TIBSHELF

GILLINGHAM

FEDERATED SUNS

07:15, 16 May 3044

Somehow the battle was slowly going their way, a miracle of chance on their part and a product of poor decision-making on the enemy’s.

In an effort to escape at speed, the Crusader had made the mistake of presenting its thin rear armour to the heavy guns of Walters and Monty. Without having to be told, they had let loose with a torrent of searing light, charged particles, and smoky missiles. There had been such a good rate of hits that when one of them clearly breached through to an ammo bin, it was impossible to say who had gotten the kill.

What had hitherto been a formidable opponent on the field of battle was now just a pair of twisted legs holding up a column of dirty smoke, and blackened scraps of metal falling back down to earth. If the pilot was somewhere up there then Elise could not tell. She would just have to worry about that later anyway, the Enforcer was fixated on trying to get her in a melee again and — with the Vulcan — was proving to be a deadly distraction.

“Legs, press the Gladiator, Silver, help me with these two; get in close!” she ordered, triggering her jumpjets yet again to avoid being boxed in, doing her best to manoeuvre back towards the imposing Thunderbolt. 

Elise panted in the growing heat. Her bad leg, hitherto behaving itself, was now building from a dull throb to an instant ache.

To preserve operational security over dubious comms, Walters had decided the lance needed callsigns and to preserve impartiality, they had given this task to everyone but themselves. After half an hour of frantic discussion, the unit had only just decided on “Legs” for Walters and “Silver” for Monty. Elise had waited with bated breath for how the Captain was going to react to it, almost collapsing in surprise when not only did they crack a rare smile, they even laughed.

Ronnie had earned the name “Metal” due to her taste in music and Elise had been eventually dubbed—

“Nibs, this is Hen,” Everett reported. In a moment of camaradic revenge, Walters had let the infantry pick a name for their leader; thus, he was their mother Hen.

“Make it quick!” she grated, avoiding a crashing shot from the AC/10.

“Target secured and extracting, blue force augmented by two Powerman with civilian operators,” the infantryman explained. “Centurion at DropPort neutralised.”

She was so surprised by the last point she almost didn’t avoid a swipe from the Enforcer’s claw, only just managing to duck.

“Confirmed?” she asked, frowning.

“Confirmed,” Everett replied. “Ripped its head off.”

Elise was stunned, only allowing herself the time to be so when Monty joined the fight, a burst of green lasers from Maximus’ chest forcing the Vulcan to back off and giving Elise enough breathing room to get in formation with him. Unfortunately the man still struggled with  accuracy at a run but the attempt was enough.

“Acknowledged, Hen,” Elise said, wincing when Monty took an AC/10 round right on his shoulder, the hammer-blow hit still barely causing the big ‘Mech to flinch. “Continue as planned, Nibs out.”

Monty’s reply was loud and enthusiastic, throwing a withering alpha strike towards the slower Enforcer that even as skilled a pilot as they struggled to evade, throwing up its arms like a boxer protecting their face even as lasers burned and missiles shattered its thickened armour. Maximus’ movements became more sluggish, the air rippling around it and a dull orange glow showing through vents of its heat sinks. Monty was really pushing that heat curve. 

She chanced a shot at the Vulcan trying to come around his side, and bared her teeth in feral satisfaction when the AC/5 ruptured one of its lasers in a spray of broken glass and sparking power conduits.

“Silver, watch the heat,” she ordered, rapidly switching comms to the frequency she remembered as used by Wyatt Haulage and Moving. For a second she wondered what had become of Mr Wyatt then shook it off; there would be time for reminiscing later. “Industrial pilots, this is callsign Nibs, thanks for the assist — proceed with Hen out of the engagement zone.”

There was dead air. A glance at her console told her it was definitely the frequency she remembered. It got to the point where she was about to switch back when across the comms came a single, shocked word.

“Elsie…?” 

It was a voice she knew, one Elise had been so sure she would never hear again. The one person she would have singled out as her best friend in Tibshelf. The one person she should have at least tried to go back and look for after the invasion.

“Aiden…?”

This time she was so distracted she didn’t notice the Vulcan as it bore down on her right flank.

