HIGHWAY 42

BLUE MOUNTAINS

GILLINGHAM

FEDERATED SUNS

02:08, 18 April 3044

Despite everything Elise had been through, after all of the changes she had undergone, her low opinion of combat vehicles had not shifted all that much. Certainly she saw the crews as competent professionals in their own right, but the machines themselves were just much less manoeuvrable or efficient than a ‘Mech of equivalent tonnage. They were only really worth anything to make up numbers if an army could not afford anything better.

Even so, she had a wary respect for the Manticore – only a fool wouldn’t. The design had been in use for nearly half a millennium, undergoing barely any changes in that time, and the fact it had remained a popular battle tank for so long – despite fusion engines being so much rarer after four succession wars – spoke much of its value. Armed with a PPC, LRM-10, SRM-6, and a medium laser, the tank could lay down a withering hail of firepower, almost matching a ‘Mech of the same weight and often out-armouring it for half the cost.

They were a commander’s best choice when ‘Mechs weren’t available, and a full lance of them could cause a lot of trouble. Hell, even one of them could create problems for an underweight medium like the Clint, especially if it had just been through a scrap.

Luckily this one was on her side. In theory.

“What’s the plan, Captain?” she asked, the words feeling uncomfortable in her mouth.

“We have a town to defend, MechWarrior,” Walters chided. “That is my duty and I intend to uphold it.”

Elise closed her eyes a moment, willing the universe to grant her patience from over-enthusiastic and under-experienced officers.

“With all due respect...” she replied, trying to pretend like she meant it. “If we go to the town, we will be outnumbered and outgunned; if we go back to Arrow Town then we can call for help.”

“What help?” Walters snapped back. “The nearest meaningful garrison is at Harlow’s Landing half a continent away and they don’t have anything in port capable of carrying combat vehicles, let alone ‘Mechs!” The captain sighed, audible over the comms. “Even if they did, they can’t abandon their post and risk the capital being hit; we have to assume we’re all there is.”

It was a sobering thought, one that made Elise want to run even more. However, something about the captain’s concept of duty made her want to stay.

Or is it the power? Elise thought. Or some stupid martyr complex to make up for my past sins?

So caught up in her own mind, she sat in silence for a good while to the point where Anne spoke up instead.

“Captain, what happened here?” she asked.

Now Walters was silent, the weight of recent events clearly fresh in their mind.

“It… We got a call from someone in Tibshelf on the general alert channel saying the town was under attack, so we scrambled and made good speed up H42,” they explained. “We got as far as here when we came under attack from the treeline.”

Once again, Elise’s eyes drifted to the darkened eves.

“Must have been at least two heavy BattleMechs, a Rifleman I think and an Archer or Crusader or something like that, though we didn’t get a look at it, just the missiles,” Walters continued bitterly. “There was a third, too, someone identified it as a Dervish… They cut us apart. I thought my company well-trained but...”

“Nothing prepares you for actual combat,” Elise finished softly. A trio like that was a terrifying prospect and the green militia – likely teenagers and weekend warriors – would have been woefully ill-equipped to deal with it. A professional military might have put up a decent fight, but…

She looked back along the dark row of ruined vehicles, each of them now a smouldering mausoleum.

“How come you survived?” she asked. Anne made a noise from behind her, like she’d said something rude.

“My guess is they didn’t expect a Manticore,” Walters let out a small, humourless laugh. “They didn’t seem to know what to do with us, especially after we landed a few hits, and by the time they came to deal with us we had moved into the forest and powered down; they didn’t seem interested in coming in to look for us and withdrew.”

Elise wasn’t surprised. Blundering into a dark, confined space where you know something like that is waiting for you didn’t seem like a smart decision. Especially after you had pretty much achieved your objective anyway. If you really needed to finish off a target like that, the better option would be to pull back, lie low, send out a spotter, and wait for it to reveal itself.

“Ah, beans…” she muttered.

“What?” Anne asked.

“Captain, we need to move!” Elise ignored the nurse, practically shouting across comms, back-peddling the Clint towards the trees. It didn’t matter if she tripped over a particularly gnarly root system at this point, so long as she was under cover when she did so.

“What are you talking about?” Walters demanded, but they had barely finished the sentence when both their vehicle and Elise’s began blaring “Incoming Missile” warnings.

She instinctively raised her arms to protect her fragile cockpit and hunched, hoping that what did hit her would miss the weakened armour in the centre of her torso. All it would take is a lucky hit to break right through and kill her engine, or damage the Clint’s already-tempermental gyro so much that she would never keep it upright.

