As it turned out, Kelly was wrong about the Kuritans. Both of their BattleMechs were still standing in the vacant lot that was their vehicle park. He didn't need Slug's "They're cold" to tell him that the two machines were not powered up. Even his Commando's standard sensors could read the fact that neither the Panther's nor the Jenner's fusion hearts were up to operating temperatures. At least not fully. But it was plain that the pilots were aboard and getting their 'Mechs ready to move.
"I don't get it." JJ sounded as confused as Kelly felt. "Crawford's people were on the move immediately."
The reasons why didn't really matter at the moment. Sitting in front of them was a gift. The Clint and the Jenner had the potential to be their biggest headache since each was fast enough to catch Veck's Vindicator and big enough to give it a fight. Though Kelly had told the others that their mission didn't involve taking on the hostiles, here was a chance to catch the fastest of the hostile 'Mechs with its pants down. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
"Target the Jenner," he told his lancemates. "We scratch it before we go after the Panther. Let's make sure they never get up and running."
JJ and Slug acknowledged as Sam whooped her enthusiasm.
Having given the order to fire, Kelly dropped his targeting crosshairs on the Jenner. A faint flicker of motion within the cockpit made him hesitate. The Kuritan aboard the Jenner was defenseless, but it was his side that had started this fight. He was a legitimate target.
Wasn't he?
His companions' energy weapons flashed. Missiles roared out.
Kelly's finger tugged on the trigger. His thumb stabbed down on firing buttons. His Commando shuddered as missiles launched. Heat flushed across his cockpit. It was a familiar sensation, and it sent a familiar feeling clawing icily down his spine.
The Jenner tottered under the pummeling it received. Twenty or more missiles ripped into its armored hide. At least three lasers tore past what remained of its armor and speared into its innards. Fires started, too hot for the rain to extinguish. The Jenner streamed and smoked. It tilted. It fell, crashing to the broken pavement.
Kelly tried not to think of the pilot who lay dead, or dying, or at least wounded in the wreck of his machine, but he couldn't do it. Duvorshak was the man's name. Kelly, however, imagined Stiibel's face, screaming his pain.
There was a pause. Kelly's lancemates halted their fire, seemingly as stunned as he in seeing the sudden destruction they had wrought. The Jenner was wrecked. Kelly no longer saw any movement in the cockpit save the flicker of sparks and fire.
The lull ended as a PPC blast, wild lightning crackling around the ionized particles, came sizzling through the air. The Panther's pilot had gotten his machine on-line.
The shot caught Sam's Commando high on the torso. It went down in a cloud of steam and smoke.
"Sam!"
Kelly was terrified that she had been killed.
"Sam!"
There was no reassuring response.
JJ and Slug were engaging the Panther. Kelly knew he should be helping them but he shifted his machine in Sam's direction.
He had to know.
As he got closer, he could see that the Commando was still moving. It could only be so if Sam was still alive to direct it. The machine was scrabbling its leg against the pavement, as Sam tried to get it rolled over enough that she could use the arms to help push it upright. Kelly moved his Commando in to give it something to brace against, calling all the while to Sam.
She still didn't answer.
Once the Commando was on its feet again, she raised one battlefist to tap a finger against the machine's head in the ages-old gesture for a commo failure. Her signal indicated that she could still receive intermittently, though. He rocked his Commando's head to signal that he understood even as he told her so.
Kelly could see that much of the left side of her Commando's head had been torn up. Clearly her transmitter had been shredded. The shoulder assembly on that side had been mauled, too. It was affecting the arm, causing it to move jerkily, but her Commando ought to be able to fight on.
Apparently Sam was ready. She started the Commando toward the fight and gave him a "let's go" wave.
They ran their machines to support JJ and Slug. The Kuritan had cut across an alley to a main street. JJ was in close pursuit and Slug was racing down a parallel street. Kelly led Sam a block over then up another parallel. If they could surround the Panther, they had it.
The four-on-one fight should have been a foregone conclusion, even in the midst of the storm and the confines of the city, but it wasn't. The pilot of the Panther seemed to lead a charmed life. Time after time he just managed to avoid fire from the Vigilante 'Mechs. The way he broke target locks made Kelly think that the Panther had to be running some sophisticated electronic countermeasures, but Slug said it wasn't so.
