Natural Selection

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Harry laughed as Clark went down. "Serves the stupid bastard right. Serves all those stupid bastards right."

  Only when he began to bring the Valkyrie back to solid ground did Harry notice that the first Rogue had come back around for him. He glanced at his heat registers and saw that they were reading much higher than they should have. If he fired his jets again, he knew that the whole 'Mech might overheat and shut down. It dawned on him, as he landed the Valkyrie, that the Kell Hounds must have removed several of the cooling devices from his 'Mech, probably not wanting to waste heat sinks on the suicide squad.

  Beyond the incoming fighter, Harry saw two Overlord DropShips preparing to land just outside Denton. Pointing his weapons at the nearest one, he got a weapons lock.

  "Can't hurt, might help." Harry smiled and hit his triggers. "Better to die a man than live a rat in a cage."

  * * *

  Khan Phelan Ward saw the DropShip Lioness settling' down on the outskirts of Denton and the fighters circling around for another run at the heavily damaged 'Mechs. The Tigress looked to be headed for the north side of the plains, right at the edge of the foothills. Things were not going as well as he'd hoped, but they were not the worst case either.

  He hit a key and Carew's face appeared on his auxiliary monitor. "Carew?"

  "Yes, my Khan?"

  "Launch your fighters now. Engage over Denton." Phelan hit another key combination and switched to a frequency Ragnar was monitoring. "Ragnar, stand by." The Khan watched the bandit 'Mechs begin to disembark in Denton. "It is time to reap the whirlwind."

  36

  Arc-Royal

  Federated Commonwealth

  11 September 3055

  Harry Pollard's shining moment of glory ended when the returning Rogue launched thirty long-range missiles at his Valkyrie. First he saw his own medium laser actually hit the landing Overlord DropShip and his LRMs scatter flames over its hull, then his world erupted into flame. His head slammed back into the command couch and stars danced before his eyes as titanic forces shook the Valkyrie.

  Warning klaxons blared inside the cockpit and Harry tasted blood on his upper lip. He felt his 'Mech spinning and saw the Valkyrie's right arm whirl away through the fire curtain around him. The left-arm armor had also been breached, but the chest armor still held. Loss of the right arm meant that his laser had gone the way of his compatriots.

  I still have missiles! Harry clung to that hope as his Valkyrie tottered and fell. Extending the 'Mech's left arm, he tried to post off the ground, but the machine had become too unstable for him to accomplish such a miraculous maneuver. He did manage to alter his fall so that he did not land face-down. I can still punch out!

  The Valkyrie hit the ground with the considerable force that might be expected of a thirty-ton object propelled by copious amounts of high explosives. Its most important yet fragile component rattled around in the command couch like a lone pea in a can. Before he could hit the ejection system, Harry's head slammed again into the command couch, hitting with enough force to crack the neurohelmet and the skull beneath it.

  Harry Pollard died in a cage, but he died happy.

  Nestled in a dark room, with the bowl of the sky simulated above him in glittering detail, Nelson Geist heard the Kell Hound aerofighters scream skyward from the Old Connaught base. His fingers curled into fists as a need to be part of the fight burned in his veins. They deny you the chance to fight, but they will need you yet.

  A bright rectangle opened on the horizon and Nelson recognized Bates's silhouette. "Kommandant Geist, we've got direct gun-camera feed here. They've got Red right where they want her. Want to see the end to it?"

  The gaunt man shook his head mechanically. "No, thank you. They'll need my work when she escapes."

  "She's not escaping. We have three regiments to oppose her one. She can't get away."

  Nelson waved the door shut. "When she escapes, they'll need my work."

  Bates shrugged. "Suit yourself."

  He closed the door, leaving Nelson in his perforated darkness. "I am." He hit a button on the keyboard of the computer display unit he was using and constellations shifted as he centered himself on another world. Just because they won't let me help them doesn't mean they don't need me. And it doesn't mean, when the time comes, that I won't be ready to help them.

  * * *

  The forty kilometers from Old Connaught to Denton passed in 3.25 minutes for the Kell Hound fighters. Caitlin would have preferred flying higher and faster, but remaining on the deck gave them a shot at surprise. The foothills, though not terribly high, provided enough of a radar-shadow that fighters with their radar in air-to-ground mode might not notice them until too late.