Missiles rained around them, impacting like bright stars in the night, a rapid scattering that shattered branches to flinders and blew chunks from the ground, somehow managing to miss them entirely. It was a wide spread, likely a far shot hampered by the darkness, though the sheer quantity of them suggested more than one source like the captain had said.

“We’re doing this again, then…?” Anne asked wearily from behind her.

“Yes, now shut up,” Elise replied impatiently.

She was looking now, switching to thermals, taking advantage of the sudden spike of heat the launching would have caused. She could see them in the distance further down the valley, two bright auras – one smaller than the other, likely the Dervish – and the smaller was surrounded by tendrils, flaring off like the corona of a miniature sun as out-engine sinks bled and dumped excess heat into the air.

She frowned. As far as she knew, the Dervish handled all of its heat in-engine, so wouldn’t have that kind of effect on her display. It moved with the ground speed of a Dervish and had definitely launched missiles at her, and she knew enough what a Trebuchet looked like that she was certain it wasn’t one. They were still too far out for her systems to get an ID lock so she would have to figure it out later.

The enemy ‘Mechs advanced cautiously and Elise moved likewise, slowing down just inside the treeline to disrupt their line of sight whilst keeping hers relatively unimpeded. They were probably low on ammo after taking out Walter’s company, so would want guarantee their shots would hit.

Elise had spotted another ‘Mech coming in at an angle, hugging some of the larger rocky outcroppings lower down the valley, its thermal signature coming in relatively cool without weapons fire to drive it up – probably the Rifleman. If she was in command, she would have ordered it closer to catch them with its searchlight. It made the carrier a target, sure, but it meant the other pirates would be able to hit anything in that beam.

She moved to position, raising her AC/5 and waiting patiently. Walters’ Manticore was moving along the road, crossing the “T” of the advancing ‘Mechs, putting the wrecks of their former comrades between them and their opponents and deliberately presenting the tank’s right hand side as though the armour was more intact.

The missile boats fired again, aiming at the more obvious Manticore. Watching the impacts burst across the road reminded Elise of New Year fireworks from the family home just outside District City on Kathil, brought from the sky to the ground. The thought gave her an unexpected pang of longing for the place she had run from all those years ago.

Elise’s console pinged as it tagged the incoming ‘Mechs with unit IDs. It was definitely a Rifleman trying to inch its way closer and the bigger of the boats was tagged as a Crusader rather than an Archer so would be more manageable. That just meant the medium was…

“What. The. Fuck.” Elise swore.

“What? What is it?” Anne asked.

“That smaller one’s not a Dervish, it’s only a goddamn Gladiator,” Elise explained. “The GLD-3R model too.”

“What does that mean?”

Elise kept staring at the readout, barely believing it to be real.

“That thing’s a museum piece, and not even in a ‘valuable Star League’ kind of way… More like a ‘see this obsolete piece of crap’ kind of way.”

“That’s good for us right?”

Making a non-committal noise, Elise returned her focus to the developing skirmish. In her experience, a laser was a laser and a missile was a missile and could cause mischief no matter how rusted the ‘Mech it was attached to.

“MechWarrior,” crackled Walters’ voice over comms. “Focus on the Rifleman when it lights up. Try to hit the right side.”

“Roger,” Elise confirmed. Taking orders from a wet-behind-the-ears militiaman still chafed her but she needed to play nice.

A bright lance of light, thrice a hundred metres long, stabbed out from the darkness and towards the road, flitting this way and that before it settled on the heavy tank, heralding the onset of true chaos like a starting pistol did a race.

With remarkable speed, Walters’ Manticore pivoted, gunned its engine and let loose with everything it had, missiles, lasers, and the crackling “shell” of the tank’s unique PPC rocketing across the gap in a terrifying display of martial power. Elise was already in action, snapping out with her AC/5 and pushing on her jets even as she registered the satisfaction of a hit square across her opponent’s chest.

She burst from the trees like a bird in flight, soaring towards her target, stabbing out with her lasers as she did so, the viridian spears burning glowing craters in the Rifleman’s blocky torso, followed by an aggressive shot from her AC/5 that impacted in a spray of pulverised armour plates. Despite the searchlight, she was finding it impossible to truly pick her target, the dark silhouette of the heavy ‘Mech completely obscured by the blinding beam.

Below her, the Manticore ground on despite the withering hail of fire it was being forced to endure, shedding plates as it rumbled closer to the Rifleman, letting loose with another salvo. Missiles bloomed like a bouquet of orange flowers across the ‘Mech’s chest, creating enough light to see what happened in the very same second.