 

07:18

“Forward motion, maintain cruising speed! Traverse thirty degrees right! Fire!”

The air inside the Manticore was stuffy, dim, and close at the best of times, even more so in the midst of battle with four — three, Walters corrected themselves — crew working hard into an unpleasant sheen of sweat. Whenever the main gun fired, this was added to by a prickling over the skin like static. Walters had long resolved to check the magnetic shielding on the PPC next time they reached proper maintenance facilities. If they ever did.

“Glancing hit, left arm!” they reported, staring fixated through a rangefinder. Inside a tank was also cramped and loud, a constant clattering of tracks, whining of the fusion engine, and the echoing rumble of weapons firing, meaning every order had to be relayed loudly even with personal comms. “Incoming fire!”

It was also like being inside a metal drum whenever something hit the armour. The tank banged and boomed as a scattering of missiles knocked more chunks out of the turret and battered right flank. The Gladiator was gamely trying to make a fight of it, bolstered by the presence of its new allies on the field, despite what had happened to the Crusader. It was faster than the Manticore, able to keep its thicker armour presented while maintaining distance and letting off a steady stream of missiles.

Unfortunately for the ‘Mech, if it had the range then it meant Walters’ tank did too.

“Traverse five degrees right, fire when ready!” Walters ordered. “Loosing missiles!”

The ambient din became a momentary cacophony as the PPC and long-range missiles fired at once. The shell of particles reached the target first, sailing past to blow a steaming crater in the mountainside behind it and, having better luck, several of the missiles peppered the Gladiator’s hunched shoulders.

“Halt!”

Walters liked to believe a tank had several advantages over a BattleMech — not that they were biassed. It was a more stable firing platform, heat neutral, could bear more armour for its tonnage, and could use terrain for full cover that would only come up to the waist of their ambulatory cousins.

They had stopped behind a rise in the rolling rocky countryside that characterised the land outside of Tibshelf, allowing Walters the opportunity to catch up the battlefield situation. Having to perform the duties of operator and commander, they hadn’t the attention spare for that too.

Surveying the instruments and getting eyes through the cupola viewports, Walters saw Elise and Mr Goodwin locked in a viscous brawl with two other ‘Mechs, Ronnie was on the flanks, circling around to put pressure on the Wasp that kept trying to come in close and add its meagre fire to the battle. There was another one coming from the south at speed, likely the one that Everett’s people had drawn away. Glad to hear of his success at the DropPort, Walters hoped the infantryman was able to get his people clear. Things were going surprisingly well but as their old instructor liked to say, “There’s always time for things to go tits-up.”

Back to it then…

“Pivot right! Turret in-line! Flank speed towards target! Fire at will!”

The Manticore screeched as it turned on the spot, tracks churning grass to mud, and Walters held on as its engine roared, propelling the tank up and over the hill.

 

07:20

The Wasps were swarming and starting to get clever about it too, moving in furtive blue-plumed jumps. None of them could hope to match Ronnie’s speed, her heart pounding to the beat of the music, every rapid footfall a bassline drum that rode underneath the melody. So when she tried to reposition, to get herself on a trajectory that would allow some rapid fly-by kicks, they would flee to the one place she couldn’t get them — the sky.

It had reduced her to relying on gunnery to try and make a difference, a hopeless effort that did little more than bring up her heat and make a pretty little lightshow. Thankfully, her opponents weren’t much better at this than she was, leaving scars in the landscape behind her.

All she needed to do was keep on moving.

And maybe try something else.

Tensing her flesh body, she leaned into a sharp turn, feeling the forces push her sideways and her mechanical body going almost diagonal as the gyro fought to keep her upright. Setting her sights, Ronnie angled herself to where Walters was having a closing duel with the lone Gladiator.

She hadn’t the confidence of getting involved with the brutal melee that Monty and Elise were engaged in, but this she could do.

Of course the Wasps attempted to stop her, lazy as fat bees,, but in their effort to keep up a game of aerial tag, they had given her the opening to make a beeline for her new target. Lasers passed over her shoulders and missiles streaked harmlessly off into the distance as the ugly, warlike form of the Gladiator got closer and closer. 

