Service for the Dead mda-6

by Martin Delrio

  “Commence turn, all units, turn to rendezvous point,” Command and Control back at the DropShips advised.

  The units that had bypassed the Highlanders to the south turned north. The units that had bypassed the Highlanders to the north turned south. They streaked toward one another to form a mass that could not be resisted.

  “Any Highland units encountered, take under fire at extreme range,” said Command and Control. “Do not slow down. We can afford to lose tanks better than we can afford to lose time. Flank speed. Forward.”

  The Steel Wolves dashed toward their meeting place. Nothing the Highlanders had on the field could stand against them.

  In another part of the field, missiles clashed against armor and other missiles exploded harmlessly nearby, as One-Eyed Jack and Anastasia Kerensky targeted, aimed, fired, and dodged.

  A Jupiter could take hits, but its pilot didn’t dare risk too much speed or too high a rate of fire, lest it go into overheat shutdown. Anastasia took advantage of that care to fire two shots for every one of Farrell’s. She brought her Ryoken II in close, so that the rest of One-Eyed Jack’s mercenaries could not shoot at her for fear of striking their leader.

  The modified Ryoken II wove and dodged, firing first its lasers, then its particle cannon, then its lasers again by turns. Anastasia laughed with the excitement of it, even though the laughter pulled at the unhealed wound in her abdomen and made it hurt. She felt the first of Murchison’s stitches tear away with a bright flower of pain.

  Warm blood trickled down her flank, mixing with the sweat already pouring off her body. Fighting a ’Mech was hard work. The physical strain of making seventy-five tons of powered death obey her will was draining energy out of her despite the adrenaline-enhanced exhilaration that kept her in the fight.

  She fired her laser, her particle cannon, and then her laser again—flashing, aiming, taking the Jupiter under fire and increasing its heat. He was getting hits on her, too, but nothing hard enough to kill or cripple her. Laser, fire. Anastasia laughed again. This was the life for a MechWarrior—out on the field of battle with an enemy before her.

  “Galaxy Commander!” a voice sounded in her ear on the tactical frequency. “I am here to back you up. Kriya Wolf from the Crusader Cluster, arriving on your right flank.”

  “Welcome, Kriya,” Anastasia said. Kriya piloted a Tundra Wolf, a valuable addition to any ’Mech fight, and more so to this one. “You have come to the right place. Jump in anywhere—the Jupiter is big enough for us to share.”

  Long-range missiles from the Tundra Wolf’s Long Bow pack arched overhead, targeted on the Jupiter.

  “Watch your heat,” Anastasia said. The only drawback the Tundra Wolf had was its terrible heat efficiency. “Pick your shots.”

  Her magnetic anomaly detector beeped. Another ’Mech was approaching, this one from her left flank. She keyed the open mike again.

  “Surrender now, Jack Farrell, for you see that we are three to your one.”

  43

  Belgorod

  Terra

  Prefecture X

  April 3134; local spring

  “What’s the status of the battle?” Tara Campbell asked her aide-de-camp over the Highlander command and control circuit. She herself was nearly done with reload and field repairs on her battered Hatchetman.

  “We’re getting reports of Steel Wolves at our rear,” Captain Bishop reported. “Condors and JESs, coming in groups of three. Kerensky must have sent the hovers around our flanks.”

  “What do we have back there?”

  “Light stuff. That’s about all.”

  “Call back our Scimitars,” Tara ordered, cursing herself meanwhile as seven kinds of fool for not leaving heavy security in the rear. It would be just like Anastasia Kerensky to try a sneak attack from behind while everyone was watching and guarding the front. “All of them. They’re the quickest stuff we have. Tell them to mix it up with the Wolves, slow them down, until we can get something heavier back there.”

  The field repairs were done, and Tara remounted her ’Mech. “Captain Bishop,” she said, as soon as she’d dogged down the entry hatch and strapped herself into the command seat. “Where exactly are you?”

  “South of your location,” Bishop replied. “I have a magnetic signature on Kerensky, and I’m going to take her.”

