Twilight of the clans III: the hunters

by Thomas S. Gressman

  Furious, Sandoval whipped his ship into a Shandel turn. The maneuver was so tight, so abrupt that the GTHA-500's airframe moaned in protest. The pilot's vision dimmed, narrowed, as his G-suit strove to counteract the centrifugal force generated by the turn. As his sight cleared, Sandoval saw the huge, bulbous nose of the DropShip looming before him. With a twitch of rudder and stick, he brought the Gotha's targeting cross hairs to rest over the glowing craters left in the Clanner's armor by his last attack pass. Heat spiked into his cockpit as Too-tall unleashed a murderous volley from his ship's full weapon load.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander M'Basa called out, "Captain, our fighters are engaging the lead DropShip."

  "Very well, Mr. M'Basa." Winslow struggled to keep a neutral tone of detached interest. She failed. Excitement and fear sounded in her voice.

  "Mr. Fontanazza, lock forward laser batteries on the trailing Union. Fire as your weapons bear."

  In contrast to the spiraling, darting fighters, the huge WarShips seemed as slow and ponderous as an Odessan raxx. Lances of coherent light snapped and flickered from the Ranger's nose, shattering the DropShip's armor as easily as a hammer smashes crystal. The Union tried to reply, but the Ranger was built to withstand more punishment than the smaller ship could inflict. The Clan Drop-Ship slowly collapsed in on itself. Fire glowed through gaping rents in its armor.

  "Missile launch!" Commander Held's voice thundered over the babble suffusing the Ranger's control deck. "They got us locked."

  "Hard a-starboard, down fifteen."

  A product of long training and ingrained habit, the helmsman repeated the order, indicating that he understood the command and that he was complying with it.

  The deck canted as the Ranger swung sharply away from her original course. Lacking point-defense weapons, the destroyer's only hope of avoiding a collision with the speeding packet of destruction lay in maneuvering so sharply that the missile lost track of its target. The tactic failed.

  The fifty-ton missile slammed into the Ranger aft of her number three missile battery.

  The detonation of twelve tons of high-explosive was devastating. Winslow was pitched off her feet, barely saving herself from a fall on the deck by catching the corner of her command console with one of her flailing arms.

  It was Timothy Ross who recovered first.

  Wiping away blood flowing from his nose, he shouted, "Damage report!" His voice cut through the cries of fear and alarm like a PPC through construction plastic.

  "Damage control reports a hit to the portside armor. No breach, but we took a helluva whack."

  As Captain Winslow barked out commands to bring the Ranger back onto an intercept heading, a flicker of motion caught her eye. There, swooping in from the upper right side of the viewscreen, came the Com Guard Essex Class destroyer Starlight. As the Starlight drove past the Ranger, its odd, backward-raked prow seemed to erupt into flame. Eight massive naval autocannons, the modern equivalent of the quick-firing dual-purpose guns of Terra's long-defunct blue water navies, spat death at the Clan WarShip.

  The heavy shells struck glittering sparks off the Congress' flanks and back. If not for the sheer destructiveness of the barrage, the shimmering flashes and confetti-like glint of shattered armor drifting off into space might have been considered a beautiful sight.

  * * *

  Aboard the Shining Claw, there was nothing that could be considered beautiful. The barrage had opened several gashes in the frigate's pressure hull. A number of crewmen had died horribly, their bodies turning inside out as the atmosphere in those sections of the ship was blown away into space. Quickly, emergency pressure seals slammed into place. These measures, intended to save lives, inflicted at least one casualty. A damage-control technician, a fraction of a second too slow to react, dove through a hatchway, only to have his legs amputated by the closing seal.

  In a daring, desperate move, Star Colonel Alonso ordered the Claw brought about. Summoning all the thrust her engines could provide, the seven-hundred-meter long ship drove between the converging shapes of her Inner Sphere tormentors. As she ran past the bows of the enemy ships, which were swinging in a vain attempt to follow her maneuver, Alonso called out an order.

  "All broadside guns, fire at will."

