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The volunteers had setup shop in a local mechbay, Panther recumbent on a series of temporary gantries with a few welding tarps covering most of it and loader mech striding off somewhere probably for arrange more pallets of cargo.
Or at least most people would figure as much.
This is exactly the place you’d expect a loadermech after all. Completely innocuous if not for the hulking brute walking away from him presently having gone toe to toe with a panther and pretty damn well for itself. Tonnage difference aside, the Loader had seen better days and only had a rusty auger facing a fairly well maintained mech that for all intents and purposes, should’ve won that fight.
Except the pilot had stepped into a hornet’s mess without knowing it. And Esau wasn’t exactly pleased about that.
Saul thought back to their exchange earlier. He’d been let off the hook and scuttled back to the dropship to get a few things, but it wasn’t like Esau to just let something go, but liked to keep people off balance. Keep them worrying. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when Esau cornered him in his quarters, leaning lazily against the bulkhead. In some ways it was letting Saul save face in front of other members of the band. But in another it was like being stuffed in a locker as an Atlas stared you down.
“I think it was a pretty simple request.”
Esau rumbled, though knowing him it wasn’t a forced act of intimidation. Even with an air of disinterest the brute nearly twice his size had a voice like a gravel crusher and could be twice as violent, If he felt like it.
And it was always hard to tell how he felt.
“It was a textbook ambush, combined arms and cunning. No one would expect that in a refugee camp but Kuritans.” Unspoken being how most Kuritans would’ve dealt with a potential threat in such a camp. A lot of napalm, usually.
Saul himself was feeling a little sensitive on the topic, considering the burns. And the way Balam was eyeballing him from Esau’s side. He felt like the little freak was weighing how close he could light a circle of napalm around him without killing him too quickly from oxygen deprivation.
“I’ve still got an in with them. They’ve been conducting repairs on the Panther and I know where it’s located.”
Esau leaned forward as though interested, an eyebrow raising.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
The look on Saul’s face must have been amusing enough for the giant to crack a grin.
“They’re selling it on open market. Now the Davions aren’t interested in some beat up mech on a backwater planet and if the locals are desperate enough to hire missionaries, they can’t find mercenaries. So there aren’t any here.”
Esau leaned back, clearly pleased with himself.
“So they’re selling it to us. An invitation, clearly.”
Saul wracked his brain. He’d only been let go in the alley under the condition he had the mechs to offer. Now Esau knew where they were, because the damn volunteers had so much as slapped a NARC on their backs.
There had to be something useful he could provide.
“I can point out their XO. Maybe even get him face to face with you. He’s pretty decent in that loader but if we got a good excuse for him to be outside, they’ll have to fill in with someone else. Didn’t seem to me they had any other ace pilots.”
Esau feigned curiosity with an exaggerated hand on his massive chin.
“And how would you manage that?”
A twinge in Saul. A promise he’d made.
“They’re peacekeepers. Meek and forgiving. They didn’t even want to kill Jaczyk, they were hosing down his panther with fire retardants as soon as it went down. Sent out parties to rescue the VTOL crews.”
Esau’s hand dropped a little. The curiosity was a little less feigned now. If there was any kind of chance to get out of this mess, now was it.
“We offer them a chance at peace, they’ll take it. Probably don’t even want the mech, they need supplies for their ministries and are strapped for C-bills. I head back to them, broker the peace, you know they know, they know you know, but you’ve got a Lance and they got a loader. What other choice do they have?”
A deep thundering noise rumbled out of Esau which few might recognize was a thoughtful hum.
“And what do you expect out of this, Saul?”
Now he had to be careful. Ask for too little, it showed desperation. Weakness. Ask for too much, it showed stupidity, arrogance. Need to ask for something Esau wouldn’t mind losing.
“First dibs on the women.”
Balam groaned like a child denied a plaything. But Esau raised an eyebrow and grinned. The man had no problem pulling women. Though he was quite capable of force, Esau had never had an issue stocking a harem. Several high profile captives he’d even romanced while holding for ransom.
Balam on the other hand, Saul didn’t want to even imagine what his idea of ‘romance’ might include but the survival rate was likely low.
“Sure. No screwups this time. No method acting. You play it straight, get them out of the mech and we take them clean.”
A tiny bit of hope lit in Saul’s mind, maybe there could be a peaceful end to this?
“..but, we’ll need to make an example of them. Can’t be buying back my own mech without a price.”
