Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  The merging of rebels with mercenaries into a single combat unit was a touchy business. Technically, Brasednewic held the militia rank of Colonel, outranking Grayson's rank of Captain. In actuality, the two shared command, but Grayson was well aware that the red-bearded rebel resented having to take some orders from an offworlder. After all, the rebels had been fighting their Kurita occupier for ten years. What could offworld mercenaries teach them about war?

  Brasednewic pulled out a palm-sized transceiver, flicked it on, and pressed a sender switch three times in quick succession. Kurita commo operators might hear the brief burst of carrier-wave static or the three rapid clicks, but it would carry no information for them, might not even be noticed. To the rebel and mercenary troops hiding in the jungle, the signal carried message aplenty. They’re coming. Be ready!

  The dull creak and clank of an approaching heavy ‘Mech was louder now, mingled with the shrill keening of hovercraft. Grayson moved the TK around to the side of his body on its web sling and brought the electronic binoculars hanging from his neck up to his eyes. The road a hundred meters further up the slope was empty, but he had the scanner turned on a patch of ground farther down, not far from where he and Tollen were hiding. Nothing showed. No sign of digging revealed what they had done to the road.

  When the lead vehicle came into view, it proved to be not a ‘Mech, but a two-man scout hovercraft fitted with the antennae loops and magnetic gear of a mine detector. As it skimmed centimeters above the road, the craft's electronic sensors could probe the ground surface for metal, could probe the air itself for the lingering effluvium of various chemical explosives. From a safe distance, its sensors could detect mines buried on the road. These could be marked, disarmed, or exploded ahead of the advancing column of BattleMechs.

  A hundred meters behind the hovercraft came the ‘Mechs. In the lead were a Stinger and the odd, forward-jutting shape of a 35-ton JR1-D Jenner. Behind them were more hovercraft, open-topped and crowded with brown-garbed Kurita soldiers. Behind them were two more ‘Mechs, a TBT-5N Trebuchet and a Centurion, both 50 tonners.

  The mine detector slowed as it came almost opposite Grayson's and Brasednewic's position. Had its sniffers detected explosives? Or perhaps it caught the scent of the rebel troops who had passed that way only moments before. Or perhaps they were using an IR scanner to spot footprints visible as still-glowing patches of fading heat on the road.

  Grayson hoped that the precautions they'd taken were enough. He'd had a small army of rebels walk down the hill past that spot, creating the effect of a large number of troops marching into the jungle. There should be nothing particularly ominous about that, especially because the stranded Dervish Grayson was using as bait was hidden only a kilometer farther down slope.

  Montido's Dervish had provided the perfect bait. Tarpaulins and branches of jungle foliage had kept it shielded from orbiting Kurita spysats until the clear, cloudless morning that Grayson had ordered the camouflage be removed for a few hours. Though the rebels did not know at precisely what time the satellites would pass overhead, it was certain that the Combine forces would be watching the forest between the Basin Rim and the sea with great care. The crippled Dervish and the flares of the welding torches wielded by a small army of Techs and astechs working to get it operational again, would be clearly visible to the senses of any satellite or spacecraft passing a few hundred kilometers above.

  Within two hours, rebel scouts at the edge of the Bluesward had reported enemy ‘Mechs and hovercraft moving rapidly toward the Basin Rim. The ambushers, their weapons and special equipment chosen and readied ahead of time, rushed to their hiding places.

  Now the Kurita force was moving down the road toward the crippled Dervish. Grayson had cautioned the ambushers beforehand that the enemy would be coming slowly and cautiously. They would realize that the appearance of the Dervish in their path could be bait for a trap, but they would try to arrive with enough force to thwart such a possibility.

  The hovercraft with the mine detection gear hummed and skreeled on laboring fans just below Grayson's position, kicking up clouds of dust. Moving slowly, Grayson brought up his electronic binoculars again and studied carefully the ground beneath the hovecraft’s plenum chamber. He could see nothing suspicious there, but had the enemy detected something? When the hovercraft tilted forward slightly and continued down the slope, Grayson breathed again. At his side, he felt Brasednewic breathe a sigh of relief, too.

