by IIsa J. Bick
Just as he finished the last systems’ check and the bay cleared, a voice scratched in his ear: “Estimate optimal penetration in thirty-point-nine seconds, Tai-shu.”
Sakamoto’s throat worked in a dry swallow. “Very well,” he said, though things were far from well. When this was over, he would sleep for a very long time. In the meantime—he shook himself, smelled vomit and sour sweat—there were Blues to kill.
“Commence battle drop,” Sakamoto said, and watched as Black Wind’s hangar bay doors scrolled apart. The ice cap appeared: a glaze of white glittering against a background of cobalt blue sea stretching left to right as far as the eye could see. The docking clamps holding his No-Dachi in place opened. A jolt as the umbilicals connecting his ’Mech dropped away, and in the next second, the hangar bay passed before his eyes in a blur as Sakamoto fell to earth.
Carillan Sector, Iwanji, Saffel
5 September 3135
Wesley Parks was sweating blood and bullets. Their infantry was dead, slaughtered, and there wasn’t really anything left between Parks and death; certainly no cavalry to come sweeping down the plain. And that last spread of SRMs had come too damn close. To Parks’ right, a stand of Saffel sycamores had exploded in a hail of splinters and black chunks of charred, smoking wood, like the leftovers of a bonfire.
At that moment, Parks decided, frac this. This brothers-under-the-skin stuff was for the birds. He shot a quick glance out his canopy at the clearing just beyond the trees, but the view was the same: a swarm of Kuritan troopers, some in ivory battlearmor and others without. Some had SRM launchers and others were equipped with launchers for armor-piercing rockets. Too damn many; like ants boiling out of a kicked mound down there, and he couldn’t slow them down fast enough. Worse, some had reflective armor; so, yeah, he could fry ’em, sure. He just couldn’t vaporize them, and damn if he didn’t hanker for one good roast. On top of that, he was nearly out of autocannon ammo. He had some missiles—fifteen, left rack—and they were great for distance, but lousy up close. And if one of those troopers lobbed a rocket into his missile rack . . . Parks didn’t want to think about it.
And what about Sterling? Glancing out of his canopy, he caught the twinkle of laser fire spiking the unmistakable outline of a Kuritan Shadow Cat on a small rise about a half kilometer distance. No help there; J. Sterling and her Ocelot had plenty to keep them occupied.
Only one choice. Slamming his throttle, Parks urged his Jupiter into a backpedal. If he could get into the trees, there’d be obstacles in his way, sure, but the troopers couldn’t get a clear shot either. His ’Mech responded with all the alacrity of a drunk—not surprising since he’d taken damage to his left upper-leg actuator. He heard the protesting squall of metal, and the temp skyrocketed as his DI chittered an alarm. Frac that, he saw it! Sweat-slicked, Parks pushed his hobbled Jupiter, throwing his weight back against his couch as if that would help propel him back even faster. “Come on, come on, you bastard,” Parks grated through clenched teeth. “Come on!”
A bone-clattering BOOM! Parks’ body slammed forward, his harness digging into his skin. For one dizzying instant he thought he’d been hit again, then realized that the shot came from behind—and it wasn’t a shot. A quick glance at his status board showed that his DI wasn’t happy, but what was new? And then he got it at the same instant he registered the splintering crunch of wood. His Jupiter had crashed against trees. No choice. Hauling back on his throttle, he powered through.
Then brought himself up short. Wood. Trees. And infantry, on foot, lugging armor and launchers.
“You’re an idiot, Parks.” Leveling his right PPC, aiming low, he swept the trees. The sizzling energy beam shredded through trunks, touching the wood with fire. As the Kuritans ducked, Parks brought trees crashing through understory; the air filled with the groan of wood, the crackle of flame and the startled cries of unarmored infantry tumbling back.
A voice in his helmet, almost frantic with urgency. “Parks, Parks, talk to me!”
Sterling, in her Ocelot. “Yeah, I’m here,” said Parks, “in the woods, to your left.”
“What’s happening?”
“We’re just having a little bonfire.” Movement to his left, and he whirled, punching back a trio of troopers with a controlled burst of uranium-tipped slugs from his autocannon, trying to conserve his ammo. The hot metal battered trees and shredded the troopers, spun them in a dance that pulped their flesh and painted the leaves rust with blood. “And now I’m just about out of autocannon. I think I’ll resort to harsh language next. What’s your status?”
