25 - Seconds Out

Pirate Encampment, SLSC M9V.2016 (Third Planet)
Dark Nebula, Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
14 November 3053

    “What about those?”
    Jerry looks over at the piles of scavenged parts indicated by Ustinov. “Leave ’em be for now. We’ve got more urgent stuff to deal with.”
    Ustinov studies the gouged, twisted plating on the chest and thighs of Jessie’s Banshee. “Yeah, guess so. I’ve still got some heavy-gauge armour that’ll fit that beast. I’ll go haul it out here.”
    “Good. Cameron’s sorting out the munitions allocation now.”

    Maya Sieberg really isn’t sure what she was expecting to see. The slender young woman with Sergeant Gleason, helping to load the Thor pilot’s gurney into the back of a skimmer, doesn’t look like a galactic conqueror. Dressed in the same sort of jumpsuit and heavy jacket as Gleason, she looks quite ordinary…
    …Then Maya notices just how the Clanner is watching everything the medic is doing as she stabilises the injured pilot. It’s like the girl is recording every last detail, committing it all to memory.
    “Yeah, they look so much like us, don’t they?”
    Maya starts, and turns to see the dark-skinned Wolfhound pilot behind her.
    “I was… I don’t know.”
    “Thinking maybe they were aliens?” The Wolfhound jockey nods. “I used to think the exact same thing. Turns out they are aliens… but in here,” and she taps her forehead. “They just don’t think the way we do.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. Shit, I forgot. Name’s Tammy Stanley.” She holds out her hand. “My ride’s Cerberus; that’s him over there.”
    “Maya. Maya Sieberg.” She shakes Tammy’s hand. “The fracked-out Archer back there is mine.”
    Tammy glances in the direction of the skimmer. “That’s Silver. Smoke Jaguar trueborn. That means they made her in a medical lab; brewed her up in a test-tube.”
    Maya shudders. “How did you, ah…?”
    “How did we ‘claim’ her? We fought, and we beat Silver and her pals. We was just expecting to salvage their machines, but it turns out that the Clanners don’t see any difference between recovered ’Mechs and captured pilots. It’s all war booty to them. Silver, Juno, and the rest just handed themselves over to the Skipper.”
    “Same as these Falcons? They belong to you now?”
    Tammy takes a long look at the powered-down outline of Karina’s Thug. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Each Clan’s got its own ways.” She tilts her head. “At least most of their machines use parts we can replace… Those OmniMechs are damned difficult to keep in working order.”
    “Yeah?”
    “We don’t have a whole lot of spares,” Tammy admits. “It’s gonna be a massive pain in the ass just keeping the two Omnis we’ve got up and running.”
    Maya looks at the Black Hawk parked over the downed Thor before looking back at Silver.

    “Kyle? Where are the rest of those bloody SRMs?”
    “Coming down on the freight lift now, Cameron,” Kyle says into his comlink headset. He is standing on the descending lift platform next to the stacked crates of 60mm short-ranged missiles, keeping a watchful eye on them.
    He pauses to cough, and winces as his vision swims for a moment. Four months and still he is not fully recovered. There are times when he wonders if he ever will…
    “You all right, lad?”
    To Kyle’s surprise, he has reached the deck of the ’Mech bay. Cameron is looking at him with some concern. The young Clansman realises that he is leaning heavily on the safety railing at the side of the lift platform.
    “You ought to sit down for a spell. You look like shite.”
    He makes an effort to straighten up. “I am fine, Cameron.”
    “Bollocks. Go sit your arse down. You’re no help to me if you start coughing your guts up.”
    Kyle is about to protest, but he feels another round of coughing lurking down deep in his chest, simply waiting to start. Arguing will just set it off. He looks down at the deck and nods.
    “Good lad. Take ten minutes. Get some water into you.”
    As Kyle moves off, Cameron takes a moment to check the number of crates off against his datapad. All present and correct. He’s about to start unloading the platform when Marc Campbell joins him. The MechWarrior has parked up his BattleMaster in one of the ’Mech cradles and has changed into coveralls.
    “Sir,” Cameron says with a nod.
    “Don’t start,” Marc says. “Thought you could use another pair of hands.”
    “Wouldn’t say no,” Cameron replies. “The Skipper stood you down, then?”
    A sour look. “Yeah. Right now, it’s help out down here or sit around up in the CIC and stare at the screens. I’d sooner be doing something.” Marc glances over to where Kyle is sitting on an equipment case and lowers his voice. “Is he okay?”
    Cameron shakes his head slightly. “No, he’s not. He’s been trying to keep up with the rest of us, and he can’t. The lad’s going to do himself a serious mischief. I’ll have to let Adele know.”
    Marc takes a closer look at Kyle. The former Smoke Jaguar looks done in. “If you want me to back you up, you’ve got it,” he says quietly.
    “Thanks. Right, let’s get these shifted.”

