Chapter 23

Low Orbit

New St Andrews IV, The Periphery

Rimward of the Circinus Federation

11 June 3077

 

               Marie was stunned she’d gotten this far. 

               The plan had been simple enough: Mel had given them the Circinan commline codes in exchange for a pair of Arbiters to take back with her.  That let them talk on the secure channels and look like the air support Caradin had called for.  They would fly the aerospace fighters on fake strafing runs, shooting to miss, until Caradin saw what was happening.  If she sent the fighters to escort the DropShip, they’d play along and try to get onboard until the ship figured out something was wrong, then attack and harass until the ship turned around.  If the ship’s crew didn’t figure it out, and let her onboard…wing it.

               Officially winging it now, Marie thought to herself.  The displays showed the inside of the DropShip’s hangar bay.  The DropShip had paused its approach to the planet only long enough to let the damaged aerospace fighter onboard, touching down in some crash webbing that supported the nose.  She could feel from the acceleration that the ship was already starting its descent.  Now with re-pressurization complete, the giant door separating the hangar bay from the rest of the ship was cracking open, admitting deckhands who came running in to lock down the fighter for landing.

               “Good job,” Rachel’s voice said over the commline.  “I’ll keep a holding pattern out here, and try and convince the DropShip I’m escorting him.”

               “All right.” 

               Marie didn’t know who was in a worse place right now: her in the belly of the beast, or Rachel just outside, in range of all the guns.  She knew it had been a risk to put her mother in the other fighter, but Rachel was the only other flight-trained pilot to be found, and Mel had agreed to smuggle her into Plant Two and put her into the working Samurai.  Marie just hoped it worked out.

               “Just remember the timing,” Rachel advised.  “Don’t overthink, don’t second-guess.  Just keep moving.  I love you.”

               “All right, mom.  See you in a few minutes.  Good luck.”  She hesitated.  “Love you, too.” 

               She cut the connection, and afforded herself the time to close her eyes, take a deep breath, and count to five.  Then her eyes opened and she set her jaw.

               “Come on, old girl,” she whispered, and pushed a red button on a remote control.  Explosive bolts fired on the outer hull, cracking the carapace.  Hastily-fabricated panels, too light to really be armor but sturdy enough to look the part while in flight, fell away.  Seeing no point in keeping up appearances, she reached over to a box that had been very recently wired into the cockpit. 

               She really had to hand it to Mel, the work she’d done was amazing.  The landing gear had been too wrecked to fix in the time they’d had, but she’d still managed to patch up the armor and get the nosecone straightened out, and then fit the body with cosmetic panels to mimic a Samurai’s profile.  Then Mel had gone for the hat trick by wiring the Blossom up with the IFF gear out of the scrapped Chameleon, complete with the training ‘Mech’s signal spoofing circuitry.  Marie hit a button on her replacement IFF box, switching her digital signature from a Samurai back over to the Broken Blossom.  Then she pushed the mode selection lever up to the top of its track.

               The deckhands trying to lock her down froze in place as panels fell away, then the fighter split open and reconfigured itself, arms and legs unfolding from under its wings.  The crash webbing shredded and tore free as the Blossom took shape.  Marie was moving before the computer had announced “BattleMech conversion completed.”

               The captain was in the middle of coordinating the descent when Caradin’s warning came in.  The comms officer was relaying the message when the deck crew started screaming warnings.  Alarm klaxons sounded and the heavy aerospace bay doors began closing, trying to separate the bay from the rest of the ship.  They only made it halfway shut before a pair of giant metal hands reached out between them.  Metal screamed as the hands got a strong grip and pushed the doors back open.

               The drop bay of the Overlord dropship was a single massive chamber built with multiple levels, with aerospace fighter bays near the nose of the ship and the BattleMech bays in the wider rear section, just ahead of the engines.  As the Broken Blossom pushed through the doors, Marie spotted the giant elevator column that connected the levels.  For landing the elevator had been lowered to the ground floor, leaving nothing but a handrail keeping the crew from falling down the ‘Mech-sized hole in the deck.  The Blossom crawled her way to the shaft, smashing through the railing and falling, planetary gravity already strong enough to pull the ‘Mech to the lowest level of the ship.  Marie tapped the jump jets as she touched down, and stood the Blossom up to her full height.

 

 

               The main deck was a mess of cables, crates, and decades of patched-together repairs and add-ons.  Everything was shaking with the friction of atmospheric entry.  Deck crew on the hangar floor were scrambling at her appearance, frantically unstrapping themselves from their landing positions and trying to get to cover.  Marie took careful aim with her arm weapon pods and started spraying bullets from the machine guns, aiming over the crews’ heads. 

               “Everyone on board abandon ship!” she shouted over the loudspeakers.  “First and only warning!” 

