Duvic radio traffic picked up. Some of it, thanks to panicky operators, was in the clear. The assault phase of Operation Bagration was indeed underway. Kelly was about to order an increase in speed when Sally Trahn dropped a commo laser on him.
"We've got an enemy tank formation headed our way," she announced.
"Are they deployed for action?"
"Negative. They're in column."
Kelly ordered an immediate halt. Better for the Duvic tanks to cross in front of them than behind, where they might note evidence of the 'Mechs' passage. Unfortunately, the Duvic tanks didn't know they were supposed to pass by. They altered course, not directly for the Vigilantes, but near, very near. Kelly saw at once that the track of the Duvic tanks would pass close enough that the risk of a sighting was high.
"Is General Murphy giving orders to those guys?"
"Say again, Commander," Trahn said.
"Never mind." He also saw that the local terrain offered the Vigilantes the chance of an ambush. "We'll try and take them. Dead tankers tell no tales."
He set Trahn's Raven and JJ's Javelin to crouch on the debris from a long abandoned quarry. He ordered Sam and Snell's Commandos into a stand of huge shenko conifers whose boles were massive enough to block the small 'Mechs from view. Kelly took up a fire support position to the left where he could command the tankers' line of retreat. If any survived the ambush, he could deal with them as they hightailed it home.
The tanks came on. There were four of them. The crews seemed unaware of the danger into which they roared. They had not even bothered to rotate their turrets for maximum surveillance. Kelly made them as Scimitars, hover tanks armed with Armstrong autocannons and paired small SRM racks. They were seriously outclassed by the Vigilantes.
Time for their wake.-up call.
"Sam, knock on their door."
She did, dropping all her missiles on the flank of the last in line. She raked her laser into the craters caused by her missiles and blew the tank to oblivion.
The Commandos advanced on the tanks using the "Double Weave" tactic Kelly and Sam had come up with back in training, and the tankers fell for it. Their fire was erratic and they shifted their positions badly, failing to anticipate which of the eccentrically moving 'Mechs would appear next.
One tank shifted to right where Sally needed it. She stood her Raven and launched a NARC beacon at it. The shell went home, attached itself to the Scimitar's hull just forward of the engine compartment, and started crooning its siren song for Vigilante missiles.
Trahn blasted her paired lasers into the tank, lambent energy vaporizing significant chunks of the vehicle's Protec armor. The Scimitar survived the hit, but only for a moment. A combined salvo of sixteen SRMs from JJ and Sally, drawn by the NARC, devoured it.
The Commandos handled another one, convincing the last survivor to head for home. Kelly met it with a spread of LRMs and a quadruple spear of laser fire. Shattered, billowing smoke, the vehicle struggled on. A second missile flight ripped into it, blowing the air from its skirts and flipping it. The turret sailed in a different direction from the hull. Both components crumpled when they struck the ground.
"Transmissions?" Kelly asked Sally.
"None I netted."
That was good. His lance had done what needed to be done, functioning smoothly and as a team. He was proud of them. "Good show, people. Now we get back on track."
Hinchuan was nearly two hundred kilometers from the front lines. Kelly's Lineholder, the slowest of the Vigilante 'Mechs, could run that distance in less than three hours. Caution and secrecy dictated that they not move at top speed, so three hours later, they were barely more than halfway to the target. They moved in an extended vee formation with Kelly on left flank, JJ on the right and Sally on point where her Raven's electronics could do their best sniffing for danger.
"I think we've got a shadow," Sally announced.
The vector she gave meant that Kelly's Lineholder was nearest. Kelly checked his own scanners. They showed a light 'Mech ahead of him and a little to his right. It couldn't be anything but a bandit. Chasing a skulking bandit wasn't the commander's job, but Kelly was the closest and this was a situation that had to be dealt with soonest. Besides, the bandit didn't seem to be aware of Kelly and was moving in on Snell's Commando, presumably for a better look.
"I'm on it."
