Target of Opportunity

by Blaine Lee Pardoe

  As she pivoted the ’Mech’s torso, four laser beams, brilliant green in color from their modified optics, stabbed into her ’Mech. One shot burrowed deep, Miss Direction’s right shoulder absorbing the energy blast with a sizzle and pop. The other three beams gouged at the armor plating on the BattleMech’s torso. One carved a long, blackened scar across her chest. The other two cut smaller lacerations deep into the lower torso of the Black Knight, right above the hip actuators. The ’Mech swayed slightly from the attack, but Alexi leaned into it in order to gain a good angle for firing back up the hill. A slight ripple of heat rose in her cockpit from the hit, but she barely noticed the increase in temperature.

  Then he was gone. The signal disappeared from her sensors and she lost him from her sights. She jammed the throttle forward for a full run and continued around the base of the hill, trying to catch him on the back side. She switched to short-range sensors and prepared for the assault.

  She wasn’t disappointed. Star Captain Cox’s Warhammer IIC was standing and waiting on the hillside. Again he fired first. This time, two of his large lasers missed their mark completely, searing the green grass into blackened trenches just past her.

  Two found their mark in her right arm and torso. One shot bore into Miss Direction’s forearm with such fury that a piece of the Durabond armor melted away with a splatter that rained down on her legs. The other shot cut loose one armor plate, damaging some of the myomer muscle fibers underneath. Her damage display showed that the armor was still holding.

  Alexi swept her two extended-range PPCs upward and locked her targeting reticle onto the towering Warhammer. She activated her primary target interlock, which tied together the firing of the two weapons. She heard the familiar whine of the particle projector cannons unleashing their brilliant blasts. Blue lightening bolts stabbed up the hillside at Star Captain Cox. One found its mark square in his upper torso, just under the cockpit, while the other one stabbed into the sky. The Warhammer rocked backward, then turned and ran back the way it had come, over the top of the hill and out of her line of sight.

  Not this time. Alexi was not going to cover the same ground twice. She moved the throttle forward again, all the way. She charged up the steep slope in pursuit. After the first hundred meters, she began to feel the heat from the myomer muscles straining under the full-speed uphill run. Beads of sweat formed on her brow and she tasted salt in the corners of her mouth. Her vest flexed as the coolant pumped across her chest, chilling her slightly as it attempted to compensate for the spike in heat.

  She picked up his mag reading at the top of the hill before she could see him. Miss Direction’s PPCs were recharged, but she knew this was a job for her close-range weapons. Her medium and small lasers were ready to fire.

  The Warhammer’s humanoid shape came into view. At the very moment she saw a flash of missiles launching, she instinctively dropped her crosshairs on the upper torso and head of the ’Mech and squeezed off a shot before she lost target lock with the missile impacts. With all her lasers tied to a single trigger, they discharged simultaneously in a burst of brilliant death.

  The tom-tom thumping of the short-range missiles mangled the armor on her ’Mech’s upper torso and left arm, pushing Miss Direction’s torso and Alexi both to the left. Her tactical display showed that three of her four small lasers had found their mark. The lancing beams of light cut long surface scars on the gray-white armor of Star Captain Cox’s Warhammer. Unfortunately, none of the shots cut deep. Cox seemed to contort his ’Mech at the last moment and started down the far side of the hilltop.

  Alexi was determined to not let her foe get away, but she was already running hot. Pushing her ’Mech harder and faster would only add to her heat, but it couldn’t be avoided. She rocked her foot pedals side-to-side and Miss Direction seemed to lumber drunkenly up the hill. She reached the top and saw Cox’s Warhammer IIC nearing the bottom of the slope in the valley where she had been only a few minutes before. She followed cautiously along the slope and moved her targeting reticle onto her foe. I never thought I’d see the day that a Clan warrior would run from a fight.

  Cox stopped his trot down the hill. As his ’Mech’s torso twisted all of the way around, she realized that he wasn’t fleeing, he was setting up for another blast. She fired first, sending two azure blasts of charged particles ripping down at the Spirit Cat. One hit and one missed, but the one that hit slammed into the right thigh of the Warhammer with such energy that she saw a secondary arc of blue electricity dance up the torso. The white smoke from the hit rose like a puff from an old man’s pipe, leaving a deep black hole where the armor had been breeched. She tried to wet her lips, only then realizing just how hot her cockpit had become.