  A minute and a half out Raven Flight shot over the Kilkenny. Caitlin used the bridges as a check against her computer-generated map, smiling to see that they were dead on course. As the land sloped back up toward the foothills, she nudged the throttle forward. Only thirty seconds from Denton she began to pick up passive radar tracks from the enemy fighters.

  She flipped her weapons-control on and saw all four of her lasers and the PPC in the nose go green. All dressed up and someplace to go! The secondary monitor showed another flight coming in behind her and she knew from the designation that it was the Clanners. "Luck, Carew," she breathed cautiously. Opening her radio channel she brought her Stingray up and over the foothills. "Go, Ravens, go!"

  Caitlin dropped her crosshairs on the boxy shape of a Rogue rising lazily out of a strafing run. Kicking her rudder right she slipped into his six and let him have it with everything her Stingray had to offer. From his lack of movement she knew she'd hit him before he knew he was hunted.

  The PPC strung a blue line from the Stingray's nose to the ship's fuselage. Starting just behind the cockpit and ripping back along the craft, the hits bisected the stabilizer between the halves of the split tail. One medium pulse laser pumped more fire into the scar while the other chipped away at the armored engine cowling in the aft. One of the two large lasers pulsed a green energy rod into the left wing, melting armor into a ceramic rain that fell on Denton while the other cored the engine.

  A brilliant shower of sparks shot out of the engine as a drive unit failed, sending the Rogue into a slow roll that marked its loss of power. The craft began to pull back to the starboard side, then it simply disintegrated. It happened so slowly and carefully that it almost looked to Caitlin like a computer diagram being exploded to show what the Rogue looked like inside.

  A wall of heat hit her. She glanced at her auxiliary monitor and saw the heat spike up into the red zone and remain there despite her heat sinks coming on line. She shook her head to fight off the desire to faint in the heat and she overrode the fighter's computer-mandated desire to shut down. Too much, too fast. Gotta watch it, kid.

  She pulled up and came over in a looping turn that let her bleed off some heat and build up some airspeed. Gotta be more careful, Caitlin. She smiled as she saw the Rogue's fragments continue to fall. But that was one hell of a first impression we made.

  * * *

  With the fighters' arrival imminent, Dan Allard gave the order for the Hounds to move forward out of the

  Clonarf bunkers. Huge doors cranked open and the 'Mechs best suited to antiair operations came out first to take out any unwelcome bandit pilots on a strafing run. Once they had secured the canyons and draws where the openings to the mountain bases had been hidden, the scout units headed out.

  Phelan headed his Wolfhound straight north, and saw from ground level what had been fed to him from watching stations on top of the mountains. One Overlord had grounded on the edge of Denton, while the other had moved out toward the foothills and the M5 leading north to Old Connaught. As the first of the fighters withdrew, both ships disgorged their armies. One flew north, beyond the foothills, while the other shifted south and landed in Denton.

  Phelan started a search program on his onboard computer, and it locked on to a target in the furthest group of bandit 'M
echs. He ordered up magnification on his holographic display and was rewarded with the image of a scarlet BattleMaster. Punching up a tightbeam radio configuration, he focused it on that 'Mech.

  "In the name of the ilKhan of the Clans and in the name of Prince Victor Davion, I order you and your people to surrender now. If you do not, your command will be destroyed."

  The return message came immediately as a picture filled his secondary monitor. He saw red hair splayed out over the shoulders of a cooling vest and bright eyes peering through the triangular viewport of a neurohelmet. "Those better than you have already tried, wolfling."

  Phelan shook his head, "There are none better than I am. There are none better than the Kell Hounds. We outnumber you three to one. Surrender."

  "Only a Wolf would offer surrender, and only a Wolf would accept it." Her eyes narrowed. "Though you do not deserve it, I will grant you a warrior's death."

  Her confidence, though strong and angry, seemed unnatural to Phelan. She cannot believe what she is saying. She is covering surprise, but how solid is that cover? "I do not offer you surrender for myself," he started slowly, "but I offer it at the request of Nelson Geist."