               She turned her sights downward.  The spliced-in fire control out of the Chameleon was a far cry from the precise accuracy from the Blossom’s original targeting gear, but she was aiming at an easy target.

               Her lasers flashed into the deck plates under the Blossom’s feet.  An Overlord’s outer shell was heavily armored, but the inside of the ship was simple composites, the kind that melted into butter under BattleMech weapons.  Marie fired as fast as her weapons could cycle, starting to sweat as the heat in the cockpit spiked.  Her lasers stabbed into the ship again and again, seeking the fusion power plant underneath.

               “MechWarrior, stop immediately!” the captain’s voice pleaded with her over the PA system.  “If you breach the reactor you’ll kill us all!”

               “I thought I said get off!” Marie shot back.  “That includes you!” 

               Guards began appearing, having unstrapped themselves from their crash harnesses and grabbed their guns.  They started firing rifles at the Blossom, aiming for her joints and cockpit.  Marie winced as bullets sparked off her armor.

               “Fine, be that way!” she snapped over the speakers before turning her guns on them.  The Blossom’s weapons, made to kill BattleMechs, thought nothing of the guards’ combat armor.  Men exploded under the spray of heavy bullets or burned to ash under the lasers.   She watched it with her jaw clenched and a knot in her stomach, not having time to feel anything.  They’re pirates, they’re not innocents.  They’ve all done something, she told herself. 

               The surviving guards scrambled to get to cover after her first burst, but she knew they wouldn’t stay hidden for long.  She also knew she couldn’t afford to waste time picking them off.  She had spotted a few BattleMechs in the bays on the way down the elevator shaft.  They were locked down as Melody had said, but they were in working order, and she was already getting alerts of reactors starting to warm up.  She didn’t have long before she had much bigger problems than a handful of guards.

               “Emergency Descent,” a voice announced out of a loudspeaker.  Already caught in the planetary gravity well, the captain had two choices: dial up the engines to get back to orbit and smash everyone into the floor with the acceleration, or commit to the landing and dive for the relative safety of terra firma and planetary atmosphere.  Clearly he’d chosen the latter, as Marie felt her body getting lighter from a sharp dive.  She tapped a button to activate powerful magnets in the Blossom’s feet, adhering the ‘Mech to the deck.

               “The ship’s dropping!” her mother’s voice said in her ear.  “Is that your work?”

               “Yes!  It’s crazy in here mom!  Stay back, it’s going to get hotter in a minute!”

               The computer warned her of a fusion plant coming online.  Marie turned the Blossom towards a Griffin on her level that was starting to wrench itself free of its docking clamps.  Marie fired her guns at its head, but with the way everything was shaking, she couldn’t get the crosshairs to line up.  On the upside the other MechWarrior had the same problem.  The brilliant azure beam of the Griffin’s Extended-Range PPC blazed across her vision, missing her but still scrambling her displays with the magnetic wash.

               Marie cursed loudly at the other ‘Mech.  She’d been hoping the Circinan MechWarriors wouldn’t risk firing their guns inside the ship, but clearly she wasn’t so lucky.  By the time her screens cleared of static the Griffin had ripped free of its docking clamps and stomped towards her, grabbing onto her with its powerful hands.

               Sweating and straining against the controls, Marie forced the Blossom forwards, shoving herself and the Griffin into a wall.  She twisted to break free of the ‘Mech’s grip before turning to get a hold on its arms.  It quickly became a wrestling match, both ‘Mechs trying to aim their weapons at the other but unable to line up a shot.  The Griffin’s pilot was clearly off-balance as the DropShip tilted around him.  Marie on the other hand was in her element, long used to the shifts and gravity of space travel and aerial maneuvering.  She rolled with the ship, keeping her bearings and staying focused on her target.  She got inside the Griffin’s reach and shoved it against another ‘Mech gantry.  Taking advantage of its momentary distraction, she turned and emptied everything she had into the DropShip’s floor, sending heat warnings screaming at her and turning her cockpit into a sweltering sauna.

               Her respite didn’t last as the Griffin’s pilot finally remembered to engage his own magnetic clamps in his feet, and Marie found the heavier ‘Mech bearing down on her again.  She fired her lasers every time the crosshairs came close to the ‘Mech’s body, scoring hits but also sending red and green beams lancing all over the DropShip’s bay.

               Warning klaxons sounded all around Marie as the Blossom and the Griffin wrestled.  Marie soon realized the alarms weren’t coming from inside her cockpit.  The DropShip bay was echoing with them.  She let a grin touch her lips; those klaxons were good news, at least as far as she was concerned.  Her own cockpit alerts showed radiation and massive heat pouring into the bay, confirming a hit on the DropShip’s reactor core.