It was wreathed in fire and smoke as it loosed some missiles at the tank, weathering the response in a rain of pummelled armour. Trying to keep some distance, it was just at the edge of medium range, taking pot shots with the arm-mounted lasers.

“Legs, hold!” she shouted over her music, not wanting to take an accidental PPC to the face. Or anywhere else really.

She weaved around boulders, dodged the smouldering stumps of trees, and rode the curves of the landscape as she bore down on her target. One of the Wasps must have warned she was on the way as it turned at the waist to get one good shot off with its lasers, the narrow profile of a Locust — made extra narrow by her modifications — working to her advantage when the beams passed either side. 

The Gladiator began to backpedal, too little too late, as she crested the last ridge, and she was on it in the space of a second, lashing it out with her foot — CLANG — then gone just as quickly. The heavier ‘Mech staggered like a drunkard, wobbled, then overbalanced. It crashed to the ground like a falling tree and Ronnie whooped in triumph. If there was one thing she knew about these walking museum pieces it was that they were notoriously imbalanced.

Ronnie wheeled back around as it struggled back to its feet with admirable speed — the pilot clearly knew its foibles and how to get around them — and looked like they were going to get right back into the fight when sixty tonnes of tank collided with its legs at full speed. The effect was greater — and louder —  than anything her slender machine could manage, and the way the very structure of the Gladiator’s legs buckled inwards on impact made her wince. 

It hit the ground again. Hard.

Miraculously — or foolishly — it tried to get back up again, though its legs gave way as it tried to push onto its knees, foamed aluminium bones snapping like a gunshot. It was lying there supine like a mortally wounded soldier, propped up on one arm while the other was aiming at the Manticore, which seemed to be having some kind of difficulty in getting moving again…

…But Walters’ gunner was faster, obliterating the Gladiator’s head in a flash of charged particles at point blank range. 

Ronnie grimaced. A universal fear of any MechWarrior — no matter the size of their ride — was a clean shot to the cockpit from a weapon that powerful, especially when already damaged like that machine clearly was.

Within seconds of their enemy being neutralised, hatches popped on the tank and two figures scrambled out, the shorter one with the limp obviously Walters even from a distance, leaving the turret to traverse like a gun emplacement.

They waved in Ronnie’s direction.

“Metal, it’s Legs!” they told her, “We’ve thrown our right track, cover us while we try to get it back on!”

“Affirmative!” she responded, pulling into a wide orbit of the temporarily-immobile tank, and keeping one eye on the outer edge of the battle. Even with the vehicle the way it was, the Wasps were keeping their distance, rightfully wary of the thing that just killed their bigger comrade.

Like the Locust, they relied on speed to avoid damage, so a hit from any one of the Manticore’s weapons would spell instant doom, and Walters’ dangerously effective gunner likely had that SRM on a hair trigger.

Nevertheless she watched them milling about and trying to muster up the courage to make a move on the tank or go and support the Enforcer’s efforts against Elise. Without specific guidance from a presence on the field, they were going to be at a loss to—

Ronnie’s scanners bleeped as a new contact icon popped up off in the northwest, towards the mountains — and the mines. She glanced at the readout, going pale at the rundown of variant number and projected capabilities. Immediately she opened a channel at lance level.

“Contact!” she squawked. “I repeat—.”

 

07:24

“—Contact!” Ronnie’s frantic voice came over comms. “Triple B is on the field!”

Elise swore. This was not something she could be doing with right now. She had been so unbalanced by Aiden being fucking alive that she had completely missed the Vulcan coming in for a kill shot, only timely intervention by Monty physically intercepting the blow. Unfortunately, it meant Maximus had taken the brunt of the damage, destroying the LRM and much of that shoulder, driving the mighty ‘Mech to one knee in the process. 

The news wasn’t good, even if circumstances were more favourable.

The phrase “Triple B” originated from her days at the NAIS as a bit of raucousness between cadets that had somehow stuck during her time in the AFFS, now finding use years later when she taught it to the others. It stood for “Biggest Bitch of the Battle” and quite literally referred to the biggest known enemy unit, usually by tonnage, usually a command unit, and was an indicator of what to pay particular attention to.