Ah, there it was. He’d already expected it and dreaded it, but he knew life by the sword couldn’t abide peaceful transactions. Saul nodded and Esau gestured, lifting his fingers like shooing away a gnat. It might’ve bothered Saul before and he’d plot some kind of petty revenge in his head...but now he just felt dread. Like it wasn’t just Esau that would be reviewing his performance and judging accordingly.
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The sun was still setting as Volunteers were filtering out of the mechbay, as Mag listened to Saul’s proposal. He noticed the lifter and recovery vehicle were absent and even the workers cleaning up was just a skeleton crew likely leaving for the night. Maybe they knew as well as he did how this would go down.
Wasn’t a bad idea. Esau wouldn’t chase them all down. If he got Mag and the Mech, He’d probably be satisfied having Balam put on a show for the town.
Esau gets his honor, Mag gets his ‘eternal reward’ he’d heard them talking about now and then, and most people walk away. Not a bad deal.
“He’d left me for dead out there after I failed my last mission, but I can talk to Esau, maybe see if you guys can bury the hatchet with this.”
Saul gestured to the Panther. The lie was close enough to the truth to roll off his tongue easily. Or did he really hope it could be done?
“His command mech is a Cataphract, His second runs in a Cadaver. I doubt he’ll bring more than that for this deal, but he does have more on a dropship down the way. They were getting ready to leave, so I figure they’ll be wanting to keep this peaceful, keep a low profile, lick their wounds and go home.”
Mag’s face was a mask. The man was unnervingly still as he listened and the silence grew between them to the point Saul almost blurted out more, but realized it’d only make him more suspicious. Talk less. Listen more.
“You’re absolutely sure you’re no longer with Esau’s band?”
Something in his tone and the unnerving way his ice blue eyes seemed to drill into him required tremendous effort not to squirm or fidget, but somehow he managed.
“Like I said, left for dead. They don’t care either way.”
“So you were gone for hours…?”
“Doing things you guys probably wouldn’t approve of, alright? And I helped in the junkyard, doesn’t that earn me a...what is it, an indulgence or something?”
He got a huff out of the big man at that. His posture relaxed slightly, arms crossed.
“Fine, see what you can do.”
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It wasn’t long till it was only Saul, Mag and the recumbent Panther in the mechbay as the ground began to stir, then quake in the telltale rhythm of a mech approaching.
Wouldn’t be terribly unusual, mechs walking around a mechbay. People would only notice if things went terribly, terribly wrong.
The massive doors ground open fitfully, the last vestiges of light from the day pouring in through the widening gap, soon eclipsed by the hulking form of a cataphract resplendent in purple and red. Yet somehow it seemed almost to be inclined, bowing in a sense towards the man before it. Esau. Flanked by four men with Tk’s.
In the edges of the doorway, the profile of a Cadaver could be seen, breaking off to a patrol pattern as the Cataphract entered the mechbay and the door closed behind it like the slabs of a tomb.
Saul stepped back wishing he could phase through the wall behind him as the two massive men closed the distance to one another. Mag was big, but still probably a head shorter than Esau.
“The rest of your little group?” Esau probed. His men spreading out and leveling TK’s at the missionary for emphasis. Which was almost comical considering the 70 ton battlemech standing not far behind them.
“Around”.
Esau lifted his gaze to the gantries, then to the rest of the empty space. The panther. Though startup sequences for a cold mech weren’t exactly quick. And trying to startup a mech some 35 tonnes lighter, whose primary armament is long ranged, against an LBX 10, Ultra AC/5 and 4 medium lasers would be tantamount to suicide.
Add to that the panther had nowhere to run. And all that aside, there was something else still.
Esau clasped his hands behind his back and jutted out his chin, as though inviting an attack but knowing the other person was utterly powerless to deliver it.
“Strange. I don’t see them. Saul, could you check for me?”
Saul played the odds in his head. Of course, it would still work with his cover story that he had no choice in this case. Obviously, just look at the situation. And He’d already admitted Esau knew him. So why did it feel like a betrayal when he pulled his compact TK from its concealed holster and start moving to the panther. He muttered a “Sorry, nothing I can do.” as he walked past Mag, but it still felt like a copout.
Why did it matter? He didn’t even know these people.
