Wolf Hunters

by Kevin Killiany

  "Whatever happened to zellbrigen?" Thaddeus asked.

  Dropping his alpha strike, he separated the ER PPCs. letting them track independently. Arms wide. Kriegaxt targeted both assailants.

  "Whatever happened to paladins defending worlds instead of raping them?" countered the woman, evidently the Mangonel pilot.

  "You have the advantage of me."

  "Aff."

  All three BattleMechs fired at once.

  Both of Thaddeus' shots went true. His left bolt bathed the lower half of the egg-shaped Uziel in destructive lightning while his right gouged high across the Mangonel's right torso.

  In exchange he took a PPC bolt raking across his left torso and a gauss slug to the short-range missile launcher mounted on his right shoulder. He'd left the rack uncovered, still prepared to fire. The nickel-iron projectile tore into the exposed missiles, the kinetic energy triggering a detonation that ripped the assembly from its mount.

  The CASE system prevented a chain reaction touching off all his ammo. Small consolation.

  Except—

  The Mangonel was spinning in place.

  No. not spinning, but moving abruptly from one side to the other, as though the pilot was trying to target multiple assailants. Or had lost torso control.

  Was it possible his shot had hit some vital control circuit? That didn't seem likely, but he didn't know enough about the Mangonel design to be sure.

  Whatever the reason, now was his opportunity to behead the defenders. No matter how flexible their response strategies, they weren't likely to remain viable without their commander. Particularly if they followed Clan culture and mindset.

  Ignoring the wounded Uziel and saving his remaining missiles against the chance of a longer battle, Thaddeus brought both of Kriegaxt's ER PPCs to bear on the helpless leader of the Wolf Hunters.

  * * *

  Broil Wolf double-checked his targeting display.

  This residential district on the northwest fringe of AtlanticCoast had been evacuated days before to provide a clear battlefield. The owners of these condominium complexes and rows of duplexes were not going to like what war had done to their homes, but at least they'd be alive to resent it.

  Broil's own JES III was inside a snow-covered garden that was screened on three sides by eight-meter walls of decoratively scrolled concrete blocks—one with a JES Ill-sized hole—and on the fourth by four stories of upscale condos.

  With the extra-light fusion engine banked to reduce their heat signature. Broil and his crew were waiting for something worthy of their salvo of sixty armor-piercing missiles to come their way. And Broil thought he saw it.

  "Ivocet, get the Nightstar's attention. Then fade south two hundred meters, then best speed east along boulevard with pink buildings," he said into his microphone. Then he tapped the contact which sent the recorded message as a half-second squeal of static.

  A double click from the Fenris confirmed the Mech- Warrior's intent to comply with the tank commander's order. Broil could remember when the exchange would have required a request and an explanation.

  "Sticks and Stones," he addressed his gunners, who were named neither, "we've got ninety-five tons of heavy metal coming our way. Indirect target, full load on the intersection. Be ready to reload pronto for a straight-on shot when we go through the wall. James, when the first flight's away, forward sixty meters and freeze."

  Satisfied, Broil smiled at the screens. He'd been a MechWarrior in the Capellan Confederation, but his Sha Yu would never have been a match for the Nightstar. He could have gone with Nikola Demos—almost all of the tankers had—but with her he would have been one among many doing the same thing. Here he was an individual—and a part of a team like no other. In forty seconds they would launch two salvos back- to-back—one hundred and twenty armor-piercing missiles. In less than a minute—while he expected Ivocet to turn and add her ten short-range missiles and large laser to the mix—a 95-ton assault 'Mech would fall to a 60- ton tank.

  It was good to be a Wolf Hunter.

  * * *

  Twin blazes of silver-blue lightning tore into the lower torso of the distressed Mangonel, stripping away armor in molten shards that lost themselves in the permafrost. The superheated air of the cockpit seared the back of Thaddeus' throat as he inhaled through his mouth. His nasal passages were already parched to the point of agony.