  Her eyes widened for a moment before the image went dead, that hit home! He shifted over to Tac One. "Colonel Allard, it's a fight to the finish. No quarter asked or given."

  "Never expected it to be anything else." Dan's voice began to fade as more frequencies were opened. "Defend your home, Hounds."

  * * *

  Chris Kell's Thunderbolt led Alpha Battalion from its position in the west and out into the sunlight. He had the northwestern flank of the Kell Hound position, his battalion serving as a screening force to pick up the bandit unit near the foothills. Chris knew the Red Corsair had grounded a force there to defend against troops coming down from Old Connaught, which was the most logical location for reinforcements.

  As his troops moved out, Chris saw the battle plan that Phelan and Dan had outlined beginning to unfold. The foothill group of bandits, designated the Sidhe, began to withdraw into the hills. The other group, the Baile, moved into Denton. Though it looked as though the Sidhe were abandoning the Baile, to make their way across the plain north of Denton and into the town, or out of it, would have meant marching across a killzone and the death of the bandits making the trip.

  Chris opened a radio channel to Dan Allard. "Colonel, the Sidhe are into the hills. Alpha is in position and awaiting your order to pursue."

  "Roger, Major. Stand by."

  Chris saw a long line of the red and black Kell Hounds 'Mechs form a semicircle around Denton to the south and west. The BattleMechs to the south, with a star of black 'Mechs from the Wolf Clan at the far end, began to move forward. In Denton, the scarlet and gold bandit 'Mechs spread out and assumed defensive positions that promised nasty urban fighting.

  "Alpha Leader?"

  Chris nodded. "Yes, Colonel?"

  "Go. The Sidhe are yours."

  * * *

  Caitlin pulled back on her stick and pointed the Stingray's nose at the sky. She punched her feet down on the overthrust pedals and felt gravity pull her down into the command couch as she rocketed away from Arc-Royal. The keening sound in her cockpit told her the maneuver had not shaken her pursuit, and as she dropped her crosshairs into her aft arc, she saw the range between them dropping off.

  Damned Hellcat can out-climb me. Still, it's a flying wing. Yaw has to be a problem! "Raven Leader, I have a Hellcat in my six. Who wants him?"

  "I will oblige you."

  Caitlin smiled as she heard Carew answer her call. "Okay, he's yours!" She jammed her stick forward in a maneuver that started her in a loop that put her cockpit on the outside of the circle. She began to see red as the forces of gravity rushed blood to her head. She knew, as did every pilot who had ever flown, that the loop she had started was slow and stupid and almost guaranteed to make the pilot "red-out."

  Before she could lose consciousness, she cranked the Stingray around in a tight roll centered on the left wing-tip. Pulling up on the stick, she regained some altitude and managed to flash past the nose of the Hellcat. Twin green laser beams passed through a point on her six, but they missed her by a hundred meters.

  "Get him, Vulture Leader." Caitlin popped her Stingray into another roll and lined a Trident up in her sights.

  * * *

  "Wilco, Raven Leader," Carew growled as he pulled his Visigoth up into a steep climb. His aerospace fighter had nowhere near the power of the Hellcat, or the Stingray, for that matter, but it packed more weaponry than either of them. Closer in shape to the flying wing design of the Hellcat than the Stingray, the dual rear stabilizers and the elongated weapon pods running parallel to and in front of the fuselage eliminated the faster fighter's yaw problem.

  The Clan pilot watched the Hellcat's nose begin to dip. as the Stingray went into the negative-G loop. He smiled as she inverted and shot back up in a teardrop loop above the Hellcat's nose. The Cat's pilot rolled to get back on Caitlin's tail, and started a long dive to pick up air speed. When he saw Carew, he punched his overthrusters, sending long flame jets out the back of the Hellcat's tail.

  In his panic, the Hellcat pilot hit one pedal a second before the other, giving the fighter's engine a momentary burst of energy before the other engine kicked in. In most aerospace fighters this would have resulted in the start of a power turn, but in the Hellcat it created another problem. The leading edge of the right wing began to inch forward as the fighter started a rotation around its vertical axis.