He pulled some of the tarps off the Panther and started working the hatch. Nobody came to help him. Figures, if they’d rigged it to blow he’d end up scattered around the hanger but no one else would be harmed. Even if it was a threat, the cataphract had things covered. Only he was close enough to see what was in the cockpit, which might be the last thing he got to see.
But as it opened, he noted it wouldn’t be a terrible thing to go out.
Mary lying on her back in the pilot’s couch, one hand extended towards him with a snub magnum. His Tk had already been pointing in the moment he opened the door.
Are they insane? How did they possibly think this was going to work?
The voice of reason, of many years experience in this world and its ways told him.
Just pull the trigger, walk out of here.
Yet there was another voice. Insistent. His but not.
You promised
The moment seemed to stretch on, then slowly, gently he moved his trigger finger from the curled to pointing ever so slightly at the mech’s console. He mouthed the words silently “L e g s, T w i c e” and stood up, adopting a comfortable posture.
“Clear.”
He tapped the cockpit closure with his foot and hopped off the mech, cradling his TK. Esau, satisfied, turned to Mag and shrugged.
“Just you after all.”
----------------
Mary’s heart was hammering in her chest, quickly tapping the low power diagnostic for the legs twice, a fault clearing that would have prevented the Panther from activating. She could’ve laughed in relief if not for the situation. Peter had been against modifying anything on the mech and she’d been terrified it had been something they’d done in their kludge job.
Seems Mag had been right to suspect Saul...but then he’d helped her clear either a known problem on the mach or intentional sabotage…. So maybe she was right after all?
A faint double buzz in her jaw. A simple signal without need of encryption and with no pretense, just one meaning they’d established long beforehand; “Standby”.
------------------
“Just you after all.”
Filtered through the comms of Balam’s Cadaver. Nearly finished with his patrol, being extra thorough, but the place was a ghost town. Nothing to play with. Another boring night. And Esau’s comms confirmed it. Maybe he’d get to have some fun with the big guy at least.
Lifting the spiked hand of the morbid mechanical monstrosity before the cockpit, he turned it over and inspected it. It tapering claws seemed fine enough maybe to pluck hairs. Or at least, some fingers? How much pressure would it take? How gently could he massage the controls to just the point of….
“Contact!”
His eyes snapped up. Their locust patrolling the outskirts of the strip of city had found something.
“Looks like...a recovery vehicle with a loader. Did they abandon it?”
Balam toggled his comms “Wait, I’ll take a look.”
Priming his flamethrower and throwing the mech into a full sprint. With ECM engaged they wouldn’t notice him in the dwindling sunset until he was right on top of them. The cockpit rocked as the cadaver’s ungainly gait loped through the sand and scrap.
Figures scrambling around the MRV, a battered Loader king with what looked like a makeshift repair gantry. Even with his polarized viewport responding to the setting sun behind it, the silouttes were pretty clear. They’d found their quarry.
“Now, NOW GETEM!”
The Locust kicked up sand as it spun up to a full sprint. Balam would get there first of course, but maybe the Locust could catch some of the runners. Counting down the meters while caressing the toggle for jumpjets, Balam sucked his teeth in in excitement as the marker rapidly dwindled to 120m.
Jamming the activation stud, the Cadaver’s thrust nacelles howled with fire. Crushed into his seat with gravity but soaring with the thrill, Balam flipped the safety on his flamer the size of a small house as the rushing winds roared the meager pilot flame to life, taking aim for the blur of activity below as he rapidly descended...
-----
“….Not yet.”
Peter dialed in the extended optics. A cadaver and locust already heading towards them. Still outside optimal range. The cadaver being the greater threat, but its unbalanced design causing unpredictable swinging movements. He needed something predictable.
“...not yet…”
The MRV’s suspension groaned under the strain of the Loader King and the assembly they’d cobbled together. The tires were deflated, engines already pegged as high RPM’s as they could manage while keeping it in place and not shredding the engine.
A glint, a flare. The Cadaver half leaped half threw itself into the air. Now the pilot was at the mercy of simple, predictable gravity.
“….Now, start moving.”
The damage they were undeniably doing to the MRV bothered Peter. So too the changes to the Panther, but more for Mary’s sake. On the other hand, for the assembly hastily welded, wired and affixed to the arms of the loader, he wasn’t so much bothered.
The one thing this planet had in spades was salvage. And from most conflicts, Medium lasers were a dime a dozen.
“...stop.”