“Beat back that Cat. Lucky shot; sheared off its Gauss rifle right at the elbow. It’s pretty dinged up, only it jumped before I got a follow-up shot. But it’ll be back and they’re going to just keep on coming, Parks.” Sterling sounded winded, at the limits of her endurance and, in the background, Parks heard the fizzle of shorted circuitry. “I don’t know if . . .”
He cut her off. “You should get out of here.”
Dead air. Then: “Screw that, Parks.”
“Do you still have jump jets?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then get out of here. I outrank you. That’s an order.”
Another pause. “Parks?”
“Yeah?”
“Up your exhaust. We stick together and . . .” Her voice cut out.
Parks waited a sec, checked, saw the humped shapes of troopers coming, and knew he didn’t have much time to convince her. “Sterling?” No answer. “Sterling, you okay?”
Now she came back, her voice tight, fast. “Parks. Parks, look at . . .”
But he didn’t need Sterling to spell it out. Ironic; he’d never really have seen it coming if he hadn’t done a little reforesting. He’d have felt it—the last thing he ever felt, he bet—but he’d never have seen it: there, centered in a rough oblong of blue sky. A brilliant flash. The telltale streak of flame.
DropShip, closing fast.
Dovejin Ice Cap, Saffel
The scrubbers had done the best they could, but the Panther’s air was still clogged with the stink of old feces and clotted blood. Paltry annoyances. Jonathan was having the time of his life. After clearing the DropShip, they’d assumed formation to allow Sakamoto the honor of landing first, with the Locust and Panther on his left and right flanks, respectively. All in all, a glorious day for a drop: glittering ice edged on all sides by sea, in which smaller and more massive icebergs drifted, like mesas atop a featureless blue desert. The only clouds were black and oily, columns of smoke coming from the Raiders’ base due north, and the drama unfolding on the ice shelf to his left, two-twenty true and about a klick from the shelf’s edge: a BattleMaster hemmed on three sides by tanks; a crisscross of red and emerald lasers underscored by a sputtering flash of autocannon tracer fire; the BattleMaster clearly pulling its punches, abiding by orders to wait for Sakamoto’s arrival.
Then Jonathan’s gray eyes slitted. Something happening further inland . . . Intrigued, Jonathan nudged out a series of light, controlled bursts from his jump jets, correcting for his approach. The curve of Saffel’s horizon flattened as he lost altitude and then the ’Mech slid right as a sudden howl of air rushed over his ferroglass canopy. He was aware of a squeal of metal, a slight creaking as winds driven from inland toward the sea by gravity pummeled the Panther. Gravity palmed his body, and he worked at pushing air in and out, but still relished the way the rumble of his jump jets swelled to merge with the roar of atmosphere. He was God, descending on a pillar of flame.
His eyes skipped to the ice field again. What the devil? . . . Oh, he saw the tanks; three Destroyers and three Bellonas pockmarked with ugly black scorches, like the splattered bodies of huge tarantulas, runny with molten armor. A smoking crater on one where a PPC bolt had cored away the turret—but that Bellona was still in the fight.
But then, there was the fourth Bellona, the one dropping back. That, and a flipped ice-sled, a spool of gray smoke canted seaward by wind. But still too high
to . . . Reaching left, he flicked his infrared sensor active, studied his secondary viewing screen. Blinked.
Men.
Six pairs, twelve in all, in battlearmor. Inner Sphere standard, not Kuritan, and yes, he remembered now, the only scheduled infantry drop was for Iwanji, not here—and now! More heat, very intense, and Jonathan jerked his eyes from his infrared to the view beneath his canopy. Fire, spurting from the Bellona’s flamer, licking the ice in a rough parabola back and forth as the wind snatched at the pillar of fire, now feeding it, now nearly guttering—and a good thirty meters shy of the Raiders troops.
Melting the ice. But why? How could that . . . ?
“Hey!” A shout in his helmet, loud enough to hurt: Kyle in the Locust. Momentarily disoriented, Jonathan was about to reply, when Kyle continued, nearly frantic, “Sakamoto-san, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Please respond!”
