Door Alpha, Planck’s Quantum Hole,

Copernicus Caldera,

Einstein, Deep Periphery

15^th March 3068

 

“Close up, close up!” Descartin Winters yelled at the lance of Alacorn MK VI tanks behind him.

“Star Captain, ETA of retreating forces is five minutes! Door is opening in two!” A commtech from the command center told him through the strategic frequency in his neurohelmet.

“Aff.” Des replied. He switched back to his tactical frequency. “Listen closely people, door is opening in about one minute. Remember the plan for you tankers is to sit tight and fire at any black mech. Do not fire if there’s a chance of hitting a friendly. My mechs will act as mobile support, so do not worry about the enemy getting too close.”

The door slid open, and Des moved his Nova Cat out the door. Punching up his magnification, he could see a dust cloud in the distance, probably caused by the massed movement of mechs and vehicles.

Yoshino and Jean followed quickly in their omnimechs, while the tanks divided into their respective lances. One lance stayed in the tunnel in line formation, which still offered enough space for two vehicles or mechs to pass through on either side of the line. The other two lances of tanks moved to just outside the door, each lance covering a flank.

Des pushed his throttle forward, as he started tracking for enemies with his targeting computer. Two Maultiers appeared first as he dragged his crosshairs over them. He continued tracking as the Nova Cat surged forward, eating up the ground in giant strides. He did not need to check his displays to see that Yoshino’s Nobori-Nin and Jean’s Ryoken were right beside him, pacing his mech.

Des finally found an enemy mech, a Lemming, in his sights. He did not hesitate, his ER PPCs reaching out to the black mech’s torso. The Lemming rocked back as its forward armor was vaporized in an instant. The unabated energy of the particle beams continued to carve into the mech, as it sheared away the Lemming’s entire engine shielding. Deprived of the electrical signals to its limbs, the mech tumbled to the ground in an almost resigned manner.

The other black mechs did not falter in the chase, their weapons flashing as they fired upon the fleeing humans. Des saw a battered Mad Cat torso twist and give a pursuing Bruiser a good dose of energy from its PPC. The remnants of green paint on the clan omni, as well as the big Rho letter on the left leg, left no doubts in Des’ mind as to the pilot of the Mad Cat.

Galaxy Commander Lizabet Danforth’s voice came over the open channel. “Lieutenant Longley, put your mechs in overwatch and start firing those LRMs you have been hoarding! Captain Jacqueline, have your Maxims ready at the entrance to start using your Thunder LRMs once all units are clear of the fire zone!”

Almost immediately, a terrifying roar erupted from a group of four mechs nearest to the entrance, as the other mechs and vehicles streamed past them. Massive amounts of smoke began to bellow from the area, as huge swarms of LRMs burst out of the smoke clouds, angling towards the black mechs.

Wreaths of explosions could be seen from the massed ranks of the enemy, and Des thought he saw LRMs that had missed the first line of mechs continue on to strike other mech in the rear.

Swarm LRMs, very clever. Des admitted to himself. Meanwhile, the four mechs started to backtrack slowly, enabling Des to see what they are. He guessed they were probably all LRM boats.

He was correct. An ubiquitous Archer, a Longbow, a Yeoman, and a Viking. A total of at least 150 LRM launchers. The missile boats continued to pour on the fire, as they covered the retreat with sustained volleys of LRMs. Des was strongly reminded of ancient 20^th century videos he had seen in the Goliath Scorpion archives of missile carriers called MLRS lobbing waves of missiles at their enemies.

“Galaxy Commander!” He called out. “The entrance is open, now get your people into it ASAP!” It did not take a genius to figure out that she had assumed command of the scratch force. Elite and intelligent warriors always rose to command, whatever the circumstances.

“Who are you?” She challenged.

“Star Captain Descartin Winters of Clan Goliath Scorpion, at your service.” He answered, while firing his long range weapons at a menacing Smasher. The heavy mech died as his deadly accuracy sent all his shots into the middle of the mech, into the exact same location. The excess energy burst out the back of the hapless Smasher as it exploded.

“So, you have betrayed the clans and thrown in with the Inner Sphere, quiaff?” The Mad Cat turned towards the enemy mechs, and much to Des’ surprise, unleashed a salvo of missiles that hit at more than 800 meters. Further than normal LRMs, and that only meant one thing.

ATMs.

Not the ‘automated teller machines’ that Yoshino Ihara was so fond of quoting whenever ATMs were mentioned, but rather the latest in missile technology developed by the Coyotes. Called “Advanced Tactical Missiles”, they could use a variety of special ammunition types with different ranges and firepower.

