Reo knew he wouldn’t win this argument, so he switched gears. “Was that hovercraft piloted by remote control? How did you get it so close to their ’Mechs?” He figured if he gave Chaffee the chance to brag, he’d learn more about the mercenary’s operation and plans. There was too much he didn’t know, and he had to take every opportunity to learn what he could.
“Don’t be stupid,” Chaffee replied. “I had a local kid driving it. I promised him 10K stones if he helped me with a practical joke. All he had to do is drive our hovercraft up to the Spirit Cat ’Mechs, then bug out of there. It cost me 5K up front, but I got him right where I wanted him. Then, one quick laser signal from a nearby building, and poof!” He gestured with his hands simulating an explosion. “Instant war. The Spirit Cats never bothered to go through the debris. They got their gear repaired and set off after Legate Singh and his pet Knight.”
Reo felt the color drain from his face. He had always known that Rutger Chaffee was a tough, heartless man. It made him sick to think of the kid’s family. “You blew up a kid?”
“You have to break some eggs to make an omelet,” Chaffee chuckled. “Besides, if they did check the debris, there had to be some organic remains there or they’d suspect something.” He eyed Reo skeptically. “Don’t act so shocked. You’ve done worse in your life. You allowed an enemy force to kill hundreds of people, including your own family. So don’t try to come over all high-and-mighty on me.”
Reo heard his words but said nothing in his defense. “Now what?”
Chaffee smiled. “We move out tonight. My men in the field tell me that the Spirit Cats should be on top of the militia tomorrow. That should be a hell of a battle. Nothing gets Clanners up for a fight more than a slight against their honor. Even so, it seems like the odds are pretty close. Some of the men are running a pool if you want in on the action. We let them hammer each other, then we pick up the pieces.”
“Where do you want me?” Reo asked tiredly, feeling drained by Chaffee’s callous attitude.
“You scout the action for us,” Chaffee said. “Get out there and monitor the fighting. Let me know when the time is right to come in and finish this job.”
Reo nodded. Chaffee slapped him on the back. “Quit worrying about the dead, Jones,” he said. “In a few days time, we’re both going to be richer than we ever dreamed. Trust me on this; Jacob Bannson takes care of those who show initiative.”
Reo said nothing. There was nothing he could say. The entire Inner Sphere knew he was a betrayer. Fighting that image was pointless, because he couldn’t reveal the truth. He only hoped that Tucker didn’t find his shell cracked at the end of the day.
* * *
Star Captain Cox sat in the cockpit of his Warhammer IIC and glared at the communications console. The message was being sent in a loop on an open channel: both the legate and the Knight Errant claimed that the Wyatt Militia had not been responsible for the attack on his people. It bothered him that they thought he was so ignorant.
He had trusted Knight Alexi, and the militia had violated that trust and wasted lives in the suicide attack. Now, they must pay, on the same terms they had dictated to him—no formality of honor, no quarter asked or given.
He gazed out at the Spirit Cats force assembled before him and let his pride in them burn away his anger. His eyes lingered on the Purifiers tattoos many in his command carried on their faces and bodies. He himself did not have visible tattoos, but he admired the stunning colors of the marks of determination, purity and honor.
He would leave Kinross and take the fight to his enemies, wherever they were. But there was one whom he would spare. His Watch officer, a Clan intelligence specialist, had determined that there was one man responsible for restoring the HPG on Wyatt, a man named Tucker, an adept of ComStar. This member of the technician caste was currently with the Wyatt Militia.
Perhaps this man is the Lightbringer of the vision I share with Galaxy Commander Rosse. If he is, then this may be indeed the new home of the Spirit Cats. “Remember,” he said on the Star command channel, “we offer no quarter to the militia. We honor the great Kerenskys by our retribution against them. Further, we must find this Tucker of ComStar to explore his role in our destiny. I so command.”
A series of “Affs” echoed in his ears. Star Captain Cox smiled. “Pouncers, we strike now!”