"He's just a heck of a pilot."
If he wasn't using electronics, he was, indeed, a heck of a pilot. The Kuritan ducked his machine just as Kelly and Sam caught him in a laser cross fire. They nearly nailed each other with the beams. He cut behind a building just before a full flight of JJ's missiles reached his position. Most uncanny of all was that every time Slug tried to nail the Panther with a NARC beacon, the pilot grabbed cover or disappeared around a corner or sent enough fire down range that Slug ducked and covered himself, costing him the shot.
They did hit the Kuritan, though. With as much fire as they were pouring out, they had to. But they were only scratching him. The Panther's fire was even less successful, but Kelly suspected that it wasn't because the Panther pilot was a poor shot.
Several times he had seen the Kuritan pass up clean shots at one or another of the Vigilantes. The Panther's arm-slung particle projector cannon rarely spoke and when it did, it toppled a sign or a wall to dump debris in the path of an advancing Vigilante, forcing the machine to slow or pause. Inexplicably, the Kuritan never pressed any advantage, seemingly preferring fleeing over firing.
And so, the chase went on. The Panther moving wraithlike through storm and city, always one step ahead of them.
"What gives?" JJ wanted to know. "He's moving north and east."
"Yeah, why isn't he leading us back into his buddies?" Slug asked.
"Maybe he thinks he's drawing us away from ours," Kelly suggested.
"He's got to be wanting help from Crawford's 'Mechs," JJ predicted. "He can't take on the four of us."
Watching the eerily smooth motions of the Panther made Kelly wonder about that. If the Kuritan wanted help, why was he moving so fast in the wrong direction?
Kelly thought he knew. "Let's try something. Everybody halt."
The Vigilantes followed his order, but the Panther kept moving. The Kuritan didn't slow down to let them catch up or fire a shot to keep them in the fight.
"He's not leading us anywhere. He's trying to get away." Kelly felt they were lucky that was the case.
"Or we're where he wants us," JJ added.
"If it was a trap, he'd turn back on us. He's not badly hurt." Kelly felt sure of it. There was something else he was sure of as well. "But our little fracas will have almost certainly advertised our location to anyone who cares. That's good news and bad news. Good news: Crawford's people will be heading this way and not after Veck. More good news: I think we've bought the commander enough time, and we can give up on this soggy burgh. Bad news: we've got a longer road home."
The Kuritan had led them well out around the curve of Lake Arous. They had to move back south before they could cut west toward County Shu. Kelly shunted his plotted route to his lancemates. They hadn't been moving long when Slug commed.
"Heads up, everybody. Action on our seven."
In that direction, the fading flare of jump jets revealed a BattleMech incoming.
A burst of autocannon fire from their three announced another.
24
Dori
Arousian Region, Epsilon Eridani
Chaos March
&nbs
p; 25 February 3062
Kelly swiveled his Commando's torso right, firing the chest-mounted Coventry launcher before the Artemis system had a solid lock. He didn't care. His main objective was to get the enemy's head down. Through the exhaust trail of the spiraling incoming missiles, he caught a glimpse of the opponent. It was the Clint. He raised his Commando's arms, waited for the ping of the Streak system locking on, and gave the Duvic 'Mech a pair of SRMs and a blast from his laser. He didn't linger to gauge his accuracy. Starting his Commando moving, he snapped the torso back to its normal facing as he shouted, "Move! Cover!"
The Vigilantes scattered, Slug's Raven shedding armor plates. It had been the autocannon's target and the Duvic MechWarrior had scored on the Raven's right leg. Sam didn't move with the rest. She stood and sent a flight of missiles at the Clint.
What did she think she was doing? "I said head for cover!"
This time her Commando moved to his command. Whether she hadn't heard his first order or had just ignored it to get a shot off at the enemy, he'd find out later. For now he sent a six-pack of his own missiles to cover her.
"Sam's got it right," JJ proposed. "We got another four-on-one, and I'm betting this Clint pilot isn't half the MechWarrior that Kuritan was. We can take him."