  It took a second or two to correct, and in that time Carew rolled his Visigoth in right behind the Hellcat. When Carew punched his thumb down on the stick's firing stud, the nose-mounted particle projection cannon loosed a bolt of synthetic lightning that chopped into the Hellcat's left wing and nibbled away at the vertical stabilizer. As Carew also hit the missile launcher, the Hellcat juked to the left, pulling the wing out of harm's way.

  Thirty LRMs streaked from the Visigoth and peppered the Hellcat's fuselage. Carew saw two green-gray clouds from missile clusters that told him heat sinks had been destroyed. One set of missiles had pulverized thrust vector nozzles while another three LRMs had blasted away at the armor over the engine. None of the hits were fatal in themselves, but taken as a whole, they doomed the Hellcat.

  The flying wing, unable to use the port thrust vectors, remained flying straight and level for what must have seemed an eternity to the pilot. Carew, riding close behind the craft, felt time slipping away incredibly fast, but his heat monitor showed the Visigoth's temperature dropping back to normal ranges, so he fired again.

  The PPC's blue lightning raked through the armor over the fuselage, and another heat sink exploded in a spray of greenish liquid. A pulse laser lanced red darts into the engine cowling and another blew more armor from the fuselage, again destroying thrust vector nozzles.

  Carew glanced at his secondary display. The Hellcat had lost three of its fifteen heat sinks. The armor on the fuselage had been damaged but not breached. The pilot had to want to disengage, but his thruster damage prevented that and the loss of his heat sinks meant overthrusting would make him overheat. Still, the fighter was operational and—as the laser from the after turret reminded Carew—it was still dangerous.

  How much damage will you take before you die ? Carew dropped the crosshairs on the plane's outline. And how long before one of your comrades scrapes me off your tail?

  * * *

  Phelan hit his radio as he brought his Star up at the extreme edge of what was likely to be the bandit's range. "Ragnar, we have to let them know we are serious. We need an example. Try the DropShip."

  "As you will it, my Khan."

  Phelan's eyes narrowed as he gazed at the Overlord DropShip sitting on the pristine ferrocrete of the landing pad. A reality of warfare in the thirty-first century was that it had become incalculably expensive. Over the previous three hundred years the Inner Sphere had managed to all but blow itself back into the Stone Age. Rec
overy of a memory core from the Star League era had begun a renaissance that brought with it more factories to produce the materiel of war, but most BattleMechs were still being cobbled together from bits and pieces salvaged after battles.

  The Kell Hounds had been rebuilt after the battle for Luthien from just such salvage. The bandits would be stopped, but if the Hounds could convince them to surrender before their machines were destroyed, not only would it save lives on both sides, it would also enrich the mercenaries above and beyond the compensation promised by Victor Davion.

  The DropShip Lioness was a masterpiece of lostech— the Inner Sphere term for any item whose technology had been lost for so long. The robotic factories in the Inner Sphere turned out less than a thousand DropShips a year, making each one incredibly valuable. While the Overlord Class ship represented a staggering sum of money if it could be captured, it also represented the Baile's only way off Arc-Royal.

  The ferrocrete of the landing pad had been poured over a metric quarter-ton of plastic explosive shaped in a cylinder and centered beneath the circle at the heart of the pad. When Ragnar hit a switch on the command console of his Viper, the plastique detonated. It blew up and out with a force that would have registered 5.2 on the Richter scale, vaporizing the ferrocrete and shooting a fiery plume half a kilometer into the air.

  The Lioness had landed somewhat west and north of center. The explosion crumpled the aft-starboard quadrant, rupturing the vessel like a hammer smashing a naranji. The ship lifted up off the ground and started to tumble, then came down again, bounced through a building, then started to come apart. Weapon magazines began to explode, spraying out armor and weapons, then the ship landed on a second building, creating an explosion that ripped the Overlord DropShip apart.

  Phelan felt the Shockwave of the detonation and steadied his Wolfhound against it. In Denton windows shattered and 'Mechs toppled. As he watched, most of the machines got back to their feet and braced themselves for the Kell Hound attack.