19
Highway Seven, Ben Venue Corners
North of Kinross, Wyatt
The Republic, Prefecture VIII
18 May 3135
Tucker studied the screen intently, unconsciously adjusting the headset and mike as he absorbed the data. “Stay sharp. You should be right on top of them in two minutes, Air One,” he signaled. South of their position, their lone Donar assault helicopter was closing in on the Spirit Cats. They had played this hand several times already, and each time evoked the same response. The Cats would scramble their air assets, two helicopters, to pursue. The Donar would turn, run for the safety of the militia lines—and at the last minute, the Spirit Cats would break off and head back.
This time was going to be different.
“Holy freaking crap,” came the voice of the pilot, Lieutenant Aulf Michelson, in Tucker’s earpiece. “Here they come.”
Patricia Harwell cut in on the channel. “Just as planned, Air One. Let them get close, then go to nape of earth and bring them in low and fast to the coordinates.” Her soothing voice reminded Tucker of their mother’s.
“Roger that, Command,” came back the pilot’s voice, interrupted by a roaring sound—probably a short range missile going off. “Needless to say, I have their attention.”
Tucker watched the transponder track the course of Michelson’s Donar heading back to the intersection where Highway Seven crossed Viewtown Road. The transponder signals also clearly painted the Spirit Cats following suit. The last time they gave chase, they went almost a kilometer past the intersection. This time they would get a little surprise there.
He toggled the comm channel. “Miss Behavior,” he began, but was immediately cut off by the voice of Alexi Holt.
“Tucker, that’s Miss Direction,” she said. He glanced at his sister, who gave him a big grin.
“Uh, sorry,” he said. “You’ll have company in twenty.”
“No problem, Command. We’re ready.”
* * *
The Donar was flying up Highway Seven a short ten meters above the roadway. Lieutenant Michelson was weaving and dodging as the Crow scout and Balac Strike VTOL dropped to the same level in a coordinated dive. They were attempting to get weapons lock, that much was obvious from their aggressive movements.
The intersection was just a crossroads atop a tiny hill, barely high enough to qualify as a rise. The Spirit Cats were intently focused on their prey, determined that this time they would overtake the Donar before it reached the safety of the rest of the Wyatt Militia. Michelson banked hard and pushed lower to the ground, heading right for the top of the paved rise. The Crow anticipated his move and fired its nose-mounted laser, hitting the back end of the Donar. If the militia craft had a tail rotor, it would have been lost, but this was an airstream-controlled craft. The Donar danced slightly from the laser’s impact and passed over the intersection . . .
. . . just as the Partisan anti-aircraft vehicle pulled up and locked on its weapons.
The Defiance Shredder LB 5-X autocannons littered the air with depleted uranium slugs. The Crow scout slammed right into the fire. It attempted to pull up and away, to turn and run. The shells stitched a line up the bottom of the copter, splaying away armored plates. The Crow quaked under the impacts. Suddenly, fire erupted from two other sources, Legate Singh’s Panther and Knight Holt’s Black Knight. Both had been hull down behind the rise waiting for their chance.
The Panther unleashed a blast from its PPC, a flash of raw, blue-white energy that tore off part of the Crow’s rotor. The Spirit Cat craft’s attempt to rise above the fight was cut short. It spun out of control, finally diving straig
ht down toward the ground. The Spirit Cat pilot never had a chance. A ball of orange fire plumed into the air, marking the pilot’s grave.
The Balac pilot bore in on the legate and fired a barrage of armor-piercing rounds, hitting the Panther in the legs and nearly knocking the BattleMech back. The return fire from the Black Knight was an incredible light show of death and carnage. Flashes of the extended-range PPCs both hit the Balac, seeming to stop it dead in the air, its forward momentum shattered. The pilot immediately began to turn to face the greater perceived threat, but Alexi Holt was not intimidated.
The turn was cut short when Lieutenant Michelson’s Donar joined back in the fight. While most of his shots missed, one emerald laser beam cut a scar along the lower edge of the cockpit, just under the ferroglass armor that kept the pilot alive. The Balac began to belch smoke, whipped by the rotors, and it spun to limp back toward the Spirit Cat lines. A parting shot from the Partisan AAV autocannon fell short of their mark, but ensured that the copter would not continue to be an issue.
