Birth of a New Legend: Book 3 of the Death Dealer Saga - Death’s Own Daughter.

by Jessie Wolf

  “If we move the two light Death Dealer divisions to the forward wall with just two extra Infantry Support APS companies they can handle the tanks and LEO’s. That will leave the rest to handle the seven House CRT’s that are coming straight at us from the backside of the compound. I also have found out that they are not alone in this.”

  That gets my full attention. “Who else is involved?”

  “There are five other Houses who have been supplying the rebels with arms, men, munitions, and funds.” The look on her face tells me that she is pissed about this. She hands me a list of the family that are involved in with supplying the rebels. One of the names is a shock as they have always been a strong supporter of the Empire. “Before you ask, my Lady, I double checked those names. Even though House Steinbeck has been a supporter of the Empire in the past, however it’s the Family rep here on Hades that is doing this.”

  “You’re saying that little Johnny doesn’t follow what his father believes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How did you find all this out?”

  “I know it’s illegal, but I had the night crew hack their computers and email accounts.” She looked down in shame. I could tell she was not proud of this, that I might become upset with her for breaking the law. “I take full responsibility for the actions of my personnel, my Lady; everything they did was by my orders.”

  I couldn’t help but to feel proud of her. If this was not a time of war I would chew her ass out big time, but we are at war so all bets are off. “You and your staff did nothing wrong, Miss Silver Leaf. We are at war, and these people are supporting a rebel force. That makes them the enemy. Good work, now hold your head high you did the right thing.” The next order I give is one that I had wished to avoid for the rest of my life. “Sound the call to stand to for combat. I want everyone in their position and ready in thirty minutes. Where are your bodyguards Miss Silver Leaf?”

  “I sent them to suit up and get ready for battle, my Lady.”

  “When will they return?”

  “They’re not returning, my Lady. I will be joining them at the mobile three C. I may not be allowed to operate my old IFV, but I won’t sit back in an armored bunker while my friends are out there putting it all on the line.” Her definite stance let me know I wasn’t going to talk her out of what is probably a very dumb idea. “I can still do my job from the Mobile Command Post. It has everything that I have here.” I can tell that she is not happy about being removed from the House military.

  She wants to be out there fighting alongside of her friends. If it wasn’t for the fact that she is under the legal age I would let her, but she is and I can’t ignore that. Yes I know that my sisters will be out there with me, but they are not part of the military. They are part of the family everyone is fighting for. Once this rebellion is over they will go back to being regular teenagers and to school. Dana is not part of my family, but she is our responsibility until she is of age.

  “I’m sorry you cannot be out there on the line with your friends Dana, but until your eighteenth birthday you are underage for military service. I know my sisters are younger than you, and they will be out there beside me. The difference is I have no say in their being there; they are fighting with us to stay out of those people’s hands and would rather die than become their captives. We can’t run away you can. For us it is win, or die trying. There is no escaping that, you don’t have to die. If this goes bad for us you are to get as many of our troops out of here and survive. Do you understand me?”

  She looks up at me as she realizes what that order means. “If we fail here today we will avenge you Lady Nakatoma. That I swear.”

  “Thank you, now send the order and get to your post.” I give the young girl a hug, and leave. As I’m exiting the room I hear her giving orders to the techs that were in the room. I can tell she will become a damned fine officer when the time comes. I’m not surprised that the men and women of I and C already respect her.

  Heading over to the hangar I’m met half way by Alice. I give her a hug and a kiss. “You ready for this baby?”

  “To be honest, kitten, no. With all this heavy fog it’s going to make this a knife fight out there.”

  “Hey, I know. With what Dana just told me it’s going to get real dicey out there. From what she has been able to find out the rebels are going to hit us from all sides at once. She is already moving to rearrange our troops to counter this. We won’t have the numerical advantage on the main field I thought we did. It’s going to be closer to one and a half to one.”

  “Shit, that ain’t good.”

  “Nothing we can do about it, but deal with it. Come on let’s get mounted up. From what I saw in I.C. they should be here in about an hour.”