Through luck or skill, the PPC punched into the Rifleman’s right shoulder, finding a hole already opened up, explosively widening it to gaping crater with barely enough skeleton to keep the arm on. The pirate staggered drunkenly as the force of the damage spilled sideways, following the cavities of the machine right through to the gyro. It was too much for the pilot to deal with, sending the ‘Mech toppling down onto its damaged side.

As a consequence, the searchlight moved away from Walters, instead pointing right up into the sky like a beacon, forcing the next batch of missiles from the other pirates to fall wide as their target slipped from sight.

Elise hit the ground with a crunch, flexing her knees to absorb the impact, ignoring the lurch in her stomach as her own ‘Mech’s faulty gyro threatened to send it the way of the Rifleman. She aimed at the nearest thermal bloom and fired, grinning with feral glee when the Crusader flinched from the impact. If she had been in her Victor, a blow like that would have knocked the other ‘Mech on its arse. The grin disappeared as the reason why she wasn’t in her Victor flashed back over her.

She shook her head, trying to clear the vision.

Walters’ crew joined in with more enthusiasm than accuracy, but they had more breathing room now. If they could force the missiles boats to empty their ammo bins on futile attacks then only the large lasers of the Rifleman were going to pose any serious threat, though the pilot would struggle to get back up with those stubby arms. She could see the searchlight still tracking back and forth through the air as the ‘Mech desperately tried to right itself.

“Focus on the Crusader,” Walters ordered.

The pirate was making a break for its supine comrade, laying down covering fire from its arm-mounted lasers and leg launchers Elise was sure had been replaced with LRM5s. She hissed as more missiles scattered around her and lasers flashed by too close for comfort, the Gladiator suddenly deciding she was a worthy target after all.

“Focus, they say…” she muttered even as she knew the captain had the right idea. With two working hands, the Crusader would be able to help the Rifleman back on its feet with little difficulty, tipping the scales again.

Elise triggered her jumpers again – she really needed to keep an eye on her stock of reaction material but that was a later problem – as the Manticore let loose with everything it had, lighting up the dark countryside below her. The ranges had closed now and she was sure the tank scored some more hits, though she couldn’t see what kind of damage it was from up there.

“Shit…” she swore. Her hands were slick with moisture, beginning to slip on the controls, the absence of gloves preventing her from getting a proper grip. The whole experience of piloting a ‘Mech in nothing but her underthings was proving to be a distinctively uncomfortable one, the chair chafing against her legs as sweat dried and muscles moved.

Suddenly, she was thrown against her restraints as the Clint rocked, warning lights flashed, and Anne let out a small yelp of surprise. Damage indicators showed the wireframe of her right arm and left leg blinking out when the armour was stripped away by two separate impacts. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened, considering the pool of light around her gigantic feet.

The Crusader had been a distraction, giving the Rifleman plenty of time to get itself back on its feet, plunging her right into the firing line. The attention of the entire battle was on her now and it felt worse than when she had given her thesis presentation at the NAIS, her stern instructors preferable to what was about to happen.

She was shaking now, the joystick rattling in her hand, the Clint shaking in sympathetic response as the breath hissed rapidly in and out of her lungs. She couldn’t lose another ‘Mech, not again, not like this…

And then… something unexpected happened.

Warhorn blaring, a stocky shape crashed out of the forest at full speed, missiles flying and lasers blinding as it charged towards the Rifleman. The pirate ‘Mech staggered as it was rocked by multiple explosions, swaying as the rest of the structure on its right hand side tore apart, that arm crashing to the ground like a discarded toy. It tried to switch targets and return fire with what it had left, the blue line of a heavy laser impacting with the machine Elise’s systems had tagged as a variant Thunderbolt.

Whoever this mysterious MechWarrior was – they had no militia IFF – she was glad for the assist, and used her jets to put more distance between herself and the Crusader before it had a mind to cause her any damage she couldn’t come back from – Walters could handle this one. She took a deep, shuddering breath, the surprise of the situation pulling her back from the precipice she had almost teetered over. If Anne had noticed any of that she kept it to herself.

Elise could only watch in astonishment whilst the Rifleman underwent an onslaught of missiles and lasers, armour shattering and internals crumpling as the Thunderbolt pushed its heat curve to the point of recklessness, even firing its LRMs at a range most pilots wouldn’t bother. She had never seen this kind of raw ferocity before, the kind of opponent that many enemies would balk to face on the battlefield, an impression only reinforced when the Rifleman reeled like a boxer struck by a haymaker, toppling onto its back to move no more, the light a monument to the titan’s death.