  Laser, autocannon, and missile fire licked out from the Claw's narrow flanks. Armor-piercing shells blasted the Essex's nose, sending a shudder through her 600,000-ton frame. The Lola III fared better. The damage inflicted by her missiles, and the Essex's guns, had crippled some of the Claw's starboard side weapons.

  In the half-real, miniature world of his holotank, Alonso nodded in satisfaction. His audacious gamble had paid off. The Essex destroyer had been staggered by the devastating broadside, and seemed to be shearing off to recover. The Lola, faster and more powerful, had fallen victim to its own inertia. Unable to turn quickly enough to follow the Claw through her attack run, the Lola was now trying to reverse her turn, to bring her broadside guns into action. Alonso smiled grimly. Let the Inner Sphere surat try. "Helmsman, hard to port, up forty." The man strapped into a heavily padded chair sang out his acknowledgment of the order. Against an artificial resistance, which mounted the farther the control yoke was moved away from a neutral center position, the helmsman swung the giant WarShip into a hard left turn, at the same time pulling the yoke back against his chest.

  Standard Ghost Bear procedures said that the maximum up angle for a Congress Class frigate was thirty-five degrees. Any more than that and a captain risked inflicting stress damage on the ship's massive, but rigid, spine. Fortunately, the ship's designers weren't her commanders. Alonso knew that the Claw could withstand an up angle of up to fifty-five degrees before the inertia-induced stress would begin to cause structural damage.

  As the big ship turned through one hundred thirty-five degrees, Alonso ordered the pilot to ease his helm into a more standard turn.

  "Attitude control, roll one-eighty." Ponderously, the frigate revolved around her long axis. The maneuver had brought the Claw out of her turn above, ahead, and slightly to the right of the enemy Lola, with her relatively undamaged port side facing the destroyer. The Essex was somewhere off the Congress' starboard quarter, probably still licking its wounds. "Freebirth! Look at that!"

  The cry came from the ship's chief weapons officer.

  Dragging his attention away from the Lola, Alonso turned just in time to witness the awesome spectacle of a Cameron Class battlecruiser going into combat.

  * * *

  "All gunnery stations, weapons free, that is weapons free."

  A few hundred kilometers off the Invisible Truth's starboard bow, the flat, rectangular bulk of a Whirlwind Class destroyer was on the receiving end of a fusillade of PPC fire and autocannon shells. No sooner had Commodore Beresick passed the "weapons free" order than every gunner aboard the huge battle cruiser locked his sights on the much smaller enemy vessel. A powerful Killer Whale anti-ship missile slammed into the Clan ship's hull, but the heavily armored WarShip shrugged off the damage, replying with its own blast of laser and autocannon fire.

  "Minimal damage, Captain," a technician called from the bridge station, where he was monitoring the ship's condition. Beresick waved in acknowledgement.

  "Commodore, the Haruna is closing with the Invader."

  Beresick nodded. He was too busy watching his own battle.

  That didn't stop the Haruna from driving closer to the crippled Clan JumpShip.

  * * *

  Morgan, having no such constraints, was enthralled by the scene portrayed in miniature by the Invisible Truth's holotank. To one side of the battle area, the Ranger was engaged in a deceptively graceful ballet with the Clan Congress. Occasionally, one or both of the tiny vessels would flash when its opponent scored a hit. The Starlight seemed to be recovering from her encounter with the Clan frigate, and was swinging around to rejoin the fight. Some distance ahead of the icons representing the Invisible Truth and the Whirlwind, bearing the blue-gray color
s of Clan Ghost Bear, the Haruna, impelled by its massive Terada drives, brushed past the second enemy Whirlwind. The Clan Whirlwind had tried in vain to interpose itself between the Haruna and the crippled Invader. In turn, the Clan WarShip had been intercepted by the Antrim and a pair of Avenger Class assault DropShips.

  Despite his fascination, Morgan battled with a growing sense of frustration. At Meribah, he'd been locked in a JumpShip hovering above that system's star, unable to join the MechWarriors in their assault on the pirate base. Now, in the fleet's first engagement with the Clans, he was completely out of his element, a ground-pounder among starship crewmen. Even his access to the holotank was limited by Commodore Beresick and the Truth's tactical officer, who needed that particular instrument more than he did.