  The Mangonel's deadly gauss rifles answered. Or tried to. Apparently unable to stop her machine's wild gyrations. the Wolf Hunter tried to time her shots. Again and again, iron-nickel slugs blurred past Kriegaxt to bury themselves harmlessly in the ice or earth beyond.

  "Power down." Thaddeus said on the universal frequency, keeping the pant out of his voice. "You can't win and your death solves nothing."

  Four medium lasers answered, two of them scarring the cooling housing on his right PPC.

  Thaddeus sighed. This was not combat, it was slaughter. Targeting the lower half of the stricken machine, he fired again.

  A bolt from the Uziel went wide.

  The smaller machine had risked facing Thaddeus full on to fire an alpha strike. Three of its missiles and both PPC beams had hit, scarring and fusing armor along Kriegaxt's left torso and leg.

  But his answering salvo—six high-explosive missiles that did not miss and paired bolts from his PPCs—had shattered the Uziel's left leg and fractured much of its armor.

  The machine had fallen, and turned as it fell so that it now lay on its back with its damaged left side facing Thaddeus. The pilot had fired two bolts from his left PPC with long delays between. From its thermal signature, Thaddeus was sure it had lost most of its heat sinks.

  The Mangonel tried to charge forward, but its swinging torso made it stagger like a drunken priest. The machine could not reach him.

  Weapons lock.

  Thaddeus' first thought was that here at last was someone who played by the rules. His second was to turn and fire both ER PPCs at the newcomer.

  The stranger answered back with an ER PPC of his own and a burst of autocannon fire. Thaddeus' targeting computer identified the newest Wolf Hunter as a Vulture and—based on the PPC and autocannon arms—deduced it was the variant packing six six-tube short-range missile racks.

  He would have to either finish off the Wolf Hunters' leader in a hurry or move on before the other machine closed to SRM range. His missiles had a higher yield and a greater range, but it would be his six-shot salvo to the Vulture's thirty-six. Damaged as Kriegaxt was, he didn't like the odds on those exchanges.

  "Ozawa is down." Rollins reported over the command channel. "We're down about one-third of our force and still not within direct-fire range of our objective."

  "Are you stopped?" Thaddeus asked, cycling extended- range missiles into his tubes to accompany the PPC bolts toward the Vulture.

  "Elements are still advancing," Rollins said. "But. yes. the main thrust of the assault is bogged down."

  His targeting computer hooted for attention. Thirty- six short-range missiles incoming.

  It was extreme range for the SRMs—farther than common sense said the weapons could reach—but the Vulture pilot was either very lucky or very good. Geysers of frozen earth and ice stalked toward him. Metal impacts clanged through his cockpit as Kriegaxt's foot actuators and lower legs took hits.

  Backing away from the oncoming Wolf Hunter, Thaddeus retargeted his right PPC on the staggering Mangonel—closer now but lurching from side to side as its pilot still attempted to charge him. A coup de grace to its cockpit and—

  Blue-white flash.

  Thaddeus snatched his hands from the firing controls to cover his eyes before the canopy polarized to block the flare. The damned downed Uziel had gotten in a lucky shot—a PPC bolt to his cockpit. Only the glancing angle of the raking beam had saved him.

  Flash blind, barely able to see his hand controls much less the tactical displays, Thaddeus turned away from his assailants. Reorienting to the way he had come, he made best speed back around the should
er of the ice wall. Once out of direct line of fire, he slowed—giving his eyes time to adjust. Rescuing their leader would take precedence over chasing him.

  "Efrid?" he called over the tac channel his ad hoc command had adopted. The Panther pilot had been closest, advancing on his right flank before the ambush.

  No answer.

  With a beep, his targeting computer identified—with 83 percent probability—the twisted mass of metal in the center of a refrozen pond as the missing Panther. Thaddeus saw from the missile craters bordering the pond that the Vulture had not been idle before engaging him.

  "Ozawa—" Thaddeus caught himself. "Rollins, tac sit?"

  "Withdrawing in good order under harassing fire," Rollins said. Thaddeus could hear some sort of alarm beeping stridently in the Centurion s cockpit. "DropPort is still secure."