  “Understand—you’re pursuing Kerensky. Carry on. Stay in touch.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “One more thing—there may be friendlies beyond your position. They won’t know you’re coming. So be careful.”

  “That I will. Bishop out.”

  Calling for infantry and heavy armor was all very well, Tara Campbell thought, and the best she could come up with on short notice, but there was no way she would make it back to the rear of her lines herself in time to fight the hovers. And with the relative speeds involved, very little she could do about the light armor that was harassing her forces elsewhere. Nevertheless, she had to do something—in a pitched battle, one did not waste a Hatchetman on standing around and waiting.

  “Control, this is Prefect Campbell,” she said on the tactical net. “I need some armor to punch through the Wolves’ front line. I believe they’ve stripped it of units in order to make a run around our flanks.”

  “We don’t have much,” Control replied. “Our heavies are mostly bogged down.”

  “If our heavies are bogged down, then so are theirs,” Tara said. “Give me infantry, then, as much of it as we’ve got.”

  “What we have will be moving to your location,” Control said. “Pop a beacon they can home on.”

  “Beacon, aye,” Tara said. “I’m moving west. Guide on me.”

  “Control, roger, out.”

  Tara walked west. She moved slowly, picking a way for her ’Mech over the sloppy ground, avoiding the lowest places where the ground glistened with surface water.

  This is a hell of a place to fight, she thought. I hope no one else has to do it ever again.

  “Looks like some excitement away south,” Will said to his fellow Sergeants over the tactical radio. “Somebody’s just popped a flare. We’re scouts. I say we take our platoons and check it out.”

  “You’re the one with the ideas,” Lexa said over the same circuit. “Who’s going to cover our asses with Command and Control?”

  “Watch me,” Will said. “Control, this is Scout Two Three. Radio check, over.”

  “Two Three, Control, roger, over,” came the tinny-sounding reply.

  “Two Three, scouting southward, over.”

  “Roger, out.”

  “You see?” said Will. “No problem.”

  “Now that we’re covered if anyone says that we left our appointed duty station,” Lexa said, “what are we going to be looking for down there?”

  “I’ve got a feeling,” Will said. “Something tells me that our people will need some eyes on the ground, that’s all.”

  The ground ahead of Tara Campbell was clear. Nothing on it moved or stirred. Then the reason came to her in a flash. The Wolves were out there, waiting in concealed positions, ready to shoot at close range with their heavies as soon as she came in range. Maybe they couldn’t move, but they could still shoot.

  I’ll have to do something about that, she thought, and considered the possibilities.

  Bogged-down armor—no infantry support.

  Sitting ducks.

  Dead meat.

  She could handle any infantry she found. Her laser was good for that. Her own infantry was coming up fast, and they would blind the bogged-down tanks with smoke and fire, even with mud if they had to. Then her ’Mech could swing into action with its hatchet, close-up and personal.

  “Listen to me, people,” Tara said to the infantry as they arrived, some of them in armor, and others—remnants of a scout-sniper company—in plain mud-caked fatigues. “We’re going to knock a hole in the line up ahead, and force the Wolves to pull back to deal with us. Things might get thick. Stick with me, I’l
l stand with you, and we’ll do it all together.”

  Will Elliot passed by a M1 Marksman with Steel Wolf markings. Its turret-mounted Lord’s Thunder Gauss Rifle swung right and left, blind but still menacing.

  Before the tank could fire, the Countess of Northwind’s Hatchetman ’Mech strode up on the tank’s left side. The tank wasn’t going anywhere. Its treads had chewed great ruts in the steppes, effectively creating its own antitank ditch, in which the Marksman was now stuck. Battle damage had rendered its sensors dark and inoperative, blinding it to the Countess’s approach. The massive ax at the end of the Hatchetman’s right arm rose and fell, crushing the Marksman’s turret and snapping off its rifle.

  “That’s our Countess,” Will said to the troopers in his platoon. The Hatchetman was already ranging on ahead, seeking more tanks to kill. “Guide on her, and move forward.”