  Star Captain Cox did not react instantly. He waited a moment, then fired. His own four emerald laser beams knifed up the hill at Miss Direction. Two missed, but two hit her already mangled and blackened chest armor. These shots were well aimed and burrowed deep into her weakened armor plating. A deep grinding sound told her that at least one of the shots had severed myomer muscles under the armor, sending them snapping like deadly whips. Miss Direction listed backwards for a moment, long enough for Cox to start up the next hill and break her target lock.

  She wanted to run after him, but her heat indicator was at the top of the yellow zone. One more attack or running-speed movement, and her ’Mech would begin the countdown to automatic shutdown. Miss Direction was a fantastic ’Mech in most aspects, but it was not so good at venting heat. Grinding her teeth in frustration, Alexi walked steadily forward as her PPCs recharged for another volley.

  When she reached the bottom of the hill, she leveled her ’Mech and attempted to lock onto Cox’s ’Mech, already halfway up the next hill. It was tricky given that he was moving uphill. It got trickier when he suddenly turned and fired one of his large lasers at her.

  The shot punched into Miss Direction’s hip, blowing her target lock for a moment as the seventy-five-ton BattleMech sloughed off the burning damage. She swung back toward the Warhammer and saw a fearsome sight—a ’Mech charging in a full run down a hill straight at her.

  Her thumb jerked toward the firing stud, and a target lock warning blared in her ears. She brought her small lasers online and started a hot charge to their capacitors, but a second later she saw the open missile hatches on the right and left torso of the Warhammer suddenly blossom with orange and red flames.

  Eight short-range missiles twisted and spun in as Star Captain Cox continued to run down the hill straight at her. She attempted to juke out of the way, but his target lock was solid. Six of the missiles found their mark in the chest of her damaged BattleMech.

  Instantly a wave of nausea hit her. The quality of the heat in the cockpit of her Black Knight suddenly changed and she felt as if she were fighting a fever rather than sitting in a sauna. Bile rose into her mouth, and she felt like she was going to throw up. Alexi fought to keep her balance as a wave of dizziness pulsed through her body. The missiles must have hit a neurolink or the gyro itself, sending a wave of feedback into her brain. Her left eyelid fluttered and she strained to stay in control of the situation. Miss Direction seemed to moan as metal strained. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t focus long enough to figure out what it was. It was taking everything she had at the moment just to keep from being sick.

  Alexi felt her BattleMech fall—rather, she felt it hit the ground. Her head bounced off the padded rests of her command couch, and the noise of the impact was deafening. Red lights blinked frantically on her damage display, but she couldn’t focus her vision to read them. A soft light illuminated a green expanse outside the viewscreen. When she realized it was sunlight on the grass, she knew for sure that Miss Direction was on the ground. When she tried to move, she figured out that her ’Mech was on its left side, since that’s where the safety straps were digging into her shoulder. Her chest ached. She had bruised or broken a rib in the fall, guaranteed.

  The heat was unbearable. Alexi tried to ta
ke a deep breath, but couldn’t seem to get air. She hit the button to pop open the front of her neurohelmet and the plexvisor swung up. Hyperventilating, her ears ringing, she spit to get the bile out of her mouth, then threw up. Her vomit fell sideways, confirming which way was up. Coughing and gagging, she closed her eyes. The smell of her stomach contents was as sickening as the taste in her mouth. Alexi spit again to try to get the taste out of her mouth.

  She looked sideways at her damage display. The armor shielding her right arm was damaged. Her chest and torso had armor plating left, but what was there had been savaged in the assaults. There was a damaged heat vent on the side of her fusion reactor, probably a coolant leak. The holed torso armor had allowed some damage to penetrate to her gyro housing, which was what had created the feedback. Her left arm, pinned under the weight of the entire BattleMech, showed the worst damage. The PPC and medium lasers there were offline, which meant she was down to about half her firepower.