  "They're leaving the exit open for us," Thaddeus said. "Go to a universal channel and broadcast in clear. Ask for hegira."

  "Who's that?"

  "These meres are Clan—or at least going through the motions," Thaddeus said. "Hegira is the Clan word for cease fire. If they play their part, they'll stop shooting and let us off planet."

  "We're giving up?" Rollins demanded.

  "We're getting out alive," Thaddeus corrected.

  "It's your command, of course," he added, remembering his advisory role. "But Operation Fair Play was clearly no surprise to Phecda. Their meres have us out- maneuvered, outgunned, and on the run while they sit safe inside their houses."

  Rollins had no answer for that. Only the persistent tone of the Centurion"s cockpit alarm told Thaddeus the channel was still open.

  "If you're going to negotiate with Phecda in the future, it would be best to have at least some military assets left," Thaddeus said. "If only to prevent them from annexing you."

  Weapons lock astern.

  Thaddeus turned in place, bringing both ER PPCs and his remaining missile rack to bear on the Wolf Hunter Vulture that had rounded the ridge. Letting his weapons lock float, he backed away, reversing steadily along his escape route.

  The Vulture stood four-square. From what Thaddeus had seen of the pilot's marksmanship, Kriegaxt was in easy range of all its weapons.

  He would have to wait until the missiles launched, then throw himself right. There was a chance the lunge would unbalance him and he figured it better to land on the already damaged side than risk losing the other missile launcher. If he kept his feet, he'd get off an alpha strike while the Wolf Hunter's tubes reloaded. If he fell, he'd copy the UzieVs trick of firing from the horizontal position.

  The weapons lock alarm ceased.

  The Vulture lowered its arms, making it clear the ER PPC and autocannon no longer bore on Thaddeus.

  "Thank you. Captain Rollins," Thaddeus said under his breath.

  Turning, he set Kriegaxt to making its best speed back toward the DropPort. Only the Puma, with fresh battle scars smoking in the frozen air, left the valley with him.

  Three 'Mechs lost on a pointless diversion. And a possible stronghold of friendly forces turned into a microcosm of The Republic—politics, suspicion, and betrayal— through poor execution of a plan that should have worked.

  The broken coalition was going to blame him—he'd taken too direct a hand, he now realized. He'd soon be gone, but the memory of his failure—the failure of a paladin who'd come to save them—would poison the local worlds against The Republic for years. If not generations.

  Maybe the mission wasn't a total loss.

  * * *

  "What do you mean you don't know?"

  If at all possible, the computer technician became more pasty. He was a freeborn bondsman, but he had learned enough Clan to know that when Anastasia Ker- ensky used a contraction the situation was very dangerous.

  He glanced around the command hut—idle now that the Shiloh Alliance forces had withdrawn—and seemed to gain some reassurance from the sight of Murchison at Anastasia's flank.

  "The computer system is completely fried," he said as though forcing the words through a choke hold. "Physically melted. I can't extract data—I can't even extract any parts—it's a lump."

  He seemed to gather his strength.

  "Perhaps if you told me what happened I could extrapolate," he said in such a rush that it took Anastasia a moment to parse the individual words.

  "My second salvo went high." she said. "A PPC bolt hit the upper right torso. I turned on my active targeting system. The torso began snapping right and left to the full extent of its rotation as fast as it could."

  The technician blinked at her. Motionless, his face became abandoned as his thoughts turned inward.

  His complete blankness reminded her who he was. Cooper, Carpenter, the terrified toad of Chief Technician Garth—now gone with the so-called Steel Wolves— who had been sent to report on her Ryoken IVs crash on Galatea.

  Only he wasn't a toad, she reminded herself. He was a Wolf Hunter, one who had chosen to follow her. And, now that she was thinking about it, it had been his squeaky voice that had wished her good hunting.

  "You are describing a range-of-motion diagnostic program running at ludicrous speed," the technician suddenly spoke. His voice was surprisingly clear and strong—until his eyes refocused on Anastasia. "That's im-impossible."

  "Impossible?"