On his screen, he could see that Sam was also responding, shifting over to close on Snell's position. She wasn't the only one reacting. Judging by the way the ghost was starting to cut back to the left, he had become aware of the approaching Lineholder.
Kelly accelerated and caught a glimpse of a long-legged shape with a horizontal torso and a low-slung cockpit that jutted forward. No mistaking that exotic silhouette. It was a Jenner. The 48th was operating two of them and as far as Kelly knew, the Kuritans had the only ones in the theater.
The Lineholder's left arm came up and the BlazeFire lit the night. The beam grazed the Jenner, galvanizing it into a run. Ducking and weaving, the Jenner made no attempt to fire back. Its pilot clearly wanted no part of a fight with a 'Mech twice its mass, and his superb use of cover and speed made it impossible for Kelly to force the issue.
Sam and Snell charged past Kelly's position.
"Negative," he told them, calling off their pursuit. "No time to chase him, and we can't have him splitting us up." Jenners were speed demons, easily capable of outdistancing any Vigilante 'Mech. Their high speed also meant they could run rings around the Vigilantes. "That pilot looks good enough to lead us on a snipe hunt."
"One of the Kuritans?" Sam asked.
"Be my guess," Kelly replied. "They're not our job tonight."
Kelly overrode Sam's protests. It was out of their hands. The Jenner would be reporting to someone, and they needed to get on about their business quickly before all surprise was lost. They could only hope that the Jenner's bosses didn't figure out the Vigilantes' destination.
They returned to their formation and moved on. Two and a half hours later, having encountered no more stray Duvic forces, they were moving in a tighter formation and approaching their target along the Kennesaw Canal.
Like many of the settlements in the northern regions, Hinchuan was an oasis in the badlands built to exploit mineral resources. And like most of those settlements, it wasn't exactly a thriving metropolis. It was located in a broad valley punctuated by spires of weathered basaltic intrusion and buttes of the banded sandstone that made up so much of the continent's exposed geology. Processing buildings and machinery dominated the place, supported by warehouses and the occasional multistory housing complex, a tiny downtown section of offices and shops, and rambling tracts of private homes and small businesses. The whole place lay quiet and mostly dark under the lowering sky.
Near the edge of the settlement, hard by the canal-side loading yards was Huang-Lu Space Port. As it came into view, Sam asked sarcastically, "This is a space port?"
Huang-Lu was indeed a space port. Class Four, the references said. Kelly figured that rating only applied on a good day, with a congenial and properly bribed assessor, who also happened to be blind.
The ferroconcrete of the landing field was runneled with cracks and had spots that were pulverized into little more than a thick gravel bed. Kelly doubted they would support anything but the smallest of DropShips and them not much longer. But somewhere on the battered field there was a spot retaining sufficient strength to handle a medium-sized commercial DropShip, because there was one sitting in the lee of the biggest hangar.
Pumping up the magnification Kelly looked for Capellan markings on the DropShip. He didn't find any, and he wasn't surprised. Still, there was no reason to doubt that this was the ship that they needed to own.
At least it didn't look to be armed. He could not see any weapons blisters or gun ports on its hull. It could have concealed weapons or there might be 'Mechs aboard, positioned to fire out the airlocks, but such improvised defenses wouldn't be very effective. The ship's resis
tance would be weak. Kelly didn't want any.
Kelly positioned his people carefully, sitting them in a circle surrounding the target. He made sure that each was in the open and had a good line of fire that wouldn't cross the target and endanger a friendly. He also made sure they could move to cover quickly.
All remained quiet as they took up their positions. They had, it seemed, achieved the surprise they sought. They closed to ninety meters without sending up an alarm. At Kelly's signal, the Vigilantes turned on lights, swamping the DropShip in actinic glare. As Trahn started jamming the long range commo bands, Kelly keyed open his external speakers and made his broadcast on Duvic military frequencies, as well as open commercial channels.