Shocked by this display, the other pirates broke and ran, firing off a few desultory shots before they fully turned their backs and made haste into the night, chased by blasts of Walters’ PPC until they disappeared out of any kind of effective range.

Elise watched the Thunderbolt with something approaching awe as it took a few steps towards its conquest, showing as a radiant ball of light on her thermal overlay, even the visual mode marking it out by the orange glow of external heat sinks and rapidly-cooling weapons barrels. The heavy ‘Mech took one more step and then stopped, appearing to sag, before falling flat on its face when its fusion engine went into emergency shutdown.

“Oh…” she said, sitting back in her command chair, letting the exhaustion and disappointment wash over her. This wasn’t a great MechWarrior after all. They were, in fact, kind of an idiot.

“Is… is it over?” Anne spoke up.

Elise remembered the nurse’s presence this time.

“Yeah… for now,” she replied wearily.

“Really thought we were done for that time.”

Me too… Elise thought.

She waited for Walters to rumble over next to her then pushed her throttle forwards, the two machines advancing cautiously towards the downed ‘Mechs, eyes darting from them to her directional scanner and back again, cautious of the pirates returning in force.

“This one of your friends?” Walters asked as she moved round to inspect the Rifleman.

“Never seen them before,” she admitted. In the backsplash of the searchlight, the pirate heavy’s condition was evident and it more resembled a pile of scrap than a ‘Mech, the mangled socket where its head should be a stark indicator as to what had caused the killing blow. Regardless of how reckless the Thunderbolt’s charge had been, it had been undeniably effective. She destroyed the searchlight with a swift kick, allowing the shroud of night to settle around them once more.

“Unnecessary,” Anne commented.

“No point in giving away our position,” Elise explained.

“Sure, because they don’t know we’re here anyway.”

Elise frowned, wishing the neurohelmet would let her turn around and glare at the other woman. Instead she settled for watching the Thunderbolt on her thermal display as its heat load bled away from blinding white through a scale of greys, almost beginning to match the surrounding air when a sudden spike showed the fusion engine returning to life. The ‘Mech shifted and slowly, carefully, pushed itself back to standing.

“Well met, MechWarrior, thanks for the assistance,” Walters spoke over general comms. “I’m Captain Jamie Walters, Gillingham Militia. Might we know who you are?”

Elise pulled a face at not being worth an introduction but kept her silence.

The Thunderbolt’s stance shifted, almost like it was puffing up with regal pride.

“I am Montgomery Goodwin and my family have defended this valley for generations!” replied a man’s voice, cracked with age yet steady and proud. “It is my duty to assist those in need!”

Elise had heard of people like this, private citizens who still bought into the old ideal of MechWarriors as noble paladins who should embody the knightly virtues of romanticised ancient Terra. You still had some of them make it into the AFFS, though these notions barely made it past the first battle. There was nothing noble about war and anyone who told you otherwise was either lying to themselves or had never been in combat.

“I… uh… we thank you for your service,” Walters replied, sounding like they were doing a remarkable effort of keeping a neutral tone.

“And my service you shall have, sir!” Goodwin replied zealously. “Just point me at the enemy! Let’s have at them!”

“Uh, ‘Captain’ is fine,” Walters responded. “We’re going to march on the town, see about retaking it.”

“A capital idea! Lead the way!”

“With all due respect, captain,” Elise chimed in, letting Walters figure out how much she thought that actually was, “I’m not sure we can take another beating like that; we need to consolidate and actually plan our next move.”

Walters was silent for a moment. She thought they were going to argue the point.

“Agreed,” they eventually replied. “Lord knows I could stretch my leg.”

“If you’re sure...” Goodwin sounded almost disappointed. “My place is up the mountain, in the forest, you’re welcome to stop as long as you need.”

“I appreciate the offer, Mister Goodwin,” Walters told him. “Are you sure you have enough space?”

The Thunderbolt lurched into motion, moving onto the road and carefully stepping around the wreckage of the militia vehicles. It waved its gun arm in an ushering gesture.

“There’s space enough for all of you,” Goodwin assured. “Got a bay for your ‘Mech and drive enough to park that tank too.”

“Then I accept your offer, Mister Goodwin, and thank you again for your service,” Walters replied, the Manticore pivoting on its tracks before continuing after the BattleMech. Elise fell into step behind them. “However, just a point of clarity...”

“Oh?”

“I’m in the tank.”

“Oh.”