  She had been vaguely registering a grinding noise and the ground shaking for the past few seconds, and so she turned her attention to the tactical display. It showed the red dot of the Star captain’s Warhammer right on top of her position! To make it worse, the rocking motion of her ’Mech was reinforcing her nausea.

  She snapped her plexvisor back down and managed to toggle the comm switch. “Star Captain Cox,” she called. “I know you’re out there.”

  The reply came immediately. “Knight Alexi. I have my right foot on your ’Mech. You cannot stand. I have a weapons lock on your cockpit. My remaining firepower is more than enough to destroy you. However, I do not wish to destroy you, because you are a worthy opponent and you pilot a valuable machine.”

  The words formed in her head slowly and painfully. He beat me. “Let me stand so that we can finish this,” she challenged him.

  His words were dispassionate. “It is already finished. You are defeated. Any further combat would risk your life. You fought with great skill. If we had faced each other outside this trial, I would claim you as my bondsman. Knight Alexi, this battle is over.” The words rang in her ears.

  “Until now, I have never lost a fight,” she cursed, to herself more than to the Spirit Cat. “But I have lost this one. I submit, Star Captain Cox.”

  “You fought with honor,” he replied. If Clan members were capable of the feeling, she would swear he was gloating. “You will honor the terms of this trial, quiaff?”

  “Aff,” she replied, licking her lips. The salt from her sweat at least was better than the bile of her stomach.

  “We have both learned something today,” said Cox. “You have learned what defeat feels like. I have learned the mettle a Knight of the Sphere brings to a battle.”

  There was a grating sound as he lifted the Warhammer’s foot off her Black Knight. The ’Mech could be repaired. It was her pride that had taken the heaviest damage. “It is a lesson I only intend to learn once,” she returned. “I salute you and your Spirit Cats. But this will be your only victory here.” With those words she cut off her comm channel and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  The warehouse for Universal Exporters Limited was abuzz with activity when the security system admitted Reo Jones. Something was happening. The holovid newscast was playing and people were pointing to the talking head on the screen, apparently intent on the story. Reo hated hearing the news; he preferred to be the one controlling the flow of information.

  Rutger Chaffee stomped over to him and pointed at the screen. “Did you hear the news yet?” Jones shook his head.

  “That idiot Knight Errant lost the duel. That stupid bitch has handed over Kinross to the damn Spirit Cats.”

  Jones cocked his eyebrow, but simply said, “If Knight Errant Holt lost her trial against the Spirit Cat commander, then he must be a heavyweight ’Mech jockey.”

  “Bah,” Chaffee said, dismissing Reo’s words. “The government will spin the story six ways to Sunday. But no matter how you twist it, the results are the same. The militia is leaving the city and the Spirit Cats can come and go as they please.”

  “Does this change your plans?” Reo asked.

  “Of course it changes my freaking plans,” spat Chaffee. “This puts that buddy of yours on the road. Instead of holing up in the city HQ, he’ll be somewhere out in the wilderness. Any world is a big place if you want to hide. Even worse, it leaves a Clan force sitting in the middle of my town. I can intimidate and manipulate the local government officials and even the militia. I think that Clan commanders are unlikely to tolerate behavior like our little raid on ComStar.”

  Reo was surprised that Chaffee had such a firm grasp of the situation. The Spirit Cats were, in some respects, dangerous animals. If cornered or pushed too hard, they would strike back, and do so with force. “So how do you plan to deal with the new situation?”

  Chaffee smiled the kind of smile that Reo hated seeing on his face, because it always meant something bad was going to happen. Cut-Throat glanced at a Fox-class hovercraft near an interior wall of the warehouse, then looked back at Reo with a chilling expression. Three personnel were spray painting the tan vehicle to match the urban combat patterns used by the Wyatt Militia, right down to the Wyatt Militia insignia—the image of the planet with a large Roman letter “M” in the middle.

  “What are you planning?”

  “Don’t you worry, Jones. You’ll find out the details soon enough. Let’s just say that I don’t intend to let those kitty cats interfere with my operation here.” Reo noted with some alarm that Chaffee was no longer referring to it as Jacob Bannson’s operation.

  His boss’ lethal grin grew slightly wider. “If that bitch-Knight can’t do the job, I’ll just have to finish it for her.”