Maybe they could. The Clint was the other opposition machine that had a chance of overtaking the fleeing Veck and Lady Shu. Crippling or killing it would ensure the lady's escape. Unfortunately, JJ wasn't right about the odds. The jump jets that Slug had spotted meant there was another enemy within striking range. It could be the Kuritan returning in his Panther. The Kuritan's return wouldn't change the mass equation too badly, but it would shift the piloting equation far too much. It was strange to be thinking that they'd be lucky if the incoming 'Mech was the Enforcer. If it was, though, it would really be bad news, since that 'Mech massed as much as both Commandos combined. Worse, the unknown might be the Pillager, which would leave the Vigilantes hopelessly outclassed.
"Forget it," he told JJ. "Mission first. Covering fire only. We're moving out."
A thumbs-up from Sam's Commando signaled that she had gotten his orders. The Vigilantes moved out.
The Clint used its speed to dog them hard, but Kelly kept his people moving and using the city to shield them from the pursuit's fire. They took some hits, but it was all minor stuff, and BattleMechs were made to take a lot of punishment. The Vigilantes doled out some hits as well, but the Clint still came on. Its pilot wasn't easily discouraged. Still, Kelly figured they were doing well. They were covering ground, cutting across the northwest quadrant of Dori, and they seemed to have lost the other hostile among the maze of the city's buildings.
Until Slug called out, "Jets at one o'clock."
Kelly cursed. They hadn't evaded the jumping 'Mech. It had moved to cut them off. This time the unknown was close enough for Kelly to get a gauge on its mass as it landed, covered from their fire, behind a parking structure. It was a medium 'Mech, presumably the Enforcer, and that was trouble.
The Vigilantes moved in response, trying to get out from between the two hostiles. They weren't fast enough. Blue-tinged lightning ripped past JJ's Javelin.
The jumping 'Mech had fired a PPC. The Enforcer they'd seen didn't have a particle cannon, and the PPC-armed Panther wasn't a medium 'Mech. Kelly's momentary confusion almost sent his fast-moving Commando into an office building. So who was this new enemy?
No enemy at all, it turned out.
Veck's voice crackled on the lance circuit. "Trahn, Jurewicz, flank right. Kelly, Liu, flank left. We drive this dog back to her masters."
Kelly spun his Commando and triggered both launchers. JJ loosed a full volley as Slug used his paired lasers. Sam was a little slow in shifting over to the attack, but when she did, she unloaded everything onto the Clint's position.
Like a hound whose quarry had suddenly transformed from running hare to enraged boar, the Clint backed away. The Vigilantes furious assault didn't score much damage as far as Kelly could see, but it turned the tables. The Clint's pilot was happy enough to chivvy a gaggle of green MechWarriors, but facing a well-commanded lance was another matter. The Clint booked.
Veck didn't let them pursue the fleeing Clint very far. He halted the Vigilantes in a small plaza and called a conference. They cracked their cockpits so Sam could be in on the catching-up.
Veck told his side in short clipped sentences. Intermittent pick-ups from the civil broadcast network had informed him that there were BattleMechs fighting in Dori. Having gotten Lady Shu safely out of the city, he'd sent the transport on, as much as a decoy as to get the lady's staff to safety and stashed the lady herself in a safe place before coming back. He'd expected to find the lance in deep trouble. Kelly thought he detected concern in the old Mech Warrior's voice, but knew better than to mention it. "Looks like you 'Jocks learned something after all. All right, Kelly, report."
Kelly followed Veck's example and kept it short and simple.
"Good work," Veck said of their handling of the Kuritans, but his mind wasn't on the past. "This hide-and-seek city fighting works into Crawford's strengths right now, and I won't play his game. We're going to get ourselves some open space and take advantage of our ground speed. We've still got a mission. Once we're clear, we secure the lady and head home. No unnecessary combat. Got it?"
They said so, loud and clear. Kelly was relieved to have Veck back in command. It felt right, the way it was supposed to be.
When everyone was buttoned up again, Veck turned them toward the lake. Slug reported the Clint shadowing them.
"She won't take us on alone," Veck assured them.
He was right. The Clint didn't close on them until Slug reported a new contact, an incoming medium 'Mech landing atop a three-story building to their front. This time the jumper really was a hostile, and it had cut them off. Laser and autocannon fire poured down on the Vigilantes as the Enforcer joined the Clint's attack.
Veck wasn't having a stand-up fight.
"Cut south," he ordered.