Naturally, the Coyotes had tried to keep the ATMs to themselves as much as possible, but the fierce fighting for the former territory of the Smoke Jaguars, the Ghost Bears and the abjured Nova Cats in the past few years had enabled most other clans to obtain the technology for themselves.

Only the Scorpions, with their intense dislike for non-energy weapons, refrained from using ATMs, with the exception of some individual warriors. Des, who was once a member of the Nova Cats’ sharp-shooting Alpha Galaxy, fitted in well with the Scorpions with their reliance on direct fire weapons.

Despite that, ATMs could actually outmatch the ultra-heavy autocannon for sheer damage, especially when using the High Explosive warhead ammunition. Having been on the receiving end of ATMs before, Des was fully appraised of their effectiveness.

“Neg.” He answered Danforth. “It is an arrangement of convenience, nothing more. Besides, are you not working with Inner Sphere mercenaries yourself? You know if we do not cooperate, we will die separately. Now get your people into the entrance!”

“Aff. We are complying.”

A group of Maxim hovercraft zoomed past his advancing mech on gusts of air, taking up fire support positions near the Alacorns. Meanwhile, the obsidian horde had recovered from the shock of the LRM salvo, and were advancing quickly to press the frontline. Des tried to ease the pressure by sending his unit forward at the strongest section of the enemy drive, where three Bruisers were advancing in step with five Smashers, one of them a twin gauss rifle equipped monstrosity.

It fired at Des as he approached within range, one gauss slug crushing armor plates on his left leg, the other just missing his left arm by inches. Des replied with a withering burst of laser and PPC fire, going internal on the Bruiser and inflicting some engine damage, but failed to put it down.

Yoshino was able to disable one Smasher with a lucky shot to its head, removing it’s sensors and rendering it blind. The mech stumbled around haphazardly, unable to determine the positions of the units around it.

Jean Posavatz closed in daringly in her Ryoken, drawing fire away from the retreating forces as the black mechs tried to hit her in vain. With her mech kept at its full running speed, she unleashed a burst of heavy autocannon and laser fire that cut down another of the advancing Bruisers.

The LRM lance tracked back slowly, hampered by the slow Viking. Des estimated another twenty seconds before they were able to break away under the protective umbrella of the Alacorns and Maxims.

He fired again at the gauss-equipped Bruiser, just as it fired its own magnetic accelerators at the same time. Des managed to puncture completely through the soft internal structure of the mech and destroy the mech’s engine, but not before it had put its nickel iron slugs into the Nova Cat’s torso, shattering almost two tons worth of valuable armor.

Two stars of Falcons limped into the entrance, as a steady stream of human vehicles and mechs continued to form up outside the door. To Des’ experienced eye, unless something disastrous occurred, the mission was almost accomplished, due in no small part to Lizabet Danforth’s superb reorganization on the fly.

The next exchange of weapons fire left three more Smashers in broken ruins, as Des concentrated on blunting the main thrust of the enemy advance. The other black mechs were being handled ably by the sporadic long range fire of some clan mechs that had wandered to the limits of their effective ranges, eager to claim some measure of glory in this debacle of a campaign.

It was a few more moments before the missile boats could break off and run for the entrance. The Alacorns begun to cut loose with their gauss rifles; the air was suddenly filled with the ‘whoosh’ sound of the ferromagnetic slugs as they were flung at the black mechs. The Maxims started to pour out LRM fire, littering the area with Thunder munitions.

The black mechs seemed to realize that their enemies were slipping away from them. They quickly picked up their pace, and before Des knew it, they were all charging hard at the entrance.

Unfazed, he waited for the Thunder mines to do their job on the mechs before firing at the legs of the black mechs. He was more than a bit surprised when some of the enemy mechs were suddenly bathed in hot plasma gel. Evidently, the Thunder rounds used were not just the plain vanilla flavor.

The increased heat levels proved fatal to many of the black mechs, as their ammunition stores cooked off under the intense temperatures caused by their own attacks and the Thunder inferno rounds.

The area around the entrance was shrouded in deep black smoke from the fires caused by the inferno rounds, while the burning carcasses of more black mechs were scattered on the ground. Most of the retreating battalion had already entered the tunnel, leaving only Descartin’s unit, the two lances of Alacorns, and nine Maxims.

He ordered the Maxims to start pulling back into the tunnel, while the Alacorns kept up their gauss barrage. He could see the enemy units trying to break through the heavy minefield cordon around the entrance, but the heavy firepower of the defending units was making that highly unlikely.

