of a reactor going critical. I check the display. Not one of ours. Thank God. “Once you are over the ridge focus fire. We have them outnumbered!”
I'm almost at the top of the ridge. A few more steps and I can get a clear picture of what's going on. I'm one of the few left on 'our' side of the hill.
“Contacts climbing! Fourteen...twenty...fifty, still climbing. Blake's blood, we're dead.” Connor says his thick Northwind accent coming through clear.
“Repeat?” I say struggling to keep panic out of my voice.
“I...I'm sorry Sir, they must have been shut down to hide their pings. I-” I hear the detonations and impacts of warheads and autocannon rounds as they slam into Conner's medium mech. Suddenly the sound stops and even without visual confirmation I know that he's gone.
“Holy mother of...fall back! 1-5 to all Musketeers, fall back.” The voice of Lt Britney Vietch picks up where poor Conner’s left off “Everyone out of the valley. We need to take posit-” The explosion of 1-5's death seems to shake the very foundations of the planet and I have fight to hold my mech straight as the rock and soil is blasted loose beneath me. I take that last step over the ridge and its chaos.
The com net is alive with questions. Half the unit is engaged and the other is still humping its way over the hill. The enemy, dozens of mechs painted midnight black, are advancing as a wall out of a treeline. PPC and Autocannon fire slams along the hill as they pour fire into us. The remains of a light blue Shadowhawk smolder at the foot of the hill. Even from here I can tell that there is no way Lt. Vietch punched out in time. The rest of her lance, a collection of brazen young women who defiantly call themselves the Amazons, are still in the kill box.
“Vietch is gone! Amazons fall back, 1-6, 1-7 give me cover and I can..” 1-8's voice breaks off as a PPC blast destroys her Scorpion’s cockpit. My hand tightens. What will I tell her little boy?[/color]
“Cardinal! We need orders!” A voice in my ear brings me back to reality. The rest of my command lance is providing supporting fire, and I join them instinctively. An enemy Orion explodes under the torrent of fire.
“Everyone, form on the ridge. Take the high ground we can...” I'm stopped mid sentence as an Ostroc in Musketeers colors collapses. Its left leg sheared off at the knee the heavy battlemech slides more than tumbles halfway down the hill. A Grasshopper and Victor advance from cover to protect the fallen machine.
I don't scream. I don't move. I don't even shoot. The battle becomes a distant backdrop to a father's fear.
“3-9 is down. Form up, form up. Protect Sandy!” The clipped syllables of Mechwarrior Odessa draconian English bring me back to reality. Odessa, Yojimbo, is Sandy's bodyguard and one of the best Grasshopper jockeys I've ever seen. He'll keep her safe he'll...
“SIR, WE NEED ORDERS.”
All around me the battle is raging. Calls for reinforcements, enemy locations, and the blood choked cries of the dying fill my cockpit. I have to make a choice. Now.
I make the call.
Not as a leader of men, but as a scared father.
“Everyone, push forward, form up on me. 2-1 move the Monsters up to provide covering fire. We need to pull Sandy out. Odessa is she...”
“Negative.” A new voice cuts across the comlink. “All musketeers this is Captain Keyes belay that last order. Move to the ridge and hold if you are-”
I snap over to a private link.
“Greg! What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“Saving anyone who's left! We need to pull back Rien.”
“She's my daughter!”
“She isn't worth all of our deaths!”
“Goddamnit we can still save her we can-” I don't get to finish my words as a command override pushes me back into the general channel.
“Check, Check! Contacts in the rear. We've been flanked...Haymaker! Get back here!” Captain Cartman sounds haggard. He's pushin eighty now.
“I got him, I got him...”
"Jacob fall back in line that's an order I've...” Another voice cut short. I know that I'll never see his old smiling face again.
Our coms are chaotic. Lance commanders are trying to rally their troops. Keyes is countermanding every order I give. I yell 'check' but no one is listening anymore.
“What are our orders?”
“Watch those Griffins on the right!”
“Fall back!”
“Piper, I got a tail. Take the shot!”
[“Awesomes! A full lance! Watchou-”
“Winchester! Winchester! I’m dry. Pull back Stewart, pull back….Stewart, No!”
“Get under their guns! Move! Move!”
“Goddammit! We're dying out here!” Odessa is screaming into his mic as he crouches his Grasshopper over Sandra's downed Ostroc. Literally shielding her with his own body. Over and over he's calling out for help.