Alexi toggled back to her comm channel. “Command, dust one Crow and count the Balac out of the fight.” She was impressed by how quickly Tucker had adjusted to helping her and Legate Singh coordinate the defense from the mobile HQ.
“Good work. Our sensors are picking up movement your way,” Tucker’s voice came back. “I can’t tell for sure, Miss Direction, but it looks like we may have pissed off the Spirit Cats.”
“Roger that.”
* * *
They retreated from the intersection at a full run, heading to the wooded areas sheltering Viewtown Road to the west. Her sensors, and the data feeds she was getting from the mobile HQ, told Alexi what she wanted to know. The Clan warriors had swarmed over the small knoll where the fighting had been, ready for a quick fight. But there was no one there, only the fresh tire marks from the Partisan, ’Mech footprints in the sod, and the burning remains of what had been a Crow scout.
Alexi watched the display. “Come on, Star Captain. You’re pretty sure we’re up north. You know it’ll be hard fighting, but that’s where you’ve got to go to find us. . . .” It was a lie. They had split their force. The more mobile elements, sans the ConstructionMechs, were down Viewtown Road. The infantry had dug into reinforced positions high on the embankments over the roadway, while the rest of the troops held the bottom of the mountain cut to the north, right where the Spirit Cats would expect them to be.
The icons on her display showed that the Cats had stopped, as if the Star captain was thinking about what to do next. The last thing I need is for him to get a vision of some kind as to where I really am.
She switched to the channel used by Lieutenant Tooley’s Furies—the Ground Pounder forces. “Lieutenant Tooley, have Rainmaker fire a volley at maximum range at the intersection.”
Tooley’s voice came back. “Any specific targets, sir?”
“Just the road.”
A long ways off, at the bottom of the mountain cut, the Sniper artillery unleashed a wild volley. Even from her Black Knight cockpit she heard the thunderous roar of the artillery’s awesome destructive force. The shells from the mobile artillery landed all over the area, drifting toward the rear of the Spirit Cats’ location. Elemental infantry scattered for cover, and only the ’Mechs seemed unimpressed by the attack.
The Spirit Cats took the bait.
They formed up into ranks and spread out along Highway Seven heading north, just as she hoped. They moved quickly toward the cut. She was tempted to rush in quickly on their flank, but Alexi had learned long ago to resist such impulses.
“This is the Command wagon,” came Tucker’s voice. “They are heading north as planned. Furies, you’re about to have some company.”
Lieutenant Tooley’s voice came in loud and clear. “We’re as ready as we can be.” Alexi heard a crackle of weapons fire. The battle was joined.
* * *
The leading edge of the Spirit Cats force raced past him and his squad as if they weren’t there. It helped that they hadn’t done anything yet to attract attention. Hidden in the rocks high over the highway, Corporal Pusaltari watched as the Black Hawk, a Locust and a more distant Warhammer IIC raced up the roadway followed closely by a lance—no, a Star of armored support.
“Hold your fire,” came the calm whisper of his commanding officer.
“Sir, I’d be nuts to fire down at all that crap,” he replied in a low whisper.
The Locust fired at the DI Morgan assault tank as it ran in reverse, attempting to keep its distance from the advancing ’Mechs. The lightweight Locust’s medium laser slashed at the tank, cutting into its armor over the right side. The Morgan paused for a moment right at the peak of the roadway cut and unleashed a volley from its triple PPCs. One shot went wide, doing nothing more than casting a spark at the Black Hawk as it passed, burning the paint. The other two shots, bright white, hit the squat Black Hawk hard and low, just to one side of the cockpit. An armor plate splattered under the melting blast, showering the Warhammer behind it with glowing, red-yellow globules of melted armor plating.