  It was maddening. Here he was, one of the most experienced, most decorated combat officers in the Inner Sphere, locked in a battle where he could do little but offer moral support.

  * * *

  "Captain, the Whirlwind is in PPC range."

  "All right. Warn him to get out of our way." Randolph DeMoise's calm was beginning to erode in a flood of excitement, adrenaline, and fear.

  Several decks above his head, the coils of the Haruna's Super-Rand heavy naval PPC flared with lightning-bright intensity. A coruscating beam of energy lashed out through the weapon's focusing head, striking the armor belt protecting the Whirlwind's port short-range missile battery.

  Undaunted by the energy blast, the Clan destroyer replied to the frigate's attack with a spear of laser light.

  "Fighters! Oh-six-two neg ten."

  "I see them," the Haruna's chief gunnery officer responded with a coolness he didn't feel in his guts. Flipping a series of switches, he brought the Haruna's point-defense weapons on line. Long-range missiles, similar to those used by BattleMechs, but capable of hitting targets at far greater ranges, reached out to swat an inbound fighter. The tiny craft bucked under the impact, but recovered quickly, only to be blown out of existence by a pair of laser blasts. As the twisting Clan fighters, identified at last by the Haruna's Warbook program as Visigoths, pressed home their attack, a series of small pulse lasers and multi-barrel autocannons spat streams of death into their path. Two more OmniFighters were reduced to glowing wreckage, but the rest swooped in across the Haruna's back, leaving chipped and broken armor in their wake.

  One of the Visigoth pilots must have spotted the long, dagger-like shape of the Bisan nestled against the Haruna's forward docking collar. With his wingman in tow, the pilot flung his ship into a tight, rolling turn. For moment, the Visigoth was "on its back," the pilot looking up through his canopy at the dark gray warship. Then the Visigoth whipped itself upright again, vibrating as the heavy autocannon mounted in its nose spat a string of tracers into the Haruna. The OmniFighter's forward motion walked the strobing explosions across the Haruna's broad back and into the nose armor of the docked assault ship. Lasers and short-range missiles widened the destruction.

  "Bloody, damn . . ." the Bisan's chief gunner rasped beneath his teeth. Angrily punching an override, which slaved all of the ship's weapons to his panel, the chief, a veteran of the Clan War, locked the DropShip's targeting sensors onto the drive flare of the retreating fighter. For a second, he hesitated, while the computer chewed on the optimum targeting solution, then fired.

  Two heavy Gauss slugs smashed square into the Visigoth's fuselage beneath its anhedral tailplane. The missiles and autocannon rounds that followed finished the job. The Visigoth disintegrated before the pilot had a chance to eject.

  More laser and PPC fire slashed into the Haruna's forward superstructure. The big ship shuddered under the impact of the Clanner's heavy shells. One supersonic Gauss slug slammed into the armor protecting the ship's forward starboard launch bay. Structurally, the damage was light, but the impact threw a scare into the launch crew. One young assistant technician panicked and ran toward the bay's number three escape pod. Unable to calm him, Petty Officer Third Class Jack Piet subdued the terrified youth with a well-intentioned blow that broke the astech's jaw.

  On the control deck, Captain DeMoise continued to direct fire against the Clan WarShip. Several times, he considered maneuvering the Haruna to bring her powerful broadside guns into play. Once, he even opened his mouth to give the order. He broke off without speaking. An experienced officer, he knew that the only chance they had of capturing the Invader intact lay in delivering the DEST teams to the target vessel before the Clanners had a chance to entrench themselves in her narrow cabins and passageways.

  Another volley of gunfire shook the Haruna.

  "Captain, we can't take much more of this."

  Before Randolph DeMoise could reply, an immense, midnight-blue disk shot across the viewscreen. At first, DeMoise thought a fighter launched by another ship in the task force had arrived to share in the dogfight swirling around his ship. Then he realized that if it were truly a Thrush Class light fighter, the pilot would have had to pass so close to the Haruna's sensor array that he would risk shearing it off. No, this was something else.