  “Damn they’re closer than we thought. Do you think they’ll hit before full sun up?”

  “No, the terrain will force them to cut down to one at a time in certain areas. That’ll force them to waste time regrouping before they can attack us.”

  She looks over at me with this strange and curious look on her face. “Does this area have an over look?” when she asks me this I know what she is thinking.

  “Sorry, babe, but as good as it sounds it’s wide enough that a Thermopile Stand won’t work.”

  “Damn, it would have been nice to force them into that kind of a fight. We could have bled them badly before they ever got close to the main compound.”

  “Just stick to the plan. Their own arrogance is our greatest weapon. This time they’re coming to us. We’ll be fighting on our turf. We know every inch of the battle field. They don’t. We know where they are, they don’t know we do. We know how they’re coming. Everything is to our advantage but the weather. Now we just have to wait.”

  As we were talking my family walks up to us. Fuyuko has a very strange look in her eyes, so do the twins. “What’s with the look little sisters?”

  Fuyuko answers for them all. What I hear is not something I would have expected from someone as young as her. “It is time to repay old debts. Not one member of House Light’s military will live to see the sun set on this day. Either they will be dead or we will be.”

  “Wrong, little sister. If things go wrong you all are to get the hell out of here and save your selves. Do you hear me? Don’t go throwing your lives away in some stupid gesture of defiance. Do I make myself clear on this?”

  They all three look at me, and see the determination in my eyes for them to survive. After a few minutes they bow too saying they understood. “Good, now as far as the members of House Light go, that’s a whole other story. Those pigs get what they get, and if any survive then I’ll be adding to the population of Orion VII’s ice colony.”

  We all head inside to mount our APS’. As I pass the Katana I realize that if they get to it they can lay claim to the throne by a different route. Looking around I see Chief Donnelly and wave him over. “Chief, I need you to do me a favor. I want you to fine as many explosives as possible and plant them on the Katana. I want you to rig that beast to blow sky high if we lose. I don’t want the APS to fall into the hands of the rebels. Do you understand?”

  “Turn the Great Sword into scraps if we fail to carry the day. Aye ma’am, I understand and will make it happen. I doubt that we’ll need to though. Those Houses don’t take care of their Suits, so most of them have massive weak points. Even if they can get more Houses to join them it won’t matter. I make sure that our Suits don’t fall behind in their maintenance up keep. We have better equipment and better personnel. Now, Lady Maiha, go out there and ram it down their greedy throats.”

  “With pleasure, Master Chief, with great pleasure. Is Vicky ready to rock and roll?”

  “That little lady is set to romp and stomp leaving nothing in her wake, but smoking ruins.” The smile that crossed his face was one of total pride. “I did change one thing though, she now has a set of claws to go with her teeth.” At the confused look on my face he just smiled. “I slip in a few more heat sinks to help
with the heat buildup. She should run a whole lot cooler for you.”

  “Does that mean she can fire her main guns more often?”

  “At almost twice the normal rate of any other Mountain Lion out there. Trust me Lady Maiha, Vicky will make you proud.”

  “Thank you, Chief, for all that you and your team have done. You all have gone above and beyond what you have to.” I go up on tippy toe and kiss him on the check. “I’ll do my best to bring your little girl home in one piece.”

  “I doubt that you will be able to, so just bring her home. She can take a pounding as well as give one out.” He steps back and throws me a quick salute. “Good hunting ma’am.”

  I return the salute and start up the side of Vicky to her cockpit. Once inside I began to hook in to her controls. “Are we really going to be standing out in the open, Maiha?” Vicky’s voice is filled with some concern.

  “Yes, we are baby girl. We’re going to be dead center front row.”

  “Um… why?”

  “Because I want those sorry sons-of-bitch’s to concentrate solely on us. I want them so mad that they don’t see the trap until it’s too fracking late, and they can get out. That’s why, Vicky. Do you have a problem with this?” I really needed to know, because if she did it could be a real problem for me.