The Black Hawk then locked on with its weapons and fired everything at once. Four streak missiles followed the powerful jade bursts from the large lasers, stabbing out in a massive volley of death and destruction. Pusaltari had never seen an alpha strike before, but he knew what one was. By firing everything at once, the Black Hawk would overheat, but if it hit its target, the target was dead. He looked up the road and saw something where the tank had been. It was a black mass, burning in a shallow crater that had been the road a moment before. The turret was gone, or so badly cut and burned that it simply was not identifiable. A secondary explosion from the twisted remains of the DI Morgan tank confirmed that it had taken the brunt of the assault. The Black Hawk was so hot that steam rose as fresh paint burned. It was dead in its tracks.
Suddenly, the ground erupted as the militia artillery started to rain down. The Warhammer juked to the other side of the road, but the Locust moved almost directly under his Guila squad. The artillery rounds tore up the roadway in a series of ripple-blasts that threatened to shake him from his perch in the rocks. Pusaltari held on to the ground and his assault rifle and watched as several of the blasts paid back the Black Hawk, knocking it down as they engulfed it.
Then down the hill, back from where the Spirit Cats had come, there came the staccato of gun and laser fire. That would be the Knight and the legate, springing the trap. He watched with satisfaction as the Warhammer IIC and the Locust turned to face their rear. In that one moment, the young corporal knew the Spirit Cats had lost the initiative. And more importantly, he knew they knew it, too.
He looked over at Lieutenant Tooley, who gave him the nod. “Third Squad, concentrate on that Locust!” He rose up from his perch and fired down right at the ferroglass cockpit of the ’Mech below him. Pusaltari yelled as he ran, yelled at the top of his lungs. There were no words, only a guttural sound that came from deep within him. Small-arms fire popped off everywhere around him as a squad of Elementals attempted to cover the Locust. He didn’t care. His head pounded with the red flow of battle.
* * *
“Uh-oh,” Tucker said unconsciously as he stared at the tactical display in the depths of the HQ vehicle.
“You’d better be a little more specific,” Patricia said, spinning her seat to face his screen. She looked at the display as well. “Uh-oh.”
Patricia saw the same problem he had spotted. The Locust BattleMech had slugged it out with several squads of infantry, but now had broken free. It was heading to the rear of the Wyatt Militia. There wasn’t much there, two squads of SRM-armed infantry and the precious Sniper artillery piece. The Clan Locust wasn’t alone. A battered squad of Elementals and a unit of Purifier armored infantry were punching through as well. If they made it, they could get under the firing umbrella of the Sniper and rip it apart.
Everything he had ever read or studied about Clan warriors was being confirmed by the action on the screen
in front of him. They were being hit from two directions at once. If it were him, he’d surrender. Not these warriors. They were not just fighting, but breaking through to the rear of the enemy that had trapped them.
Tucker stared at the display, the dots of light representing each of the units, friendly and enemy. “Two choices. Break off the Behemoth, or pull the artillery and us back and out of the fight.”
Patricia nodded as she toggled on the command circuit and adjusted her headset. “Legate, we have problems. The Spirit Cats are heading to the rear.”
“Cover our assets,” came the battle-strained voice of the legate.
Knight Holt’s voice broke in. “You’ve got the best information, Mr. Harwell. Make the call.”
Patricia looked at her brother, locking his gaze for a millisecond. “Either way should work, Tuck. But you’ve got to do it now.”
Tucker gulped and activated a channel to the units on the field. “Armor Two,” he signaled to the Behemoth. “Break off your attack, turn 180 and go after that Locust and infantry heading to the rear.”
A distant voice crackled in his ears. “I’ve got infantry on top of my turret trying to cut their way in, damn it.”
“Turn around now,” Tucker repeated.
“Damn!” the voice swore. “Who the hell is this? Confirm that order.”
“Command One,” Tucker responded, with a tone of authority he never expected to hear from his own throat. “Get moving now, or good men are going to die.”
“Roger that, Command One,” the tanker replied. Tucker watched the dot of light representing the IFF transponder for the tank. It blinked once, indicating firing. The Locust took the shot from the rear and stopped. It was either down, or stopping its rush to the artillery to turn and fight the new foe.
Target of Opportunity Page 21