    Amber Tyler, strapped into Blackie’s cockpit, studies her sensor feeds with great care. Right now, she’s the best set of eyes and ears the Norns have got on the ground. A tight-beam telemetry feed is relaying the scan data gathered by the Raven to the CIC aboard the Lodestar.
    Off to her left, Rainy’s Commando pauses at the top of a low, rock-and-clay ridge. Its head module swivels from side to side, like a soldier surveying his surroundings. “Nothing but mud and more mud,” Rainy remarks.
    “Just be glad that’s all you can see,” Amber says. “Be a pity if the Falcons were close enough to start lobbing LRMs at us.”
    A few hundred metres to the north and slightly to the west, the greyish-brown surface of this miserable planet is pockmarked by irregular sinkholes that look large enough to swallow a couple of assault ’Mechs side by side. To the east, there are several hills, or outcrops, that rear up towards the murky sky. Amber doesn’t know what the proper name might be for them; she’s no geographer.
    “Anything at all?”
    “Olds, you’d be the second person to know. They’re out there… they just aren’t in range yet.” Amber toggles the comm setting. “Lodestar, you still getting my feed?”
    “Confirmed, Amber.” Mike Holznecht’s voice breaks off for a moment. “The Skipper wants you to hold station there and keep your scanners running. Sing out the minute you get anything.”
    “Understood, Lodestar.” Amber relays the message to Rainy and Olds. She expands the scale on her map display to take in the whole region. There’s not a lot of fine detail, but it’s enough for her to see that this is the shortest accessible route from the Falcons’ landing zone to the pirate encampment. Fifty C-bills say it’s the route this Star Captain Kathleen is going to take.
    Let’s see… We got lots of open ground to the left, but those sinkholes will slow them down if they don’t have jump jets. We set up a firing line back here, using these ridges for cover. Maybe send Tammy’s crew around to the east, to loop around that big hill there, to catch them in the flank… Amber’s gloved hand shifts uneasily on the targeting joystick, and Blackie’s twin-laser mount twitches to and fro in sympathy, almost as if the light ’Mech is edgy.

    Not so far away, Star Captain Kathleen grits her teeth as her Kit Fox struggles to negotiate the greasy incline. The gyro system whines in protest. Ahead and to her right, a Sentinel is picking its way past a jumble of rock rubble and mud.
    They have lost all contact with Mitchell, with Karina, with everyone. No one responds. Certainly, they retain radio contact with the two DropShips of Mitchell’s detachment, but the ground forces have gone off the air completely. It is clear to her that these are not just a ragged gang of hireling warriors, come to bargain with bandit scum.
    “Anything yet?” The filtered voice cuts into Kathleen’s troubled thoughts. She looks sideways out through her view port, and sees the bulky shape of an Elemental suit peering in at her. She cannot see Zoë’s eyes through the polarised, V-shaped slit in the battlesuit’s upper hull, but she can almost picture the look on her friend’s face.
    “Neg, Zoë. I am not even getting their emergency beacons.”
    The infantry officer clinging to the side of Kathleen’s scout ’Mech adjusts her stance to give her a look ahead, along their line of advance. “They must have been overwhelmed, then.”
    “Aff, that is my feeling too.”
    “We will probably be joining them, Star Captain.”
    Kathleen lets out a breath. “Would that be so bad? We can at least go out fighting.”
    There is a snort. “Say that as if you mean it, Kathleen. You wish to die on this miserable lump of dung no more than I do.”