  The real targets of the ambush approached. Both men tensed again as the Jenner and the Stinger lumbered closer, low-hanging branches and vines scratching and catching at their hulls, then snapping free as they passed. Grayson froze into immobility. The ‘Mechs' cockpits were level with his own position on the hill, and the pilots would be alert for an ambush. The greatest danger, however, lay with the rebel forces in the surrounding jungle. It would take only one man to panic or to discharge his weapon accidentally and early or to misunderstand orders that had been repeated and discussed again and again. Sometimes it seemed that there was always at least one guy who didn't get the word.

  The two lead ‘Mechs continued past without incident, and then a trio of troop carriers drifted down the slope on dust-boiling cushions of air. The soldiers aboard the open-decked hovercraft were Kurita regulars in uniforms of dull orange-brown under sleeveless protective jackets of darker brown armor cloth. Some carried flamers, while others cradled portable lasers or rapid-fire assault rifles. On each vehicle, one man stood behind a pintel-mounted weapon just aft of the covered, armored driver's cab. One swivelled a medium laser back and forth, as though fearful that the surrounding trees were going to suddenly bend down and attack. The other two rode shotgun, with heavy machine guns trailing long and glittering belts of linked ammo.

  The troop carriers whining past at the speed of a slow walk were tempting, vulnerable targets. Don't fire, anyone, Grayson willed. Don't move. Don't fire...

  The troop carriers passed, moving down the steep road, and none of the rebel forces had given away the ambush. As he watched the next pair of ‘Mechs approach, excitement surged in his chest and set his heart to hammering. A Centurion, followed by a Trebuchet. Slowly, moving only centimeters at a time to keep from registering on the motion sensors that could be mounted on those ‘Mechs, Grayson carried the transceiver to his lips. As he fixed his eyes on the spot on the road directly below, his heart beat harder. He could see where the passage of three more hovercraft had uncovered a bit of nylon rope carefully buried hours before. So far, however, the enemy had not noticed that telltale clue.

  When the Centurion stepped across the exposed bit of rope, Grayson hissed "Now!"

  Some twenty meters down the hill from the ‘Mechs, the rebel and mercenary troops heard the command in their helmet coms. Each of six men yanked hard on the slender but cable-strong lengths of nylon rope they held, then scrambled for shelter farther down the slope. Those ropes, secured at intervals along their length by carefully fashioned pulleys of wood and plastic, went suddenly taut and broke from under the loosely packed dirt of the road. On the hill above, each line was attached to canvas satchels filled with explosives. These, in turn, were mounted to the far sides of heavy tree trunks by thin pull-ring igniters crimped to fuses cut to three-second lengths. Tugging the ropes yanked the satchels free from the trees, but the pull rings stayed firmly wired to the trunks. One satchel remained fixed to its tree because the right foot of the Centurion happened at that moment to be firmly planted on the rope in the road. The other five packets of high explosive whipped out onto the road, fuses burning.

  Chemical sniffers or magnetic detectors would have detected conventional mines, even those made of non-ferrous materials. Tow mines, however, could be rigged far enough off the expected path of the targets that conventional detectors would not pick them up. If the tow ropes buried under several centimeters of earth had been accidentally uncovered and noticed, the prey would have been warned. That didn't happen and Grayson blessed his luck.

>   The Trebuchet stepped into one line, which had snapped up to the height of the ‘Mech's knee and directly in front of it. The satchel charge whirled like a bolo on a shortening lead, wrapping around and around the BattleMech’s leg until it snapped up against the armor just below the joint. An instant later, the three-second fuse burned into the chemical detonator cap.

  The explosion of five kilos of TNT sheared away the surrounding foliage like an invisible scythe, leaving finger-sized chunks of armor buried in tree trunks twenty meters off. Four other explosions went off along the road at almost the same moment, each five meters apart. With that, the road rose in a wall of dirt and smoke, of flame and mangling fury. Only that first charge had actually entangled the leg of one of the ‘Mechs, but the concussion of the other charges hurled both machines aside like dolls as most of that twenty-meter stretch of ground blew up. The roadbed itself crumbled out and spilled down the slope in an avalanche of debris. The Centurion lurched hard to its right, smashing into the wall of rock and vegetation that rose above the road. The Trebuchet tottered wildly, smoke and green coolant fluid gushing from its savaged right leg, then plunged feet-first down the collapsing slope.