So they took advantage and had wired a dozen medium lasers into an array, hooked to the Loader and wired to a generator normally used to power their facilities, loaded onto the MRV with it. Rudimentary targeting was all he needed for a laser weapons system on a stable platform.
“Perfect.”
A river of napalm splashed messily across the sandy wastes with the Cadaver following behind it. Enthusiasm exceeding accuracy and more importantly, estimation of effective range.
As the legs of the Cadaver absorbed the shock of the jump, it would require a moment to stabilize. To capitalize on that moment, one had to know where to be aiming before the target was even there.
Only a slight adjustment was needed as Peter depressed the firing stud.
Twelve beams of emerald fury converged into a white hot pillar of blinding light and searing power. Shearing into the Cadaver's sternum like a scalpel on the end of a lightning bolt, it took only moments for the armor alloy to glow, then spark, and then evaporate in an expanding crater of man-sized-sparks and rivers of molten alloys.
Secondary explosions split the torso of the Mcabre mech like fireworks, cracks and shards of steel whickering across the dunes. The CASE system prevented a total cookoff, of medium missiles.
The napalm tanks which Peter knew of and adjusted fire slightly for on the other hand, had no such safeties.
As the light of the lasers dwindled, with some short circuiting, melting or simply cutting out from the incredible heat of their own simultaneous activation and lack of cooling system, and vision returned, the Cadaver still stood, canted and engulfed in its own jellified fuels.
A torch in the twilight.
--------------
“Just you after all.”
Mag felt the signal. Then one more tap. Shrugging a little to his side, an apologetic smirk, before his hand whipped out with a gleaming silver edge.
TK’s and shouts rose, even the Cataphract flinched before realizing it’d be aiming a rather massive weapon at its own men. Yet none of them fired for fear. Both that they might hit Esau, who would likely survive and in the following interaction they would not, and for worry they might undermine him. Shooting the attacker implying Esau could not fend for himself.
Which their confidence was in a moment rewarded, Mag’s arm straining in Esau’s grasp. The silver gleam well far from his throat.
“Really now…”
Tilting his head slightly, Esau turned with languid grace to see what terrible weapon his would-be assassin had thought might work against him. The serrated edge of a wrapping around a snackbar gleamed in the hangar’s harsh lighting.
The moment stretched on.
“What.”
“I thought you might be hungry.”
“...you thought.”
“Yeah you know, you come all the way out here with the guys, this late in the day.”
Esau was at a loss. The Tk’s lowered in sheer confusion. Even the Cataphract seemed to be staring blankly.
“I got a few more if-”
An earshattering howl ended the conversation, the men staggering as the Panther seemed to fly from its gantry as though yanked by strings, jumpjets roaring.
Mag grabbed the welding blanket and without pause, Grabbed Saul with him as he leapt through a small side door of the hangar, TK fire rattling all around him.
---------
Maybe a few minutes tops. That was all she could hold out in this. The rigged startup sequence had primed and triggered the jumpjets while actuators while initiating all other sequences simultaneously. Numerous safety checks bypassed, systems desperately re-routed or reprogrammed for this one effort.
The panther’s servos whining in protest, skeleton groaning with effort and gyros thrashing wildly from being risen to full function from a protracted slumber. Lifted not with a cautious and meticulous startup sequence but roaring to life on the temporary gantry just so, they had hoped, She could get just the advantage they needed.
Or be boiled alive like the last man.
But possibly both.
The howling of the panther mingled with hers, baking in the cockpit as time slowed to a crawl. Klaxons and alarms fading into nothing, the world seemed to narrow into just her panther’s fist and the golden cockpit glass of the Cataphract.
One step, feet barely touching the ground.
Half floating, half lunging, jumpjets screaming with all their might. Smoke, dust and debris whipped into a storm in the confines of the mechbay.
The Cataphract began to twist, having been facing the exchange between Esau and Mag a moment ago. A matter of degrees, but it was enough.
The arm connected, a vicious shock rattled her like the last bean in a can. The Cataphract seemed to be drifting away. Or was it just her losing consciousness? Certainly everything was getting dimmer and the stinging heat didn’t seem to cause her eyes to burn as badly as it was a moment ago.
A buzz in her jaw.
Mag.
She squinted through the effort to see a figure wreathed in fabric flying out the side door.
Good. He was clear.
She depressed the stud for the SRM’s, hoping she was still on target and let the darkness take her.
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Edited by Kriegson, 30 July 2025 - 04:21 PM.