  44

  Belgorod

  Terra

  Prefecture X

  April 3134; local spring

  Captain Tara Bishop had reached the point of interface between the three armies that occupied the field. She had the ’Mechs she’d been looking for in visual ahead of her: One Jupiter, one Ryoken II, one Tundra Wolf.

  The two smaller ’Mechs were ganged up on the Jupiter. The Jupe was holding its own at the moment, though how long that might go on was anyone’s guess. A pair of enemies could do an even better job than a singleton at the wear-it-down-and-overheat-it game.

  The sensors of Bishop’s Pack Hunter crackled with the shadows of particle pulse blasts. She checked her own heat gauge, and saw that she still had some reserve.

  Now that she was in visual range, she recognized the Jupiter as One-Eyed Jack Farrell’s, and no mistake. Jack knew her, and she knew him. They’d fought and she’d won, back on Northwind—and only the two of them knew that Jack Farrell had thrown the fight.

  “Payback time, Jack,” she whispered. “You saved my bacon, now I’ll save yours.”

  If she wanted the element of surprise, she needed to take out the Tundra Wolf with one shot. That meant just one thing: Alpha Strike.

  She opened the shunts to put power from the reactor directly to her particle projector cannon, and carefully dialed in her aim point on the Tundra Wolf. Then she fed raw power to the cannon, getting it ready.

  And—now.

  The cannon shot its bolt of energy, the already devastating punch increased by the raw power she’d poured into it. The Pack Hunter instantly went into shutdown, frozen in place by the energy expenditure needed for the strike, but the shot it had fired was away, and it was on target. The particle beam connected with the Tundra Wolf.

  The Streak missiles on the Tundra Wolf’s right torso cooked off in a ball of flame and sparks, sending it staggering back. Then the ’Mech’s safety mechanism engaged, and the Tundra Wolf–like the Pack Hunter–went into heat overload shutdown.

  One thing Captain Bishop knew: the Tundra Wolf would be out for a lot longer than she would be, while both ’Mechs waited to cool down sufficiently to move and fight again. But until the Pack Hunter recovered, she was still fair game for other foes.

  That Ryoken II, for example. If Anastasia Kerensky noticed that Bishop’s ’Mech was frozen in its place by shutdown, the only thing stopping the Steel Wolves’ commander from walking over and finishing her off would be an unwillingness to break away from the combat with Farrell’s Jupiter.

  “Jack, don’t fail me now,” Bishop whispered.

  “Captain Bishop!” One-Eyed Jack’s voice sounded in her ear. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Darlin’, we’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said. “Let me tidy things up a bit for you.”

  As he spoke, the Jupiter brought up the twin autocannons mounted in its massive arms, and at the same time twisted its torso to put its particle projector cannons on target. The overwhelming force of the attack struck the Ryoken II like one of the thunderbolts of the bigger ’Mechs’ namesake of old, hammering Kerensky’s ’Mech until it staggered, limning it in flame and steel.

  One-Eyed Jack didn’t stop firing. He has to be getting close to redline, Bishop thought. Then, at last, Kerensky spun her ’Mech away and began to run. A Ryoken II had a twenty-kilometer-per-hour speed advantage over the Jupiter ; she could wear it out if she chose—or leave off the fight and go for the Pack Hunter’s easier target.

  Captain Bishop watched, still frozen in her heat overload, and waited for Anastasia Kerensky to decide her fate. Would the Galaxy Commander be able to resist the lure of taking out a Jupiter in a fair fight? Or would she go for the wiser tactical choice?

  Something else was happening instead. The Ryoken II’s movements were becoming more erratic and less precise, and it seemed almost to stumble and waver on its feet, usually the sign of an injured or incapacitated pilot at the controls—not a common sight out in the field, since anything nasty enough to do damage to someone inside the armored cockpit of a BattleMech had usually put the ’Mech completely out of action first.

  “Somebody’s put some serious hurting on that lady,” One-Eyed Jack observed, as the Ryoken II staggered, straightened, and headed away again, back to the north. “Funny thing is, though—I don’t think it was one of us.”