  The transponder code painted alongside the ship's icon told the story, as did the blast of fire the vessel delivered against the Whirlwind at point-blank range. The new arrival was an assault DropShip, an Avenger. As the oddly configured vessel pulled out of its attack dive, it was joined by another of the same class.

  Before DeMoise could respond to that unforeseen development, fate dealt him another favorable card.

  "Haruna, this is Antrim." The words were clipped and too loud, but sounded sweeter by far than any music DeMoise had ever enjoyed. "We'll take care of the Whirlwind. You bust through their line and grab that JumpShip."

  Swinging in from the right side of the viewscreen came the stubby, bullet-shaped silhouette of a Fox Class corvette, the letters ANTRM glowing next to her tactical icon.

  "All right," DeMoise growled under his breath. He barked, "Helmsman, lay us alongside the Invader. Full ahead."

  * * *

  Moments later, Lieutenant Commander Kobayashi reported in formal, stilted tones. "Captain, we are through the enemy's defensive line."

  "Very well." Captain De Moise's reply was as formal, but less stilted. "Tell the Bisan to make ready for breakaway."

  25

  Draconis Combine WarShip Haruna

  Unnamed Star System

  Deep Periphery

  15 December 3059 1840 Hours

  A giant invisible hand pressed Major Michael Ryan down in his seat. If he had been clad in the old black armored jumpsuit favored by the holovid industry when portraying members of the Draconis Elite Strike Teams, he would have come away with deep pressure bruises, as the acceleration couch's thin padding failed to prevent the seat's metal frame from digging into the back of his thighs. Ryan had lost count of the number of operations he had come out of wearing the odd horizontal bruises caused by the sudden, jolting acceleration of a DropShip blasting free of its parent vessel.

  A faint tremor of anxiety mixed with exhilaration ran along his spine. He and his team had gone up against the Clans a dozen times before, and each time they had come out more-or-less intact. This time, there was something different about the attack. It wasn't just the idea of combat aboard a starship, though that brought its own problems. Ryan's men had been trained to fight in every conceivable environment, and he was certain that they would acquit themselves admirably. It was something else, something more primal, that sent an unaccustomed shiver through his frame.

  It was pride. Pride, in the idea that he was fighting for something larger than himself, larger than the Draconis Combine, although he was in a sense serving the Dragon as never before. He and his men were taking part in a grand crusade, not for wealth or possession, or for some half-mystical goal like a renewed Star League. They were going into battle against the greatest threat that mankind had ever faced, to destroy the enemy.

  Michael Ryan smiled grimly.

  * * *

  In the aftermath of the fighter attack, D
eMoise held a swift conference with Major Ryan and the Bisan's captain, Maeda Ge. DeMoise would have preferred to run the WarShip right up alongside the disabled Clanner, possibly using the Haruna's bulk to shield the small battle taxis as they made the dangerous crossing to the target vessel. Commodore Beresick had ordained otherwise. With an enemy Whirlwind and its associated fighters snapping at the Haruna's heels, the fleet commander ordered the Haruna's captain to launch the Bisan at one hundred kilometers, then turn to engage the Clan destroyer.

  Putting the launch off as long as he dared, DeMoise carried the Bisan almost to within touching distance before ordering the breakaway. By that time, the firepower of the Haruna's close-defense weapons, combined with the DropShip's lighter guns, had driven off most of the pursuing Clan fighters.

  On the Bisan's small, four-man bridge, Ge pulled back hard on his control yoke, at the same time shoving the throttle fully forward. White fire flared from the dagger-shaped ship's drive nozzle. Leaping forward with the acceleration of a fighter, the Achilles Class vessel cleared the boxy length of the Haruna in less than three seconds.

  "Rick, how far out are we?"

  "Eight-five kilometers, closing fast." Richard Sule, the ship's sensor tech, studied his displays for a moment. "Tai-i ... ah, Captain, I see drive flares along the Invader's docking module. I think the bad guys are popping their DropShips. Looks like a couple of Unions. Wonder why they aren't launching number three?"