Ronnie’s announcement could only mean one thing: the Banshee had finally joined the combat. With Monty shaken, the Wasps joining the fray, and now that bloody tank was doing what they do best and getting stuck, things weren’t looking as good as they had ten minutes ago.

She kept pressure on the Vulcan, using her speed to simultaneously maintain distance from the Enforcer — an impotent brute now its AC/10 had run dry — keeping in the air as much as she could, narrowing her focus so that it was just her, her AC/5 and the jumpy bastard opposite. 

It needed to stagger its lasers to avoid catastrophic overpressure in the fusion engine — not to mention overtaxing the life support — whereas all Elise needed to do was aim and shoot. Her enemy had made their first mistake by focusing on her instead of landing a killing blow on the vulnerable Maximus, who was even now getting back into the fight, spraying the Enforcer down with its pulses.

Aim and shoot. It really was that easy. 

Elise was a veteran of ballistic combat, instinctively able to calculate trajectory and distance, and the Clint’s Sloan 220 did the rest. It would always be an underpowered ‘Mech in a much-maligned weight bracket, but if it did one thing well it was fire an autocannon and keep cool as ice while doing so, as long as she avoided her own lasers.

Aim and shoot. A shell blasted armour from one leg as it tried to jump out of the way. 

Aim and shoot. Another turned its flamer hand into a tangled mess.

Aim and shoot. Glass crazed across the Vulcan’s bulbous cockpit.

It staggered on the landing, the pilot rightfully rattled by such an impact, keeping upright but forced to stay on the ground for one crucial moment. Elise wasted no time pressing the imitative, hitting the ground herself and using the stability to let loose with all her weapons at once. 

Cannon crashed and lasers burned, ripping through the Vulcan’s chest in one devastating strike, exposing metal ribs and baring compartments to the air as armour flensed away to nothingness. The machine staggered again under onslaught, the pilot regaining enough sense to leap backwards, crossing the battered — but still sound — sticks of its arms over the breach. It kept going, determined to disengage, and Elise kept firing, snapping off two more shots with her autocannon before letting it go. Even if it did circle round to rejoin the fight, it was going to be a poor contributor.

A second to breathe and Elise took stock of what was going on. The Manticore was still stricken, Jamie and their crew gamely trying to get their vehicle moving again, while Ronnie dashed and darted at the circling Wasps like a protective hound. Closer to home, the Enforcer swayed back from Monty’s lashing fist while using its own claw to crush Maximus’ large laser into a uselessly twisted tube of metal.

All the while, the Banshee closed in, bearing down on a course that would get it in range of the Manticore in under a minute.

It was starting to go wrong again. She was getting flashes of things that weren’t there. Different trees, a different sky, five years in the past yet never really that far behind her. There was comms chatter in her ears — in her head — that came from within rather than without, words spoken by mouths long dead from a unit she had lost due to her own STUPID arrogance.

And here she was again.

Different faces, a different unit, yet more of the same.

This had been her idea, her chance at… what? Redemption? How could she have been so stupid to think it would have gone any different.

Elise screamed and shook her head, leaving hot tears at the corners of her eyes so she didn’t risk taking her hands off the controls.

She needed to keep a grip on them, her anchor to the world, and force herself to make the difficult choice.

Maximus would have been the obvious one to give her aid, festooned as it was with weapons, but now its most powerful — and longer ranged — ones were ruined beyond anything they had the capability to fix, it would have to be the Manticore. Monty would need to fend for himself for a while and Jamie would need to bloody well get his stupid damn tank fixed before the Banshee closed to range.

Gritting her teeth, Elise turned her attention on the Wasps. They had their backs to her, sensibly keeping their eyes on the bigger, more powerful threat in range. 

With one more growl of frustration, she raised her dwindling autocannon and set her sights.

Aim.

Shoot.

 

07:29

Bending their back and bracing their good leg, Jamie Walters pushed with all their strength, using a metre-long wrench as a fulcrum between the dislodged links of track and the guide wheels. It could have been so much worse, only a small section was off compared to the entire loop, and was still within the ability of them and their crew to fix themselves.

It could still have been better. They could have not been down a crewmember. They could not be currently under fire. They could not have thrown the damn thing in the first place.

That was their fault. They had given the order to ram the Gladiator instead of taking shots while it got back up, thus giving it a chance to return fire. They might have been fine but Walters didn’t want to take that chance.