Jonathan had made only two mistakes his entire life. An infinitesimal error of such little consequence twenty years ago that he wouldn’t discover the magnitude of his lapse for some time to come. Another, not long ago, but also small, negligible. But now, he made his third. As the frequency filled with the panicked gabble of Kyle trying to raise Sakamoto, and now from the DropShip wanting to know what was going on, Jonathan realized that he hadn’t kept track of his dear warlord and that would not do. His eyes snapped from the men, and cut right, then down . . .
There, far below and directly over that blue sea: Sakamoto’s No-Dachi. Not leading the charge but spinning on its back, arms and legs splayed, the sun glinting off its blade as the No-Dachi spun and tumbled—the dying points of a doomed star.
The job. Whistler was hot as hell, cooking from anxiety and exertion, even as pulverized ice showered over his armor. Whistler’s tongue flicked to his upper lip, and his mouth filled with the taste of wet salt. He concentrated on the feel of the sonic drill, the peculiar brrrrr of vibration he felt even through the armor. The job, just do the job. He was aware of the Bellona, glanced up once, saw the wall of fire, knew that the trough the tank was digging between them and the BattleMaster was widening and deepening, like a moat. Blinking away sweat, Whistler squinted at his depth gauge, read that the sonic drill had made it down thirty meters, and thought that, okay, this was pretty good. All he needed was ten, fifteen meters, and then they could load in the charge . . .
There was so much noise from the drills, and Whistler was so intent on the job, he didn’t really hear McClintock at first—just a blat of sound that was and then wasn’t. But then everyone was shouting, and then Whistler looked up, saw that they were all pointing up and east. Swinging his head up, Whistler saw the yellow-orange blasts from jump jets from two other ’Mechs, felt his stomach go cold—and then saw something else, in the east, above a shimmering wall of flame as the Bellona kept on, its pilot oblivious to the ’Mechs falling from the sky . . .
And to the one hurtling toward the sea, fast as a meteor.
“Mother of God,” Whistler said.
Falling, tumbling, twisting, the ’Mech bulleted for the sea, hit—and shattered.
Carillan Sector, Iwanji, Saffel
“Damn you, Sterling, get out of here!” Parks throttled up, pushed his Jupiter into a lumbering trot. Not enough to outrun a DropShip, but that wasn’t the point. If he could just clear the trees, he could lob his remaining LRMs, give Sterling a fighting chance and then . . .
A clot of troopers reared up at the grove’s edge, just to his right, and instead of canting left, he lowered his Jupiter’s cockpit and charged. He saw the troopers flinch back in surprise, then settle to ready their shot just as he veered and crashed into a trio of sycamores the troopers had been using for cover. Hesitation—then the trees gave, falling away from his cockpit, torn earth and exposed roots sheeting over ferroglass; the roar grinding out the troopers’ screams.
He was so busy looking right he forgot to look left. His alarms shrilled as an armor-piercing round bored into the rear housing of his left PPC, perilously close to his left rack. The impact made him stumble, and he came down hard on the weakened left leg actuator. No need for the DI’s report; he felt the leg crumple, heard the grating of actuators. Parks screamed in fury as his Jupiter toppled like a felled tree. Desperate to avoid landing face-first, he twisted, threw the Jupiter’s right arm out to break his fall. To his horror, his autocannon barrels on that side snagged, then broke off under the punishing weight driving the Jupiter down, down . . .
A shrieking yelp that knifed his brain, and then Sterling’s Ocelot sailed over the Jupiter’s canopy, both pulse lasers snap-firing. Her strategy came clear in an instant as the downed foliage and felled trees ignited in a roar of flame and black smoke that momentarily hid him from view.
Parks had no time to give his thanks. He was in the clear now, even if he was cantilevered, left rack useless unless he could get it turned around . . . Straining, knowing what he was about to do but doing it anyway, Parks rammed his Jupiter’s torso hard left. His heat scale rocketed into the red, and the DI bawled out a warning, then began countdown to auto-shutdown. “Frac that!” Parks roared. Moving at lightning speed, he punched in the heat lockout override code on his keypad, and then he kept pushing, pushing . . .
“Please,” he grunted, praying that his power wouldn’t go, knowing he was going to die; this was so stupid, this was cockeyed, but it was the only way, the only way! “Please, please, please! . . .”