  "Accidentally impossible," Cooper/Carpenter/what- ever clarified hastily. "That could not happen by accident."

  He became completely immobile again, staring round- eyed at Anastasia.

  "Carter," said Murchison with a gentleness Anastasia imagined he used to comfort the dying. "Have you taken your medication?"

  Carter turned to face the doctor. "Yes, sir," he said clearly.

  Noting the change in his demeanor, Anastasia shifted her weight left, getting out of the little man's line of sight.

  "What do you think happened to the 'Mech's computer?" Murchison asked conversationally.

  "Trojan horse program, hidden command," Carter said. "I can't imagine how it was loaded—and without the files I'll never know the specifics. My guess would be it was triggered by specific conditions, like taking damage and having the targeting system engaged."

  Sabotage. Anastasia had assumed that whoever wanted her dead had left with the ersatz Steel Wolves. Her untested assumption had almost cost her life.

  "You will check every command circuit on every BattleMech," Anastasia ordered Carter. "If another machine fails, you will answer."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Realizing he'd been dismissed, the man scurried away. He paused at the main door to put on two layers of coats before going out into the wind.

  "Medication?" Anastasia asked, self-aware of how unusual her interest in the well-being of a tech was. To be Pack . . . "Is he mentally unstable?"

  "Heart condition," Murchison answered. "Given how terrified he is of you, he risks a cardiac episode every time you're in the same room."

  "Yet he serves."

  "He told me since his wife's death he has nowhere else to go," Murchison said. "He said he's here for her."

  Anastasia frowned for a moment at the tangled web of alien concepts behind that explanation, then dismissed it. Whatever the little man's former commitments, he had pledged himself to the Wolf Hunters. He was Pack now.

  As were they all.

  22

  Bunker City, Geir

  Laiaka, former Prefecture VIII

  13 December 3135

  The Odin scout tank spun in place, its armored fenders missing rock with meters to spare. The turret rotated independently, easily clearing the roof of the mining tunnel as the medium pulse lasers and SRM2 rack locked on several targets in sequence.

  "This is the smallest tunnel we'll encounter?" Nikola asked.

  "This is the smallest standard diameter in the Geir network." confirmed Captain Roost, commander of the Laiaka Planetary Militia contingent of the assault force. "The Prieska network was constructed to the same specifications."

  Nikola nodded
. Given the tunnel environment, Zean- der's belief that Elementals were the only answer was understandable—in someone who didn't understand what tanks could do. Particularly with the generous twelve-by-twelve-meter circumference that seemed to be standard. She couldn't help thinking that a Star of Sha- mash would have been useful. To acquire some of the laser-equipped reconnaissance vehicles had long been a goal of hers.

  "Star Captain Rhodan, you will command the tunnel assault," she said, and dismissed any further concern for that phase of the operation from her mind.

  Knowing Captain Roost would follow her, she headed for the surface garage.

  Though the garage was fully sealed and pressurized, they had to cycle through an air lock to reach the cavernous—literally—chamber. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Roost go through what was evidently a suit-check protocol—touching the gloves at his belt and confirming the goggled hood hung from his collar— before opening the second door. All the indicators showed clean air and unprotected personnel clearly visible through the ferroglass door panel.

  She had seen nothing cowardly about the natives of Laiaka. A sulfur-carbon dioxide atmosphere didn't sound dangerous, but if the natives treated it with such respect she would be wise to heed the warning.

  With that in mind, she took extra care in examining the insulating collar that had been added to her Condor's turret rotation ring. The governor had been right that tanks were not truly vaportight. To operate in a vacuum would have required nearly five tons of modifications. But a toxic atmosphere could be kept at bay with catalytic air filters, impervious barriers over the moving parts, and additional oxygen tanks tied into an air recirculation system set to run at a higher pressure than the outside air.

  "Pandot," she said, catching the attention of the technician overseeing the tank modifications. "Oxygen tanks and hazmat masks for every crew member."

  The technician's eyes unfocused for a moment as she calculated what adjustments would need to be made in each vehicle to comply.

  "One point four hours." "Done."