And now they were stuck.

But only if they sat on their hands and didn’t do anything about it.

“Ready!” they yelled. From the driver’s hatch, a single raised thumb poked out. “Drive!”

Owais gunned the engine gently, using the traction of the still-functioning side to wiggle the vehicle slightly from left to right.

Walters strained against the wrench as the slow but powerful drive wheels threatened to rip it right out of their hands.

“Steady!”

They flinched at an explosion off in the distance and almost dropped what they were doing, squinting to work out what was going on nearly half a kilometre away. One of the Wasps looked like it was falling out of the sky, trailing smoke and fire, while the other was frantically trying to avoid Ronnie’s laser, fired with more enthusiasm than accuracy as usual.

There had been no missing the girl’s previous report. The Banshee was inbound and probably almost on top of them. They need to get this sorted and now!

“Try again! Slower!”

The engine whined, the drive trains rattled, slowly building until — CLANK — Walters yelped as the wrench was pulled forcibly from their grip and Owais suddenly stopped his efforts, popping his head up to see what had happened. Rubbing their sore hands, Walters nodded, satisfied at the sight of the track now back where it should be.

“Looks good!” they called. “Why don’t you t—.”

The air sparked as lightning struck their position twicefold, each impact a blinding, deafening flash, one on the ground and one on the corpse of the Gladiator. Range and terrain were currently working for them, as the Banshee made its presence felt, but it wouldn’t be long before it reached optimal and pressed the issue in a most terminal fashion.

Walters was scrambling in a barely-suppressed panic, back towards the Manticore even as Fraser returned fire with their own PPC and a brace of LRMs. It would be painful to get hit when inside the armoured box, though a damn sight less than if they were still out in the open.

Long practised, even with their supposed impairment, Walters clambered up the rungs on the tread skirt, keeping on all threes to avoid incoming fire from the far side of the vehicle, kneeing up onto the turret platform then waiting for the turret itself to stop moving before hopping up and slithering along on their belly. The entire tank shook when Fraser fired and the air tasted of iron. Walters tried not to think about how this would be a perfect time to take a direct hit and wriggled, face-first, through the turret cupola, taking the brunt of the impact on their helmet and almost wrenching their back in an effort to twist around and seal the hatch.

“Drive reverse full!” they bellowed. “Form up with Maximus!”

They held on for dear life as the tank lurched into motion, quickly finding proper footing and getting strapped into their well-worn commander's chair. Jaw set, they took manual control of the LRM back from Vincent and fixed their gaze through the rangefinder.

“Traverse, five degrees left!”

 

07:33

Montgomery Goodwin was an old man who had lived longer than many people did on a far-flung world like Gillingham, and done a lot better for it than most; he had even managed to wrest some kind of purpose from the twilight of his life.

A life which finally seemed to be at an end.

Sweat dripping down the inside of his neurohelmet, he pushed Maximus forward once again, keeping in close as he battered at the Enforcer. Unlike the Vulcan, and especially the Wasps, he could keep up with the smaller machine and prevented it from making a retreat with a continuous barrage of close-range attacks, almost making up for his lack of skill with an increase in volume.

Unfortunately, the better skill of his opponent was nevertheless starting to win through.

He jabbed, dodged, and weaved, dredging out the boxing lessons of his youth and translating them to sixty-five tonnes of war machine with remarkable precision, the actuators and myomer able to mimic the movements of human joints, albeit a bit stiffly.

Or maybe that’s just these old bones, he smiled grimly.

For every attack he attempted, the Enforcer managed two, rending Maximus’ chest armour to a mess of puncture wounds and clawed furrows, only continuous blasts from his lasers keeping the enemy from getting in for a kill blow. It had taken a toll itself, spiked armour shaven smooth, burned down to green myomer in a few places — too few — and while Maximus’ movements were becoming sluggish from exhaustion and heat burden, it was fresh as the moment they started.

“Silver, form up with Legs, we need to meet the Triple B!” Elise ordered. Monty would be lying if he hadn’t been stung by her choice to abandon him to this fight, but in a way he also saw it as a show of faith in him. She wouldn’t have left him to it if she didn’t think he was capable.