"Attention, DropShip. You are under the guns of County Shu BattleMechs. We expect you to surrender. Fight and we destroy you."
For several moments nothing happened. Trahn reported a low level commo buzz aboard the ship. They'd gotten the message. The first question was, did they believe it? The second was, would they comply?
The answer to the second came as people burst from the DropShip and ran toward the hangar. Several of them were wearing cooling vests. MechWarriors. There would be 'Mechs in that hangar, possibly already warmed up. How capable of combat they might be, Kelly didn't know, but he saw no reason to give these MechWarriors a chance to demonstrate their 'Mechs' capabilities for him.
He used his BlazeFire laser in blatant overkill to gouge a furrow across their path.
"Any attempt to flee the ship will be dealt with. Take another step, gentlemen and ladies, and see how."
His demonstration proved sufficient. The MechWarriors retreated to the DropShip. Faced with ready opposition and stuck aboard a barely-armed and -armored commercial DropShip, the ship's commander soon surrendered.
JJ volunteered to be the one to dismount and enter the DropShip to ensure that its engines and any weapons were locked down and to do what he could to save the data that the hostiles were undoubtedly purging from their computers. His only real defense was his lancemates in their 'Mechs outside. And his only link to them was a short-range headset that fuzzed once he was inside the DropShip's hull. But the link held and so did the threat. JJ reported the hostiles sullen, but willing to let him do what he'd gone in to do once he'd made it clear that action against him would result in the Vigilantes opening fire on the DropShip and turning it into enough slag to patch up the space port.
As JJ tried to do his duty, Kelly prepared the coded transmission that would tell the brass he'd succeeded. He wanted to send it as soon as possible because, until he did, high command wouldn't dispatch the convoy of ground troops that Kelly needed to hold this place and control the prisoners. His 'Mechs were a big club, a wonderful threat, but too blunt and destructive for the rest of the job. Five Vigilantes were an insufficient force to ride herd on prisoners and make a proper search of the facility for the incriminating evidence Intel wanted and defend the space port against any attempt to retake it.
Still, he thought, it had been easy. Too easy? How could he tell? There hadn't been any opposition at the space port, but that was what he had been told to expect. The Duvics were supposed to be relying on secrecy and misdirection as their defense. Of course, they had the 'Mechs that were landing as a back-up, but they hadn't been able to deploy them because the Vigilantes, striking quickly and under their own veil of secrecy, had gotten here before the 'Mechs were ready. It was an operation that had worked according to plan, and didn't those always seem too easy?
Sally Trahn interrupted his thoughts, breaking in on the lance channel. "Remember when Captain Veck said the plan required that the enemy do exactly what the brass expected?"
He certainly did.
"Well, they're not," Trahn declared. "The enemy, I mean. I mean, they're the enemy all right, but they're not doing what the brass expects."
"Stop babbling, Trahn."
"Sorry, Commander. We've got BattleMechs on approach. A lance, maybe. Mixed tonnages, but there's a really big one."
"Hundred tonner?"
"How did—never mind, Commander. Yes, sir, a hundred tonner."
So much for too easy. "JJ?"
"I heard. Crawford's Pillager."
Kelly couldn't think what else it might be. They would be facing Kingston's Killers and playing well out of their weight category.
"JJ, you done in there?"
"I put an override code on their operating system, but it's not really—"
"It'll have to do. Get out here and saddle up."
"Acknowledged."
"Sam, Snell, once JJ's out, weld those hostiles into their ship. Trahn, try and get me IDs on the other hostiles."
He needed to know how bad it would be.
37
Hinchuan
Duvic Palatine, Epsilon Eridani
Chaos March
6 May 3062
It was bad.
Besides the Pillager, Trahn identified the Enforcer and the Clint, which had been its companions before, and a Catapult. The bad guys were running with nearly twice the mass of the Vigilantes. JJ cursed. "What are they doing here?"