The Vigilantes found themselves in another running gun battle. Under Veck's direction, they worked the cover that the city offered, all the while trying to edge back toward their intended route. Veck himself stood rear guard, sending PPC blasts and the occasional laser pulse at the enemy to keep them at bay.
Kelly thought it was fortunate that Crawford's people were as reluctant as the Vigilantes were to come in for a serious brawl. Maybe they'd had their own version of Veck's lessons on what damage to your 'Mechs meant in a campaign, and a campaign was what they were going to get now that the element of surprise was lost.
The winding roads of this quarter of the city tended to weave and thread across the wide boulevards that made up the main arteries. It meant the Vigilantes were rarely out of sight of each other for long. Kelly saw Slug's Raven as it came racing among the trees of one of Dori's innumerable small parks to join him. Veck's Vindicator appeared at the mouth of an alley. As Sam and JJ moved into the park, the Enforcer's shadow flickered across a wall of one of the boundary buildings. Veck's particle cannon spoke and the shadow drew back.
"Through this park to West Shore Boulevard," Veck ordered. "We can use the boulevard to cut back to the warehouse district. There'll be faster going alongside the lake."
West Shore was a true parkway, its broad median strip filled with trees and decorative plantings. The sodden vegetation whipped in the storm's winds, seemingly waving good-bye to the passing 'Mechs.
Without warning, Slug's Raven exploded. One leg cartwheeled away as thirty-five tons of unguided missile that used to be a BattleMech plowed into the boulevard's trees in a spray of splintered wood, fragmented armor, and shredded machine parts. The fireball disintegrated stately' oaks in bursts of superheated steam. Lasers clawed into the twitching wreck. More explosions sent parts of the Raven into the wind-driven rain on tails of sizzling smoke.
Stunned, Kelly staggered his Commando to a halt.
"Harry?"
; There was no answer. Nor would there ever be.
Numb, Kelly looked for the killer. The Pillager, author of the lethal destruction, stood a dozen blocks away on West Shore, recycling its weapons. The wide avenue gave the monstrous 'Mech a perfect firing lane.
"Scatter, scatter, scatter," Veck ordered the lance. "Reform on the other side of the lake."
On reflex, Kelly heaved the Commando into motion.
The other Vigilantes were obeying Veck's orders as well, evacuating the boulevard.
The Pillager reacted to the sudden scramble, charging toward them. Kelly stowed the rendezvous coordinates Veck sent and dodged left, looking for cover. The Pillager fired its gauss rifles again. The magnetically driven slugs tore the air, but failed to score against the rapidly moving Vigilantes. Bricks and shattered concrete pelted Kelly's Commando. Lasers dug into the buildings beside him. Only his quick response to Veck's command had saved him from the enemy's shots. He hoped the other Vigilantes would be as lucky.
The Pillager stalked the lake shore, firing occasionally. Its long-range armament let it rake any target that showed itself along the shore, as Kelly learned when paired ferrous-nickel shells nearly caught him trying to use the shore to make time. He barely avoided Trahn's fate. Shrapnel from the building that had caught the shells peppered his armor. Raking beams from the Pillager's laser array slammed into the Commando's left arm. Armor exploded. The impact spun his machine around. Kelly tried, but he couldn't keep the Commando upright. It toppled, smashing hard on the pavement and slamming his head against one of the cockpit's structural members. The neurohelmet kept his skull in one piece, but only barely. He forced the pain aside and, groggy, fought his way upright. He stumbled the machine forward, barely managing to avoid another gauss round as he ducked back under cover. The Commando paid his ticket to safety with more armor lost to flying debris.
After that, he traded away the speed that the shoreline offered for the cover the waterfront buildings afforded. He pressed on, losing track of his lancemates. From time to time his external mikes picked up the supersonic crack of the Pillager's gauss rifles firing. Someone had attracted fire. He prayed that it wasn't Sam, but whoever it was, he hoped that they stayed lucky. He tried the lance channel, but the storm and the city weren't letting the separated 'Mechs communicate. He thought about trying to see who was taking fire, but didn't go. There was still the mission, and that required survival. So he did his best to avoid giving the killer 'Mech another chance at him. He couldn't afford to expose the Commando if he wanted to reach the rendezvous point.
Initiation to War Page 15