    “There. Right behind you. Sit down.”
    Alessandra, hugging a foil thermal blanket draped around her shoulders, keeps from pitching off of the sickbay bunk and onto the floor. Barely. She leans to the side and wedges her shoulder into the corner of a wall support. Every little movement makes her head swim.
    She looks around the medical facility. There are five other Black Raptor pilots present, including Karina and Star Colonel Mitchell. Mitchell is lying on a gurney resting on the deck plates, deeply unconscious. The medic, Adele, turns away from Alessandra, as another Raptor MechWarrior is hustled in for treatment.
    “Here’s the Thunderbolt pilot,” says one of the people carrying the gurney. “He’s in pretty rough shape, Doc.”
    “Okay, get him up here. Monique, check his vitals. I’ll type him for blood. Andre, anyone else in serious trouble?”
    “Not that I’ve been told, Doc. I’ll go check anyway.”
    “Do that.”
    Karina steps away from the examination table, giving Adele and her assistant room to work. She moves over to sit on the other end of the bunk, next to Alessandra, and rubs her hands together to get circulation going again. She looks as chilled to the bone as Alessandra feels herself. Her ice-green eyes turn to regard the junior MechWarrior.
    “Star Commander,” Alessandra says, bobbing her head awkwardly.
    “Neg, Alessandra. I have no rank now.” Karina looks down at her hands. There is no telling what goes on in her mind… but Alessandra notices the trembling in the senior pilot’s fingers. She looks away before Karina catches her staring.
    Her heart sinks as she sees who is hobbling his way into the sickbay, favouring his right leg: Harold. Too much to hope for that he would not survive ejecting from his ’Mech, the young woman muses. Her luck is just not that good.

    “Whoa,” Jessie Danvers shakes her head as she looks around the Lodestar’s main ’Mech bay. From her vantage point up on a gantry, she is on a level with the cockpit of her Banshee, which is currently receiving some rough-and-ready armour patches to its chest and thighs. In the cradle right next to her ride is Olafsdottír’s Axeman, undergoing similar repair work.
    “It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be enough to get your machine back in the fight.”
    Jessie turns to see Olafsdottír walking along the catwalk to join her. The other woman has pulled on a jumpsuit and canvas jacket over her shorts and coolant vest. Her oddly coloured hair is sticking out at all angles.
    “I was just impressed,” Jessie says. She looks around. “This ship makes ours look like a fracking wreck.” She laughs for a moment. “What am I saying? Ours is a fracking wreck. The Muffin isn’t much better.”
    “That’s the Mule you’ve got parked out there?”
    “Yeah. We take it along on raids sometimes. The cargo bays come in handy for loot… as well as the extra ’Mech cradles.” Jessie notices Brigitte’s interest. “The, ah, previous owner was the Synguard Corporation. They refitted Muffin so it can carry a lance of ’Mechs, just like a military DropShip. The only thing Muffin can’t do is drop ’Mechs from orbit.”
    “Still, that can be useful,” says Olafsdottír thoughtfully, leaning on the safety rail with both hands. “Biggest problem I’ve got right now is too many ’Mechs and not enough carry capacity…”
    “I’d have thought it was those Falcons out there.”
    “They’re burn-out cases in old machines, Jessie. The ones to worry about are the people with front-line Omnis. They’ve got the cool toys, like on that Thor… long-range PPCs, rapid-fire assault autocannons, the works. Not to mention Toads.”
    “The guys in those armour suits? They didn’t seem all that tough when your light lance cut them down…”
    “That was just five of them. A squad. Think about what twenty or thirty of them could do if they got in close to your machine.” Brigitte’s dark eyes are as cold as ice as she meets Jessie’s gaze. “I’ve seen a squad of them drag down a Rifleman. That’s why I told Tammy to burn them all before turning her guns onto the ’Mechs.”
    Jessie shudders.
    “How’s your boss? Jacobs, right?”
    Jessie shrugs. “Bruised and battered… but he’ll live. He’s more upset that his Warhammer’s down for the count. Those leg actuators are a total loss, Ustinov says.”
    Olafsdottír nods. “Understood. He’ll have to wait. We need the machines we can fix quickly back up. Those Falcons aren’t too far away. We…” She trails off and raises a hand to her earpiece comm. “She’s sure? Okay. Hands on deck, Mike.” Brigitte looks at the ’Mechs, then back at Jessie. “Saddle up.”