  The Steel Wolves’ hovercraft turned back to the west, heading for the back of the Highlanders’ lines.

  “You have a lot of targets ahead of you,”

  Command said. “Fire, move, and forget them. Return to our own lines. Fast. We have trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “A world of hovercraft. They are not wearing Highland insignia, but they are shooting at us all the same.”

  Jack Farrell’s mercenaries had reached the Steel Wolves’ DropShips, and the tide of battle had turned.

  At the Steel Wolves’ command post, Ian Murchison had a closer view of the action than he had either expected or wanted. He didn’t know enough about military tactics to follow what was going on by listening to the steady flow of reports, but when the smoke of battle began drifting into the command tent, and the thunder of missile fire and the whine of overstressed turbines began coming closer and closer, he knew enough to realize that things were no longer going well.

  A squad of armored infantry trotted past him, rifles at the ready. None of them gave him a second glance. He might as well have been one of their own, stationed for some reason at the command post with a medical bag slung over his shoulder.

  Murchison looked down at himself, and considered his appearance as someone might who was encountering it for the first time. His own clothing had been left behind on Northwind months ago, and he wore Steel Wolf uniform fatigues without insignia—unless, he thought, the Bondsman’s cord around his wrist counted as insignia in its way.

  He wasn’t part of the Steel Wolves, and wasn’t likely to be, but he’d grown accustomed to them. They were plain-talking people, and trustworthy in their own way—even if they were crazy by most standards—and they didn’t appear to hold the fact that he was a Northwinder against him.

  On the other hand, if he ever made it home and the news got out that he’d once saved Anastasia Kerensky’s life, he didn’t think that explaining “I’m a medic; saving people is what I do” would be enough to make people understand.

  He heard the sounds of more firing, coming from the south. Not long after, a Ryoken II BattleMech appeared out of the smoke, drawing closer to the command post at a staggering, badly controlled run, its hull creased by the marks of energy fire and multiple missile hits. The last time he’d seen that ’Mech, he realized, its metallic body had shone brightly in the light of morning, and Anastasia Kerensky had been climbing up the access ladder to the cockpit.

  As he watched, the ’Mech halted, toppled, and crashed to the earth. There wasn’t enough damage to the exterior, he thought, to make it do something like that. Based on everything he’d ever heard about the giant battle machines—and the younger Steel Wolf Warriors talked about them incessantly,
much like the ’Mech-struck adolescents of his own youth—most of the time when they broke down they just stood there like statues until whatever had halted them either went away or got fixed. A ’Mech laid out and measuring its length on the ground had usually been the victim of a completely devastating attack.

  Or of the injury or death of the Warrior inside.

  Slinging his medical bag over his shoulder, Murchison abandoned the relative safety of the command tent and sprinted for the fallen ’Mech. The rear hatch unlocked when he twisted the wheel, and the door swung open. A wave of hot air rolled out, humid and heavy with the smell of blood.

  Murchison crawled into the cockpit. Yes, there was Anastasia, still strapped into the pilot’s command seat. Her face was pale and sweat streaked, and a steady trickle of blood was running out from underneath the bulky cooling vest.

  “Galaxy Commander!” Murchison shouted.

  She lifted her head, her eyes barely focusing. “Bondsman?”

  “Yes, Galaxy Commander. You have to get out of here. I have to take care of you.”

  She tried to resist, but she was too weak. Murchison removed her helmet, unplugged the coolant line from her vest, and undid the straps that bound her, making her one with the machine—and that had saved her from worse injury when the BattleMech fell over and slammed into the earth. Pulling her out through the hatch of the Ryoken II, he shouted, “Get a stretcher!” to the first Warrior he saw, then opened his bag and set to work.

  She needs a dressing on that wound, he thought, to stop the bleeding. And an IV to replace fluids and bring up her blood pressure. She’s going into shock.

  “Bondsman Murchison,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”

  She gripped his wrist with her left hand. Then, with a speed and strength that he wouldn’t have believed that she still possessed, her right hand drew a knife.