"The Jenner that got away," Snell suggested. "No, I mean, why aren't they down fighting off the big invasion?"
"It doesn't matter," Kelly said. "They're here, and we need to deal with them."
No one asked how, but Kelly knew they all had to be thinking it. Lord knew he was. "At least we have superior electronics," said Trahn. "And they have superior firepower," JJ pointed out. "They're not surprising us like they did in Dori," observed Sam.
"And we did so well there. There were three of them then, there are four now. I seem to recall—"
"Enough," Kelly ordered. "However many there are, we can't sit and wait for them here. We need cover. And we have to assume they know we're here, but we don't have to make it easy for them. Trahn, start jamming their sensors."
He led them into Hinchuan. Leaving the objective behind bothered him, but he couldn't see a way to defend it on the spot. His mind raced, searching for a scheme to deal with the oncoming hostiles. A plan began to form.
"The Catapult gives them a long-range punch we can't match. So we don't try to. We'll move near the edge of the town, but not to it. Once they enter, we get buildings to screen us and they get their fields of fire cut. Trahn's" jamming will make it hard for them to spot us and to coordinate their movements if they do."
Sam was the first to get it. "So they lose mutual support, and we get to gang up on them one at a time."
"Exactly."
Kelly moved his lance into an ore processing facility. The piles of tailings and bulky machinery offered a wealth of cover. Best of all, they had their back to a row of warehouses and factory sheds which would shield them as they pulled back.
Trahn edged forward to get a better scan. She informed them that Crawford's people were moving in, more slowly since Trahn's jamming went up. Even so, they were only a few hundred yards from the outskirts. The Pillager was in the lead, flanked by the Enforcer and the Clint. The two lighter 'Mechs were holding their speed down to that of the hundred tonner.
"The Cat's hanging back," she reported.
No surprise there. It was a long-range support vehicle, which primarily used its Arrow missile system to demolish ground troops. The Arrow wasn't designed for anti-Mech use, but a hit from one of the oversized missiles could end a 'Mech's—any 'Mech's—battleworthiness in a single shot.
"Don't let any of its mates force you into its line of fire," Kelly warned.
Kingston's Killers were wise in the ways of death. As they neared the built-up area, they spread out, each seeking his own path into the urban maze. They knew that to enter in line only offered the enemy a free target for any shots that failed to score on the lead 'Mech. It made sense. It also put the Enforcer quite near the Vigilantes' hiding place.
"We've got our first target," Kelly sent on commo laser.
They waited under the umbrella of Trahn's scanner fuzz and watched as the Enfo
rcer came nearer. The 'Mech's head turned from side to side as he scanned for targets. Unfortunately for him, the biggest, fattest one around was him.
Kelly gave the word and the Vigilantes opened up. Lasers crisscrossed around the Enforcer, flashing a bloody red in the smoke of exploding missiles. Battered and hurting, the Enforcer toppled backwards. His fall was all that saved him from being tagged by Trahn's NARC. Her shot flew wide, planting itself on a gantry crane. Efficiently, she killed the transmitter before it lured their missiles to an unintended target.
Autocannon spewing shells, the Enforcer crawled toward cover of its own. Thunderous footfalls announced the charge of the Pillager, as it moved to aid its smaller partner. But Trahn had the monster on her scope and guided the Vigilantes away from its approach.
They pulled back, swinging wide around the gathering Killers then moving on the Clint as the pilot jumped the machine over obstacles in a rush to reach the scene of combat.
The high vantage must have let the pilot catch sight of at least some of the Vigilante 'Mechs. A second jump put the 'Mech near Sam and Snell's Commandos. The Clint fired as it came down. One of its lasers scored Snell's left leg armor. The Commandos scattered away from the Clint's landing point. Dust and jet-blasted debris swirled around it and the myomer pseudomuscles flexed to absorb the mighty impact of landing. The Clint sprang out of its crouch, firing. Its targets were the dodging Commandos, but neither cannon shells nor lasers scored.
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