  “No, I just wanted to understand why we were doing this.” She sounded upset. I needed to calm her down.

  “Vicky, I need you to calm down baby girl. I’m not mad at you. I’m just wishing this war wasn’t necessary. Do you understand?”

  “Oh… Ok. If that’s the case, let’s tear these fools apart.”

  “Good girl. You ready now?”

  “I am now.”

  “Good, because it’s time to take our position on the line.” She didn’t say another word; she just put up the HUD and relayed the information from her sensors to give me a full view of the battle field. Her sensors give me everything from the temperature to where all of our units are placed. I see that the two light divisions of the Death Dealers along with their two Support APS companies are already moving into place.

  As we step toward the practice range, Alice in Puss-In-Boots steps up beside us on the left, followed shortly by mama and Snow Mountain Guardian on the right. My three sisters fall in behind us. As we move through the compound I began to feel myself slipping into that mindset I need for combat. It’s a cold dark place that I go to in my mind. There will be no stopping this fight and I plan to make sure that the war ends here and today.

  Dana begins to send out text updates to the battle field commanders. The first one tells me that the rebel Houses have begun their advance on the compound. Just like Dana figured they’re sending the tanks and LEO’s at the front wall and gate for the compound first. That’s fine with me; I know where the real attack will come from. And I plan to be dead smack in the middle of it. I can hear the main guns of the AI tanks firing, the rattle from chain guns as the LEO’s open up, and finally report of heavy cannons. After ten minutes the Death Dealers return fire. The roar of their guns, the thunder of their PPC’s, the crack of their PPL’s and the snap of their pulse rifles fills the air.

  I’m half tempted to switch over to their com link to find out how their fight is going. Thankfully my training keeps my mind on the job at hand. If they win or need help Dana will let me know. That’s her job, control the flow of information and control the movement of troops. The reports start to roll in finally. We were wrong about the number of LEO’s and AI tanks. There was almost twice the number of LEO’s and at least fifteen more AI tanks. The AI tanks were the real problem as those fifteen were Mark twenty BOLOs'. It’s going to take everything those light divisions have to stop them. Thankfully Dana is on the ball.

  I hear them before I see them. Two full flights of A-110B1 Wart Hugs come screaming overhead. They’re low, slow, and ugly; but there is no better ground attack aircraft known to man. More than enough to send those tin cans to the scrap heap. Way to go Dana. I want to send her an at-a-boy for being so on the ball, but I don’t because she has her hands full just doing her job without me bugging her.

  As we settle into our positions I realize the fog is going to be the problem I feared it would be. It’s become so thick I can barely see the outline of Alice’s Puss-In-Boots lest then ten meters away. It’s going to be a knife fight. All the preparations were for nothing. No one can see a thing in this shit. I make a quick command decision and have Vicky open up a link to all our troops that are to take part in the trap. “All stations this net. All stations this net. When the boogies enter the kill zone activate your IFF and set them to blue twelve. I repeat set all IFF to blue twelve once the trap has been sprung. This is Wave Dancer, out”

  It’s a gamble but it just might save a few lives from friendly fire. It goes against all conventional tactics, but hopefully it won’t come back to bight me in the ass.

  For the next forty-five minutes the only action is at the front wall of the compound. I'm beginning to believe that the rebel’s main attack is there when I receive a text from Dana.

  WAVE DANCER: SEVEN HEAVY CRT’S IN BOUND YOUR POSITIONS ETA FIVE MINUTES.

  Well it looks like we were right. I wonder why they didn’t hit us at the same time as the tanks and LEO’s. I’ll figure it out later, if I have a later. Vicky starts picking up random bleeps on her ground radar at the far end of the range. The fog is still too thick to see more than ten meters. Within a few minutes I count twelve unknown targets headed straight at me. Then it was twenty-four, then thirty-six. I quit counting at that point. They rebels have arrived. Switching over to the targeting radar I try for a target lock one the one closes to me. As I wait for the lock my target gets closer, and closer. At twenty-nine hundred meters I finally get a hard lock. I waste no more time and fire all four out my main guns.