  16

  Wyatt Militia Headquarters

  Kinross, Wyatt

  The Republic, Prefecture VIII

  16 May 3135

  “I would ask you what went wrong, but my knowing won’t change anything,” Legate Singh sneered, seated safely behind his desk. Opposite him, still wearing her sweat-soaked gear, stood Alexi Holt. Her arms were crossed over her breasts. Her slick, matted hair almost matched the mess that Tucker Harwell usually sported.

  It had been a long time since she had been dressed down by anyone. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had addressed her in the tone that Edward Singh was using. She wanted to lash out at the man. At least she had taken decisive action to protect Wyatt. His only concerns had been political, perhaps even personal. But talking back to someone like Singh was a waste of time. He had already painted her as the scapegoat for whatever happened next.

  “One of Star Captain Cox’s missiles apparently hit the neurocontrol circuits on the outside shield of the gyro housing. It sent a pulse of biofeedback into my neuro network and that pulse incapacitated me.” The technical explanation of her defeat was analytical and boring. The truth of the matter was that she had been outfought, and a lucky shot had taken her down.

  “You’re a Knight Errant. This sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen to a Mech Warrior of your skill. Because of your failure, we now have to allow the Clan free reign in Kinross.” If it was possible, his tone became even more scathing.

  “I’m feeling fine,” she said contemptuously.

  Her words caught the legate off guard. “What?”

  “I am fine now,” she repeated. “Keeping in mind that I was engaged in a live-fire combat trial with a Clan warrior who could have killed me, and that I suffered a level of electronic feedback that could have inflicted permanent brain damage—I wanted you to know that I am just fine.” She was still trying to control the full force of her anger, and not just at the legate. He wouldn’t have the stones to go toe-to-toe with a Clan warrior, but he sure is quick to criticize my failure.

  Singh suddenly grasped what she was implying. “Ah—I assumed you were feeling better since you were able to report so quickly,” he said in a much more controlled tone.

  “Legate,” she began, t
rying to match his level tone, “let me get to the point of our conversation. I accept full responsibility for my failure to end the situation with the Spirit Cats in the Circle of Equals. I will accept whatever punishment the governor, or the prefect, or Paladin Sorenson considers appropriate. However, right now we need to deal with the facts, and the facts are as follows: I lost the combat trial. Therefore, we need to evacuate our facility here and exit Kinross. If the Spirit Cats wish to enter Kinross, we need to let them.”

  “The governor was unhappy about this arrangement when he believed you were going to win,” Singh pressed. “I can’t guarantee that he’s going to let us leave the city defenseless.”

  “We will leave,” she repeated. “I gave my word as a Knight of the Republic. So far, the Spirit Cats have behaved honorably, and we must do the same. If we betray their trust, we will be forced to fight them.”

  “Obviously, I’d rather not,” Singh replied. “But we do have superior numbers.”

  Alexi leaned forward over his desk, slapping her sweaty palms on the sleek wooden surface. “If you choose to slug it out with the Spirit Cats, superior numbers will not save you,” she said fiercely. “They will smash the militia, fast and furious. Study history, Legate!”

  “So we give up?” he said, recoiling from her intensity —and perhaps my body odor, she thought with grim humor.

  “We honor the terms of the batchall,” she corrected.

  He considered her for a moment. “Where do you suggest we go?”

  She had thought about it for two days; while she had been confident of winning the trial, a true leader plans for all contingencies. So she had studied the maps and calculated what was required to move the militia. It was not just a matter of the gear and the personnel; there was fuel, expendables, provisions, spare parts and more. It was a significant amount of war materiel to move, and Alexi also wanted to keep her force mobile and her options open—especially because she still considered Bannson’s merc force a viable threat of unknown size and composition. “My inclination is to take Highway Seven, north of Kinross. The map shows it as essentially a long stretch of road running parallel to the Kalamazoo River into the mountains, so we can move quickly. The highway cuts through several hills and the sides are heavily forested, which could potentially give our enemies cover, but we can compensate for that with light scouts. The road ends in a wilderness camp near the Crater Lakes. Camping season doesn’t start until later, so we can use the empty buildings up there for shelter.”