“BANZAII!!!!”
The Drac war cry rings out across coms drowning out everything else as Takeo Sakuraba breaks from the cover of the ridge line and charges the advancing enemies. A handful of other pilots follow the mad samurai on her suicide run only to be downed near instantly under the unrelenting fire. Miraculously, Takeo's Wolverine still looked pristine when she ignited her fifty-five tonner's jumpjets and slammed into an oncoming Warhammer with what had to have been a tooth shattering tackle.
All along the line the pirates are pushing us. We’re strung out across the better part of mile. In the distance I see Captain Marlowe’s command squad firing down range. Their custom machines look like something from an astech’s nightmare but I’m thankful for the added weight of fire they bring. A Shadowhawk with a skull and crossbones painted across its wide chest dies under the gaze of Frankenstein's Monsters.
“2-3, 2-1” Captain Marlowe’s voice short and breathless cuts in. “Keep firing lad!”
“Turret isn't responding. Weapons unresponsive. I’m crippled! Falling back, I... "”
“Dammit, Jim. Get that assault back in the fight! I…<Heat Critical, System Override>...SHUT UP COMPUTER! YOU PIECE OF CAP...ELLEN..SH...KING..ORE” Marlowe’s screams are replaced with static. If he’s been forced to override his Ostol's emergency shut down they must be getting pushed even harder than I can see.
I open my mouth to order additional units to support the Monster's position only for another cry for help to cut me off.
“Where is my support! They're surrounding me. f...king cover me people.”
I torso twist to the left to see Longshot's Warhammer, steam bleeding off of it in waves that turn the air around it hazy, a pack of fast movers has closed on him.
]“I'm-” At first I think we've lost him as well but as his mech sags, its twin Donal PPC barrels sloping to the ground, I realize he's just over heated. A small mercy. His attackers, five in total, are smart though. Instead of focusing on his disabled mech they push further into our lines.
I'm the only one close enough to respond.
“All units, Form on me. Incoming hostiles. Prepare for CQB.” I say into my mic. Silence answers me and only then do I realize that at some point a stray round as destroyed my communications array leaving me mute. I howl in rage. I can still hear the pleas and war cries of the men and women I've lead to their deaths. From the corner of my eye I see the humanoid frames of Odessa's Grasshopper and Lt. Carpeaux's Blacknight dragging what's left of my daughter's Ostroc back up the hill past the remains of a smoldering musketeer Victor. My eyes water. The Ostroc is a broken thing, limbless and almost unrecognizable. No one could have survived the punishment it's received.
Anger and shame wash over me as I move my Marauder to intercept the five oncoming raiders. A glance at my tactical map shows that the surviving Musketeers are rallying around Keyes and Carpeaux’s locations but they’ll need time. If the pirates hit them in the flank before they’ve formed defensive fire lanes they’ll get slaughtered. I draw my sights over the torso of an oncoming Phoenix Hawk.
I’ll hold as long as I can.
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“Good afternoon, Rockcastle.
On our broadcast this evening; A rising death toll in the floods affecting Port Howard, we'll have chilling new details from on scene rescue workers.
New warnings from the Gran Food Authority about Moa meat found in your local superstores.
A Dream come true, the story of a local man whose lifelong work has finally come to fruition.
And a possible tipping point in MercGate? Protesters surround the Lombardy Interstellar Spaceport demanding answers as the incoming mercenary force makes its final descent into the atmosphere.
I'm Oscar Sharp, and you're watching Channel 4 News at 4.
Our top story this afternoon is a continuation of last night's two part series on the fallout of the MercGate scandal. With Duke Jonathan Howard's camp swearing that the New Musketeers mercenary command is here to protect all citizens of Gran why has he gone over the Founder's Council and hired soldiers of fortune with his personal fortune instead of following procedure to raise the required funds the democratic way? While the Duke himself has failed to comment, retired Force Commander Arjan Singh, the Duke's defense adviser has publicly said that the mercenaries multimillion m-bill contract have been paid for out of the Duke's own assets to lower the burden placed on the tax paying citizens of Gran.
But who are these Musketeers and who are they defending us from?
With these questions and more, we go to Channel 2 reporter Melody Kramer who is live at Lombardy Interstellar....”
Edited by G is for Gamma, 09 July 2016 - 06:57 PM.