               It was the first rule of aerospace piloting: if it’s not flying, you need more thrust.  Conversely, not enough thrust and you’re not flying.  The DropShip relied on a carefully controlled fusion reaction to stay aloft.  She didn’t have to send the reactor critical, just damage it enough that it could no longer lift the ship’s 9,700 ton weight.  Of course, what the captain warned was true, too.  Too big a breach and the ship would become a new star in the sky, with her in the middle of it.

               “They’re firing on me!” Rachel’s voice shouted.  “You’ve really pissed them off in there!”

               “Mom, what are you doing still on us?  Get away!  Everything’s coming apart in here!”  Before her, the Griffin was gripping the Blossom’s arm, trying to pull her guard out of the way. 

               “Emergency offload,” a voice announced over the loudspeaker.  As Marie had predicted, the captain had finally gotten so desperate to get the Blossom off of his ship that he was giving up on even keeping the crew safe.  The drop doors opened, air venting out explosively into the near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere.  Crew and cargo alike were sucked out, disappearing screaming into the void outside.  The Blossom and the Griffin both swayed, the combination of the near-zero gravity of the descent and the massive suction threatening to pull them out as well. 

               “I’m hit!” Rachel shouted.  “I can’t stay with you!  Losing control!”

               “Mom?  Mom?!” Marie shouted.  There was no answer. 

               She looked at the Griffin struggling to keep its balance.  She twisted free of the ‘Mech’s grip, took a breath, and switched off her magnetic locks.  The Blossom immediately broke free of the floor.  Marie hastily guided herself with her hands and feet, skidding over the floor towards an open bay door.  The Griffin fired again, but its PPC only grazed her arm.  Marie saw her crosshairs line up on a target and in a split-second decision she fired, her Large Laser going into the ship’s reactor core one more time before she slipped out the drop door and into space. 

               The planet opened up underneath her as the Blossom plummeted.  Above her was the massive bulk of the Overlord, like an egg-shaped skyscraper riding a fusion torch.  The ship was pulling away from her, smoke pouring out of its drop doors.  She thought she saw explosions lighting off inside of it, and as she watched, one of its engines flashed and went out, leaving the ship tilting ominously.  Not sure if the ship’s guns were crippled or not, Marie tucked in the Blossom’s arms and legs, plummeting as fast as she could to get out of range.

               “Mom, I’m clear!  Repeat, I’m clear!” she announced over the comm.  “Where are you?”

               “Damage…vere!  Going to try an emerge…anding…”

               Marie looked around on her viewscreen until she saw the glowing icon designating the other Samurai fighter.  It was going down, already so far away that the fighter itself was just a black dot, barely visible in front of the planet surface underneath it.

               “Mom?  Mom, hang on, I’m coming!” Marie shouted, pulling the conversion lever down.  The Blossom split open, panels rotating and swinging into place.  In seconds she had transformed to an aerospace fighter, and flew towards the speck in the sky. 

               “Heavily dam…ost…ontrol…” Rachel’s voice responded.  “Can’t reco…down…”

               Marie pounded uselessly on the control board, willing the Blossom to go faster, but the machine stubbornly refused to accelerate.  Her engines struggled to keep up thrust, and the emergency lights were blinking to warn her of critically low fuel.

               She powered on with her dive after the Samurai, frantically planning as she flew.  Full speed dive to overtake, intercept within a kilometer of the ground, get below her and convert to AirMech, grab the Samurai and go full retro-rockets to slow the descent, might be able to manage a controlled crash-landing…

               “- love y…l…ou!” Rachel’s voice was shouting.

               “MOM!” Marie screamed.  Static was the only response.

               Her blood turned to ice as the Samurai’s IFF signature vanished from her screen.  She zoomed in the view to see the burning wreckage falling, breaking up and crumbling to molten shrapnel.

 

*End Chapter 23*

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Battletech and Mechwarrior are the property of Catalyst Game Labs.

 

Rachel McCloud, the Bristol, Marie Rose (Sr.) and the Black Thorns are creations of James Long, who among other things wrote Main Event and DRT for the Battletech universe.

 

Image of the Broken Blossom's BattleMech mode comes from RGMimic79: https://twitter.com/RGMimic79

 

A gallery of images from this story is compiled on my Ko-Fi page.  Donations are not required, but they are appreciated, and help me pay the artists to make more images for this story.  (Thanks Eadbald, Ageless Games, Umbrawar, and Gladius!)

 

Follow me @lucendacier on X for story updates and the occasional BattleTech meme.

 

Audio version of this story is available at https://lucendacier.podbean.com/ , and on Apple podcasts.

 

Audio with images is available on Youtube, which also includes music I found out on the wilds of the Internet.