Montgomery Goodwin, MechWarrior… Ha!

“Rather busy… my dear…” he replied, panting. “Securing this flank…”

“No heroics!” she snapped. “Form up!”

Monty laughed. He had never been described as one for heroics. This was his duty — to hold the line. As far as he knew, there hadn't been a single Goodwin that had been part of a line of battle, and Maximus itself had been factory fresh in the day of his great-grandfather. In fact the only time it had ever been ridden out in anger was during a pirate raid in ‘05, nothing like the scale of this one. In that case they had only raided a few farms for their livestock and been rounded up themselves within a day.

Now battered beyond belief, the family Thunderbolt would be unrecognisable to anyone that knew it, every scrap of armour in the red, every system pushed to the limit. Maximus had been built for this though, and through the neural feedback of his helmet, Monty could feel the chained star of its heart beating with bellicose joy at finally being used for the purpose it was made for.

“Sorry, can’t quite hear you…” Monty smiled as he stitched red beams across the Enforcer’s front, favouring the rapid-fire weapon due to lack of need to aim precisely: just point it vaguely and pull the trigger. “These old ears…”

“Monty you mad old fu—,” Elise began, before Monty cut his comms entirely. He had already made peace for how this was going to go. He just needed to buy them some time.

The Enforcer darted in with a swipe at his head, and Monty stepped to the side, right into the ‘Mech’s empty barrel fist, like a crushing blow to the ribs. He grimaced then triggered his medium lasers, pushing the temperature in his cockpit from tropical to sauna, warnings flashing over his field of vision and blaring in ears that were still good enough to be irritated.

In a burst of green and a shower of slag, the Enforcer’s gun arm was shorn right through, falling heavily to the floor. 

Monty barked triumphantly, though it was a victory short-lived when he felt the clawed hand of the enemy FrankenMech plunge deep into Maximus’ chest. Alarms gave one final bleat before everything went silent, everything went dark. His ‘Mech, his second-most precious family heirloom, had been killed, the fusion engine heart breached beyond repair.

He slumped in his chair exhaustedly, looking through the cracked and pitted viewport. Maximus lurched as the Enforcer withdrew its claw, the Thunderbolt’s stable construction keeping it on its feet, and wound back for another blow. It was clearly aligning for the cockpit.

Monty felt he ought to be sad in defeat, at the destruction of his ‘Mech… instead he was almost relaxed. 

“Just two old men ready to go out with one last hurrah, eh Maximus…?” he whispered, patting the cracked leather of the command chair in a companionable way. Last of the Goodwins on Gillingham. It was almost fitting that they would find their end together.

At this distance he could just about see his opponent — the man inside the machine — and locking visors with them he felt himself overtaken by a moment of mischief-fuelled resolve. With one hand he raised his middle finger in a most ungentlemanly gesture, and with his other he pulled the ejection cord between his legs.

There was an explosion, a sense of great force and movement, and suddenly he was in the sky, laughing madly even as he felt the cold wind biting on his sweat-slicked skin. Another lurch and chutes deployed in a billow above him, arresting his movement so that for a brief time at least he was hanging peacefully above the battlefield. 

It was a curious point of view, mighty machines reduced to the size of figurines on a scarred battlemap, the tactical situation laughably easy to read. Beneath him the crippled Enforcer was withdrawing and the Vulcan was nowhere to be seen. Off to the north-west, one of the Wasps was lying motionless on the ground while the other was fleeing for the protection of the Banshee like an ox calf to its mother.

Faced with a united front of enemies and dwindling allies, even the huge BattleMech seemed to be hesitating to close in for the final fight.

Monty’s creased face lined even more into a giddy smile. They were going to do it. They were actually going to win.

The smile vanished when he heard thunder in the roiling grey blanket over his head. Last thing he needed was to survive a ‘Mech duel only to get struck by lightning.

Hell of an obituary, though, he conceded.

Consternation evolved to outright alarm when the thunder didn’t stop, only building further and further into bone-rattling crescendo as something massive breached the cloud layer, seeming far too large to stay aloft yet still managing to do so.

Alarm now turning to fear, Monty could only watch as a DropShip made planetfall.