“This is Captain Jacqueline! My company is through!”

“Aff! Major Soros, get your Alacorns into the tunnel.” Descartin pushed his throttle all the way to the back, as he began a retrograde movement back into the doors. “Captain Jacqueline, continue your LRM barrage. All units, brace yourselves in case the enemy rushes the entrance!”

He need not have worried. The next twenty seconds passed by in relative ease as the Alacorns moved into the tunnel, as more LRMs streaked over their heads to plunge into the ground right in front of Des’ unit, which were only one hundred meters away from the entrance.

“Okay, let us go!” He informed Yoshino and Jean. The three mechs quickly turned and charged into the tunnel, as Des called out an order on the strategic frequency.

“This is Star Captain Winters, close the door!” He shouted just as his Nova Cat ran into the tunnel.

“Got it, sir,” The reply came quickly as the heavily armored door closed easily, leaving the frustrated black mechs just short of their objective.

 

Planck’s Quantum Hole, Copernicus Caldera,

Einstein, Deep Periphery

 

Frank stared hard at the holographic screen, as it showed the progress of the various message teams on the four continents.

It had been four hours since the first team went out, and more than half of the people outside had already been informed of their escape routes. The plan was proceeding much as they had hoped, and the alien AI was being habitually fooled by the movements and purposeful lures set up by the message teams.

There had been six scares so far, when a message team had almost been trapped by enveloping black mechs. They had managed to fight their way out in every instance, but only just. Frank was worried that their luck was going to run out sooner than later.

Des Winters and Kety had just succeeded in covering the retreats of the groups entering the doors. Added to the other two groups whose retreats had not been contested, the human beings in the base had more than doubled their strength.

Two more cargo bays had been opened up as repair bays. Supplies for repairs were going to be a problem though, and Frank hoped there would be sufficient mobile field bases and supply trucks amongst the incoming groups to reequip the mechs and vehicles.

He had asked Lorik about bringing the base’s own manufacturing facilities online to produce the desperately needed supplies, but the scientist had told him that they did not have the time nor personnel to prepare the production lines. Even the matter editation machines needed a template to follow, and Lorik was wary of using technology they barely understood.

That left only what they already had with them to repair the newcomers. And it wasn’t much. Their only source of clan weapons and clan quality ferro-fibrous armor, for example, was the Bleeding Past.

“They’re coming in, sir!” A commtech informed the command center. The ‘they’ were the four battalions of Falcons and mercenaries rescued.

“Come on, let’s go,” Frank said to Deserk, Ian and Daniela as they got up and went into a nearby teleporter.

They emerged into one of the many corridors in the huge base, where a few techs were fixing up hasty directional signs on makeshift placards. The faint shaking of the ground indicated the imminent arrival of the arriving forces.

Descartin Winters’ Nova Cat led them in, a bedraggled line of damaged mechs and smoking vehicles. There were a few bright points for Frank to take note of, however, not least of which was the presence of four MFBs that had survived the retreat. Two belonged to the clans, while the other two belonged to the mercs. He hoped that this would alleviate their supply situation.

Frank waited patiently as the mechs were directed to their parking lots in the repair bay. He could see that casualties were not as bad as feared, and that much of the technical support staff of the mercs and Falcons had survived. From some of the techs’ comments, many of the mercenaries taken as bondsmen by the Falcons had survived as well.

Descartin Winters was the first to get down from his mech, slipping down a ladder a tech had placed beside the Nova Cat. He quickly joined Frank, who was waiting by the side of a Mad Cat, which Daniela had identified as belonging to Galaxy Commander Lizabet Danforth.

It did not take long for a middle-aged woman to step out of the bullet-nosed cockpit and jump lightly to the ground. Her strong build and powerful aura of presence left Frank with no doubt that this was the Jade Falcon commander.

“Welcome, Galaxy Commander.” Frank knew better than to offer his hand in greeting. He just plastered a smile on his face, hoping that he didn’t look too stupid to the Jade Falcon officer. “I am Frank Meronac, temporarily in command of this base here. We have much to discuss.”

The woman didn’t speak. She looked around their group before recognizing Daniela Mattlov.

“Star Captain Mattlov, what is going on?”

Frank knew he should feel insulted, but he understood the need to see a friendly face. He stepped aside to let Daniela talk to her superior.

Mattlov explained the situation in short order, and as more mercenary commanders left their vehicles and mechs to gather around them, the newcomers got a piece of the story so far as well.