There was an unearthly scream, a shrill of metal as the Jupiter’s right elbow joint gearing sheared, buckled, snapped. Instantly, Parks was falling, his ’Mech crashing onto its back. He might even have blacked out for a second but no more than that. Now, blue sky overhead, then smoke, and then the DropShip looming closer, and then balls of gray smoke from some circuitry giving up the ghost, making his lungs seize . . . but no matter; the whole thing had taken no more than ten seconds and nothing mattered anymore because he still had power and there was this last thing he had to do.
Coughing, gagging, fighting for breath, Parks brought his targeting HUD up at the flick of a finger, acquired and touched off his last volley of fifteen missiles—at the precise instant that J. Sterling, probably hoping to save his ass, jumped again.
Right into his line of fire.
“Sterling, no!” Parks screamed, horrified and—too late. “NO!”
Dovejin Ice Cap, Saffel
Sakamoto was gone, and it didn’t matter because, as his Panther screamed from the sky, Jonathan understood everything in a sudden flash. His mind raced, working furiously as the ice field loomed. Once down, the Locust was faster but had no jump jets of its own; the disposable jets strapped to its undercarriage would be jettisoned as soon as it hit the ice. If Jonathan could maintain the advantage of surprise, he still might pull this off. But that BattleMaster was a brute, much heavier and with superior firepower; his Panther was no match for it, unless . . . Hands moving in a blur, Jonathan brought his targeting computer online. The active IFF transponder automatically blocked any ability to fire on a friendly ’Mech, but Jonathan saw what he was looking for. The BattleMaster still had short-range missiles. All right. He would have the advantage of surprise, if it came to that. Leaning forward, Jonathan brought his left fist down over the transponder controls. In instant later, his DI flashed that the transponder was off-line, no longer recognizing who was friend, or foe.
A pity it went on the fritz like that. His eyes clicked left, to the Raiders. And how far have you gotten, have you managed . . .
No time left to wonder. Got to get down now, now! Teeth bared, Jonathan powered down his jump jets as far as he dared. As he accelerated, the sky whirring by, his vision grayed and he grunted, forcing blood to his head, fighting to remain conscious. Jonathan honed his concentration into a single bright point as he bled altitude, gained speed, numbers blearing into a pulsing red datastream as the ice got closer and closer. Got to time this just right, got to time it, steady, steady . . .
“Now!” he shouted, banging his jets active. T
he Panther lurched, and his stomach catapulted to his throat before his body was smashed into his cushion by the force of his jump jets countering the machine’s gravity-enhanced vertical acceleration. His vision swirled, and his head went hollow . . . A few more seconds of thrust and then he had to cut the jets, take his chances . . .
And then he ran out of distance and time. He killed the jump jets at the precise instant his ’Mech slammed the ice. The impact was so hard, the ice cratered with an ear-splitting roar that was loud as a bomb. Instantly, he was aware that his DI was screaming a warning as thirty-five tons of endosteel and myomer groaned under the strain, the force of his landing exhausting his Panther’s shock absorbers. His temperatures soared to the red.
“Shut up!” Jonathan hit the override rocker switch, silencing the alarms. In the next second, as his cockpit temperature spiked to the near side of broiling, he was already pivoting, putting the sea to his back and hitting his jets again, this time leapfrogging from the ice crater onto the hardpack. He throttled up, pumping his Panther’s legs, pistoning in a charge for the BattleMaster. A monitor glowed an angry crimson, and he saw the impact had damaged the comparatively lighter ceramic housing of his gyro, and he didn’t need a computer to tell him that he’d also damaged the primary yoke assembly of the Panther’s right ankle.
If all I take away from this is a sprained ankle . . . Out of the corner of his right eye, Jonathan caught a glimpse of twin plumes of flame cutting out and knew that the Locust was down. He would deal with that later, if he even had to. First, he had to get further inland, closer to the BattleMaster and those tanks, the SM1s now pummeling the ’Mech with autocannon in earnest, leaving jagged blossoms of fractured armor blooming along the BattleMaster’s right torso and leg while the three Bellonas nipped at the great machine’s heels. In return, the BattleMaster pounded one Destroyer with four concentrated laser strikes. In a flash, the Destroyer’s armor puddled along its right side, punching the craft into a counterclockwise spin. A spurt of smoke, and then a Bellona spat out missiles that bloomed along the BattleMaster’s right hip. Jonathan’s external feed picked up the grating squall of endosteel as primary armor bled away, and the giant machine swayed.