  Grayson peered into the smoke, then spoke into his transceiver again. "All units, watch the leaders. ‘Mechs, move in! Ramage, see if you can keep those tail-end Charlies entertained!"

  On the slope below him, but still above the road, a score of green-camouflaged commandos rose from their hiding places in brush-covered trenches to descend on the pair of temporarily helpless ‘Mechs. Along with their motley collection of regular weapons, each commando also carried a satchel charge. As they closed on the downed Draco ‘Mechs, they swung those satchels over their heads and let fly, then dropped flat to the ground to avoid the blast.

  "We may be in luck down there," Grayson told Brasednewic. "Neither of those ‘Mechs is designed for close-in scraps with infantry. No machine guns or flamers."

  "Those hovercraft had machine guns,"Tollen said, peering with his own binoculars through boiling smoke in the direction the hovercraft had travelled. "They'll be back any second, unless your trick decides to work."

  Before Grayson could answer, a series of sharp, ringing cracks sounded from the misty north, followed by the drawn-out, popping creaks of falling trees. From their position, Grayson and Brasednewic could see one treetop shiver, then sweep across the sky to vanish in the smoke across the road.

  Grayson's earcoms chirped a call signal, then came with Lori's voice. "The trees are down, and we have 'em boxed!"

  "Go get them," Grayson replied. "Watch for the point ‘Mechs."

  Grayson could not see through the smoke to the new battle site a hundred meters up the road, but he could hear the staccato snaps of autorifle fire and the harsh bark of grenades and improvised explosives. Hovercraft ride on a cushion of air trapped within their plenum chambers, but their flight is no more than a few centimeters above the ground. Highly effective on water, in swampland, or on flat ground, hovercraft were at a severe disadvantage whereever surrounding vegetation and steep slopes made maneuver impossible. When TNT charges dropped a half-dozen trees across the road ahead of and behind the troop carrier column, the hovercraft were forced to stop. Autorifle fire from the heights above the road seared down into the open cargo compartments, aiming first for the mounted weapons gunners, then chewing through packed soldiers scrambling desperately to get clear of the slaughter.

  As expected, the two lead ‘Mechs turned at the first sounds of explosions and gunfire. The ambush was less than a minute old, but already the rest of the Kurita column was paralyzed, trapped and under attack from the surrounding jungle. The Stinger began using its hands to move fallen trees out of the road between it and the troop carriers. The handless Jenner could only stand by and blaze away at the trees with its lasers and SRMs. Shoulder-fired anti-armor missiles arced out of the forest, but the ‘Mechs had very few clear targets. By the time the Stinger won through to the first hovercraft, the vehicle was a burning, grenade-shattered wreck, its passengers sprawled dead on the road or scattered into the jungle.

  Lori’s voice came through on Grayson’s ear receiver again. "I think we made 'em mad, boss. The point ‘Mechs are climbing off the road and coming after us."

  "O.K. You know what to do. Execute."

  "On our way."

  For Grayson, the maddening part of the battle was being forced to remain where he was, in a position to see very little of what was going on around him. The sounds of gunfire and grenade blasts had died away to the north, though he could hear shrill screams from wounded men and the deep, ponderous thrum and crash of ‘Mechs moving through the underbrush along the slope. Lori's command would be retreating ahead of the lead enemy ‘Mechs now, drawing them deeper into the trees. Whatever happened there was out of his hands now. It was up to Lori to handle things.

  Meanwhile, Sergeant Ramage's commandos had finished hurling their satchel charges and were dispersing into the jungle down-slope from the road. Though both 50-ton ‘Mechs had taken damage, neither was out of the fight. The Trebuchet was unable to move, its right leg nearly severed at the knee and the hull half-buried in the avalanche of the collapsing roadbed. The Centurion, however, was regaining its feet, but huge slabs of aligned-crystal steel armor had been peeled from the framework along its head and shoulder. The flip-top protective covers over the LRM tube array high on its right torso had also been smashed and crumpled.