“So I was forced to ally with these freebirths for sheer survival. We made a plan to get as many warriors as possible into the safety of this base in preparation for our eventual counterattack. I am willing to serve surkai if you feel I have dishonored our clan in any way by my actions.” Daniela ended with a resolute grimace on her face, as though preparing to be punished.

Lizabet Danforth sighed, “Surkai? For what reason? You did what you thought was best, not just for your warriors but your clan as well. There is no shame, or dishonor in accepting aid in such circumstances. The only shame there is, is my willful negligence that has led us all to this state.”

“Excuse me, Galaxy Commander, but there was nothing you could have done.” Frank interjected. “Nobody had any idea what to expect, least of all you. Let’s forget about what could have, should have, and concentrate on getting out of this alive, huh?”

Danforth narrowed her eyes, “You are vulgar, but your words contain truth. What do you suggest?”

“Priority is to get our machines fixed up, and rearmed. Once we have enough strength to guard the naval guns, we’ll start our attack. But we need you to convince the Star Commodore to commit his warships, because we must have your warships in position to threaten the enemy ground troops, or else the enemy ship might just drift out of range and laugh at our naval cannons.”

“Very well then. I shall speak to Valten Folkner on this.”

A loud sound, followed by a vehement curse, suddenly drew their attention.

“You skugg!” Frank turned around to see a mechwarriors in a dirty cooling vest kicking a tech to the floor. The man had an unkempt look about him, and Frank swore he could see a bunch of flies around the man’s head. He noticed some of the other warriors were smiling, though he did not see the humor in the scene before them.

“What do you skugging mean?” He roared. “When you skugging said my skugging mech would be repaired skugging last?” The mechwarrior produced a small holdout in his right hand from his vest.

To Frank, the situation was no longer amusing, and had turned deadly. He stepped forward to stop the man, but he realized Ian Dorlacen had already grasped the man’s arm in a firm grip. How did he move so fast? Frank thought.

“Stop now,” Ian said in a tone that was tinged with anger, “let him go.”

“Skugg you!” The man replied as he drew out a knife with his left hand and slashed viciously at Ian with the blade.

Ian stepped in closer, and his other hand snaked out to block the hand with the knife. He brought his right knee up in the same instant, slamming it into the man’s gut. The man bent doubled over by the force of the blow. Ian did not hesitate as he disarmed the man of his weapons by twisting his wrists and exerting force on them. The man dropped the gun and the knife to the floor, and Ian finished up by shoving the man towards the main group of warriors. The man crumpled to the ground in front of them.

Ian spun around slowly, staring into the eyes of every mercenary and Falcon warrior in the room, who had stopped whatever they were doing to watch the fight. “I hope that everyone understands the importance of the situation. I don’t want any prima donnas thinking with their gonads instead of their heads.”

Ian stabbed a finger at his downed opponent, “I know many of you are out of work, down and out warriors just trying to seek a fortune, but this is no way to treat people who are only trying to help.” He pointed back at the tech, who was now standing unsteadily, supported by two of his co-workers.

“Frank,” Frank saw Ian speaking to him now, ”one thing you have to know is that not all the mercs on this journey are as honorable as Wolf Dragoons. They hang out in Temptown, or Galatea, taking up contracts that often amount to little more than piracy. I don’t blame them, but their attitudes will need a great deal of adjustment here. We all hang together, or we hang separately.” That last statement was directed to everyone.

Frank thought he understood, and nodded his head. Now that Ian had mentioned it, he did indeed see that many of the warriors in the merc units had no pride in their bearing. Their clothes were tattered, and many of the men had not shaved, while a lot of the women looked like cheap hookers in their uniforms, or more accurately, lack of such. They stood in stark contrast to the Falcons, whose uniforms still looked clean despite the battle.

He clapped his hands once. “People, we’re wasting time here! Get to work!”

The bay became a thronging mess of people rushing around as they got back to their tasks. Frank heard Descartin Winters calling it organized chaos.

The group of leaders Frank had already denoted in his mind as the ‘command team’ followed him to the command center.

 

“I think you have made a mistake.” Lizabet Danforth said as she reviewed the data.

“Huh?” Frank looked up, puzzled by her words.

“Your estimates of the forces required to hold and defend the surface-to-orbit cannons. You have made a mistake there. We can actually carry out our plan before bringing in all the available forces.”

“How so?” Frank asked.

“Your estimates of the forces required are in turn based on the enemy force strength. You failed to take into account enemy losses in the past few hours, as well as the enemy forces that might still be tied up chasing the other units around the planet. When all these are taken into account, we will only need about three more battalions or their equivalents to start our counteroffensive.”