  This was the pre-arranged signal to start the ambush. The fact that I hit with all four of my weapons did not go unnoticed or the fact that I just gave away my position by lighting up the morning sky and burning away a good chunk of the fog. That tends to happen when you fire four extremely high powered beam weapons at one time. To say that I had their undivided attention would be a gross understatement. The rebel APS that I hit didn’t last long enough to return fire though. I must have hit him square in the chest with all four because he went up like a miniature sun. His explosion burned off even more of the fog.

  When the rest of the Storm Dancers fired three more of the rebel APS’ found their way to the scrap heap as well. By this time over half of the rebels have reached the ambush area. Time to let the rest of our troops in on the party. Keying up the command link I call out the prearranged signal for the House troops to engage. “Wave Dancer to all Mountain Rangers open fire. Good hunting boys!” they come up out of their camouflaged positions and open fire. It was a truly awe inspiring sight. For the next few minutes we trade shots with the rebels. I know that just staying in one spot is more than likely to make us targets. The rebels return fire with surprising accuracy. We lose three of the APS’ from our House scout lances, two from the support lances and two more from the heavy lances, but we have achieved our goal. We have managed to pull all seven of the rebel House units into the trap.

  I key up my command link one last time. “All stations this net. This is Wave Dancer; take them down. Mark your targets and open fire. Out” all eight of the mercenary units came out of their hidden positions on the sides of the range almost at the same time. As they came up it was like watching the dead rise up out of their graves. I had had the House engineers, along with the CBs of the four Death Dealers divisions, dig pits for them to hide in. Once they had placed their APS’ and IFVs’ inside the pits they were covered by a tarp that was then covered with lose dirt and soil. It looked as if the dead was returning to reclaim vengeance on the rebel Houses.

  Fuyuko put my thoughts into words. “By the Goddess! It looks like Shinigami has opened His vaults to let the dead reclaim their honor.”

  “No big siste
r, they are not reclaiming their honor. They are claiming vengeance for all the wrong the rebels have done.” It was Nanase who made the correction.

  Before I could say a word mama came up on the net. “Keep your mind on the business at hand children. Typhoon Maiden quit playing around with that Bull Dog and put it down. Monsoon check right and nail that Hell Spawn IFV before it gets any closer. Tempest bring down that Fire Star now!” she has become a true combat leader. I follow her orders and get back to the business at hand.

  Up until now we have only been getting the four Houses that had originally planned to face us on the tundra plains. Then I see them I get my first good look at the crest of a one hundred ton Stone Rhino. It’s a House of Light APS and they’re less than fifty meters from me. I feel my blood boil, and my heart start to race. All the pain, all the stress, all the misery comes rolling up out of me. I let loose a scream of pure primal rage. I vault Vicky over the protective berm I had stayed behind for the last half hour. I’m out in the open and don’t care. I have just thrown hours of planning, hours of blood, sweat, and tears out the door. I still don’t care. I’m the Head of a major House and Family; and I don’t care. I’m the overall commander, and I just don’t care.

  All I care about is that I have one of the assholes responsible for all of this in front of me. He outweighs me by twenty tons and has a few more weapons at his disposal. I just don’t care. This is the personal APS for the Head of House Light. The man who said that I would be on my back or knees before the day was out. This was the man that allowed his men to blackmail, abuse, and rape the people of his House hold as if it was their right. This was the man who would be an Emperor over a third of the known Galaxy. One who would take, and take, from the people, but give nothing but pain and misery in return. He would rule through violence and fear.

  I key up a wide band wave link. “Victor Light your time has come! You wanted me all to yourself, well now you got it! You will die you worthless shack of shit!” As the stone Rhino turns to face me I fire all ten of my weapons at once. The PPC’s slam into the chest area within three feet of each other. The PPL’s slice across almost the same spot. All six of my medium Lasers’ pound into the right arm auto-cannon rendering it useless by destroying its breach mechanism and auto-feed.