  The pilot must have been rattled by his rough handling. No sooner was the Centurion unsteadily on its feet when it began to blaze wildly into the jungle in all directions with its right arm autocannon. Spent casings clinked and glittered on the broken ground by its feet, and the snapping blasts of 30 mm autocannon projectiles splintered tree branches and stripped leaves in a wide circle around the wildly firing ‘Mech. Several chance shots landed close to Grayson's and Brasednewic's position, but they exploded harmlessly in fountains of dirt and shredded vegetation.

  Grayson crouched low in his trench until the firing stopped. His TK assault rifle was useless against the enemy ‘Mech, and so all he could do was wait out the ‘MechWarrior's rage. That Centurion's pilot would have other things to think about very shortly.

  There was a crashing in the brush to Grayson's right. He tapped Brasednewic's shoulder and pointed at the many brown-clad forms moving toward their position in a disordered rush. They were Kurita troops, survivors of the attack on the personnel carriers.

  Grayson's TK was set for four-round burst fire, a measure that saved ammunition and avoided the muzzle climb associated with the weapon's 1200 rpm rate of fire. As his first target, he picked a Draco whose blue collar and shoulder tabs marked him as an officer. Because the man wore the sleeveless, armor-quilted jacket favored by House Kurita troops, Grayson drew careful aim on his head.

  He stroked the trigger, and the TK sighed. Four caseless rounds made a barely discernible hiss as they cleaved the air to the Kurita officer thirty meters away. At least one round hit, snapping the man's head up and back and smashing him into the tree behind him. His blood was brutally red against the blue-green leaves it splattered.

  Brasednewic's’ 5mm laser rifle hummed, and an invisible bolt of coherent light struck another Kurita soldier full in the chest. The armor vest absorbed the bolt, but the man yelped as he slapped at the smoke puffing from the damaged garment. The laser rifle hummed again, and the soldier vanished into the underbrush—whether dead, wounded, or suddenly cautious, there was no way to tell.

  The other Kurita troops suddenly vanished, too, but sent a handful of shots clipping the leaves above Grayson's head. One round buried itself into the trunk of a nearby tree. The situation could have become an uneasy stalemate, with Grayson and Brasednewic pitted against a large and desperate band of Kurita soldiers, but the Centurion stepped in and tipped the balance.

  The ‘Mech’s sound or motion detectors must have picked up the volley of small arms fire from among the trees on the hill above him. It pivoted sharp
ly to face the battle and opened fire blindly with laser bolts and a thundering burst from its autocannon. The MechWarrior had targeted the heaviest area of fire, and his shots tore into the underbrush where the Kurita troops were hiding.

  Grayson grabbed Brasednewic's elbow. "Let's move out! Before it's our turn" The two of them crawled out of their trench and worked their way upslope, away from the drumroll of high explosives and the shrieks of dying Kurita troops.

  During the initial attack, McCall's Rifleman and Clay's Wolverine had remained hidden above the road. Lying prone, covered by jungle vegetation, they were well-concealed from recon air or spacecraft by the jungle canopy. Paths down the slope to the ambush site had been carefully scouted earlier. Now, the two armored behemoths slashed aside light trees and vines and crashed into the open, lasers and autocannons belching fire. Fresh torrents of heavy weapons fire from the north marked the arrival of two more Gray Death Stingers and the Wasp, who engaged the light ‘Mechs of the Kurita patrol's van.

  The Centurion halted in mid-stride, then spun and lurched into a shambling run back up the road toward the Basin Rim. McCall levelled paired lasers and autocannon at the fleeing ‘Mech, pouring shot after shot into its back. If the CN9 took any damage, however, it was not immediately visible.

  In the ruin of the road below Grayson's position, the Trebuchet stiffened into immobility and, seconds later, its head split. The pilot emerged, streaming sweat, his hands raised. Orange- and brown-uniformed soldiers began straggling in from the brush in small clumps, weaponless, their hands also raised in surrender. Moments later, Lori reported that one of the enemy's Stingers had surrendered, while the swifter Jenner had managed to slash an escape through the jungle.