Frank slapped his forehead. “Argh, you’re right! We’ve completely forgotten about possible enemy losses.”

“But having more units is always a good idea.” Ian countered.

“Not really.” Des said. “We are also working against time here. If we can destroy the enemy warship sooner, that also means that this conflict will also be over faster, and remove the threat of the planet killer over our heads.”

“We still need time to fix up our units.” Daniela reminded everyone.

Frank provided the timetable for the repairs. “Pascal tells me that with the extra manpower from the dropship crews, he will have a full regiment ready to go in two hours, and another in three. Many of the mechs won’t be fully fixed, but he assures me that they’ll be able to do the job. The revised estimates call for 10 battalions, one for each orbital cannon site, or at least the ones we’re using, instead of the 20 battalions we originally estimated. Factor in clan tech and the alien fighters Star Commander Galietra Binneti and the flyboys are working on, and we should have a good chance of victory in about six hours.”

Galietra Binneti had managed to dig up several flight simulators from a dropship, and had a tech download the specs for the new fighters in order for his pilots to get used to the new capabilities. In addition, several dropship pilots had also signed up for the aerospace mission, with even more Falcon pilots coming in after they had been shot out of their fighters during the space battle and rescued by forces on planet. Most surprising of all were the few former mercenary aerospace Falcon bondsmen allowed to participate in the battle. Gal had informed Daniela Mattlov that he was confident of getting all thirty advanced fighters into the air by the time they were ready to start their offensive.

“But we still need to bring in one more wave to get enough units.” Ian pointed out.

“Not really as big a problem as you might think. Some of the units that just came in were barely touched, and I think we can convince them to take over the welcoming committees for a while, along with Major Soros’ unit. Once the next wave comes in, in about two hours time, we let their warriors grab as much rest as they can while we fix up their machines. Then we have one final briefing to make sure everybody knows what to do before we move out.”

“I will need to speak to Valten Folkner.” Danforth reminded them.

They got her to a communications console, and Lizabet Danforth soon squared matters with the belligerent naval officer. Since she technically outranked him in strategic matters, he was forced to acquiesce to her orders.

But Valten Folkner was not above a few tricks of his own. He had asked for the location of the remaining jumpships belonging to Forsen Mandela. Forsen had protested, but was quickly overridden by the others. Valten intended to have every single possible advantage for his duel with the alien ship, and he had explained his willingness to use any possible means to achieve victory.

 

Too much time had passed for the machine intelligence. It had managed to get its sole warship almost fully operational, and it was prepared to start blasting with the ship’s orbital weapons at enemy troop concentrations whenever the opportunity presented itself.

However, that would have hurt its own forces as well in the collateral damage, and the flesh beings also moved too quickly for proper targeting if they were not being pressed by its own forces. In other words, the only way to destroy the enemy forces through orbital bombardment was to sacrifice its own forces, and it was not prepared to do that yet.

It had intercepted a series of transmission by the flesh beings to one another, but could only make sense out of the planetary maps which showed the positions of all the units on world, information it was able to obtain from its own sensors. The other set of transmissions were undecipherable to the still developing AI.

A fortunate circumstance for Humanity.

 

Kily Gonzalez blinked his weary eyes for the umpteenth time as he tried to focus on pushing the Wolfhound beyond the reach of the enemy mechs. Bryan, as usual, was bravely holding the rear, giving the rest of his lance time to disengage.

Without the Dragoon’s indefatigable will, Kily was sure they would never have managed to survive this long. They had traveled more than 400 kilometers for the seven hours since the mission started, and Kily felt bone tired.

They had better be moving out soon. I can’t keep this up much longer.

 

“Sir, wake up.” Frank felt something shaking him by the shoulder, as he frolicked in the blue waters of the beach. “Rise and shine, sir.”

He tried to brush off the intruding jellyfish on his shoulder, lost in his sweet dreams of swimming naked in the beaches of his homeworld Lackland together with Clarice, his fiancée.

The tech lost patience. “Sir!” That got him awake, as Frank sat up with a start. “The next wave has been in for a while now, and Major Ian and Galaxy Commander Danforth are calling for the final briefing for all personnel.”

Frank stared up blearily at the tech, before realizing belatedly that he had fallen asleep at his console in the command center, while trying to predict the possible moves of the enemy AI. “Okay. Tell them I’ll be along in a while.”

He tried to center himself, while looking around for a mug of coffee to perk himself up. He had a strong feeling that whatever happened today would determine humanity’s fate forever. He hoped he was up to whatever might be demanded of him.