Battletech lethal lesson.., p.1
BattleTech: Lethal Lessons, page 1
BATTLETECH: LETHAL LESSONS
A BATTLETECH NOVELLA
DANIEL ISBERNER
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Notable BattleMechs
Battletech Glossary
BattleTech Eras
The BattleTech Fiction Series
CHAPTER
ONE
FUSIGON TESTING GROUNDS
CAMPBELTON
WOLF EMPIRE
24 MAY 3151
Inside the cockpit of the unfamiliar BattleMech, Star Captain Jacinda fired both of the new Clan-spec extended-range particle projection cannons at a testing-range target. She could almost feel the energy surging through the control sticks as she squeezed the trigger. But she also noticed the left-arm PPC had fired a split second late.
They told me they fixed the software bugs.
A wall of waste heat washed over her before the heat sinks could dissipate it. Once a blue light indicated the PPC capacitors were fully charged, she fired again. This time, one of the PPCs did not fire at all. Instead, its status went red on her screen. Anger raged inside her, and she kicked out with her regrown right leg, which was cramped from the regeneration tube around it that she had nonetheless squeezed into the already tight space.
They told me they fixed those stravag bugs!
This time she punched her controls hard enough for her tawny knuckles to whiten for a moment—the pain still far less severe than when she had kicked out just moments before—and was rewarded with the PPC coming back up green—and firing by itself.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!
As if to show her that no, the ’Mech was not kidding her, the entire targeting system went offline altogether. Jacinda just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the dark displays, forcing herself not to move, fearing even the tiniest twitch of her muscles would end in her trashing the whole cockpit. Maybe even set off some strange kind of self-destruct that would rob her of a chance to punish those responsible for this incompetence.
While waiting for some kind of response, she scanned the cockpit’s interior and discovered a faded name edged right above the weapons screens: the lich. She remembered reading about this particular ’Mech back when she studied different fighting styles, in one of her sibko lessons about what even a mediocre MechWarrior could achieve if given the right technology. Of course, that had not prevented Francis Indigo from dying from neurofeedback when his PPC capacitors exploded—an end she was desperately trying to avoid.
And all these software bugs made such a fate far more likely than she cared for.
Jacinda had seen these same bugs last week, and the week before that—bugs Fusigon’s own test pilots had never mentioned in their reports. After a training accident where one of the PPCs had fired at full output despite the energy level being dialed down, she had had the test pilots taken into custody so law enforcement could determine if they were traitors or just incompetent. She had also decided to personally test the weapons, just to be certain.
At least the bugs were less numerous this time, but she had expected to find none, especially since Fusigon had Clan Wolf technicians on the premises to help upgrade their facilities. She made a mental note to run a full inspection of the facilities to find out just how severe these problems really were. And who was responsible.
Jacinda would also continue to test their machines with live-fire exercises. If nothing else, sitting behind the controls of a BattleMech and firing its weapons—erratic though they were—kept her frustration down.
Frustration about being stuck on this rock instead of being on Terra and fighting with the Red Keshik and Khan Alaric Ward to vie for the title of ilClan, the Clan above all Clans.
Frustration about her leg that had been crushed during an engagement—a pirate raid, no less—and had to be regrown, keeping her in the hospital when the rest of her Clan departed toward the cradle of humankind.
Frustration about not being able to commandeer a JumpShip and go to Terra, because she would just die trying to jump through the Wall without knowing the key to bypass it.
When The Lich’s firing controls came finally back online, she glanced at the clock and sighed. Punishment would have to wait.
She turned the ’Mech around and headed to her next appointment for the day.
I really hope that one goes better.
MASUMO HILLS
Jacinda climbed down the ladder of her ’Mech. Or what could be called climbing with a mostly regrown right leg. The limb was still encased in the regeneration tube, which meant she could not put any appreciable weight on it. As a result, she hopped down the ladder one rung at a time, the crutch on her back fastened by a leather belt.
When she reached the ground and looked up at her ’Mech, she once again had to shake her head. The Lich was a FrankenMech, an abomination cobbled together from pieces of different machines, but it had somehow survived for almost eighty years. A Warhammer torso, Marauder arms, and Nova Cat legs…
Fusigon’s engineers had assured her this ’Mech would serve just as well as any other, but she had not believed them, and her test had proven her reservations. The readouts had showed the PPCs firing with the power she was used to, but the bugs in the software persisted. Though she had to admit, that most likely had nothing to do with the ’Mech itself.
When she finally turned around, she saw Kang-hee, her old sibko instructor, approaching her. He looked quite different now, his hair completely gone, a scar running from his nonexistent hairline and down across his nose until it disappeared into the wrinkles on his neck. Memories of all his punishments whenever she failed during her sibko training came crashing down on her, and for a split second, she put weight on her regrown leg. The pain brought her right back to reality but also almost made her fall.
She unfastened her crutch from its strap and waited for Kang-hee to reach her, but his eyes said he had noticed her reaction to seeing him. She hid her embarrassment and smiled, and finally greeted him when he was close enough that she did not need to raise her voice.,
“Pack Leader.” She nodded. “How are the pups doing?”
“Greetings, Star Captain Jacinda,” Kang-hee said. “I heard you were touring the sibkos, and I was awaiting your arrival. I was wondering why you had not yet visited us. If you had at least scheduled your inspection, I could have prepared the pups to greet you with the honors our ranking commander deserves.”
Jacinda was well aware he had not actually answered her question—but she said nothing. She was also aware of him dragging his left leg, if only slightly. His own regrown leg had not grafted as well as it should have.
“The sibko is doing well,” he finally answered. “We are in the middle of preparations for a training exercise. It should be starting any moment now. Would you like to observe?”
Of course she would. He knew that, just as she knew he had known she was coming, despite her giving him no prior notice. Kang-hee was many things, but he was neither stupid nor lazy. When a ’Mech came close to his sibko, he knew. He would also have checked which ’Mech it was and who piloted it. It would have been easy for him to figure out who was behind the controls of the FrankenMech monstrosity she had arrived in.
He prepared this training exercise to throw me off guard.
She followed him up a hill and over to a ridge overlooking what she assumed would be the venue for the training exercise. She remembered it from her own sibko training: a swamp in the north bordering a forest in the south, with a river cutting the forest in half from east to west and in a circle toward the swamp.
She remembered from her study of the planet’s topology that the river was deep enough to hide ’Mechs, but big boulders in the bed made traversing it nigh impossible without having to occasionally reveal the upper half of your ’Mech to the enemy. If Kang-hee followed the same training pattern he had used for her sibko, he would have a Star of five ’Mechs coming up from the swamp and another Star from the opposite side, through the forest. This would slow down both Stars, but also give them time to arrange their force however they wanted. The question was, would the cadets acting as Star Commanders for each side realize that, or try to rush ahead?
Both Stars entered the area at the same time. The force entering through the swamp set up an orderly battle line and advanced slowly, each ’Mech testing their footing and getting a feel for the land. Jacinda knew Kang-hee had ensured the cadets had never been in this area before, so this exercise was their first time here. The force in the forest, on the other hand, was not so cautious in the unfamiliar terrain. The commander of this Star had clearly ordered their cadets to rush ahead.
“You put an idiot in charge of the forces in the forest,” Jacinda said.
“Aff.” Kang-hee’s gaze seemed to penetrate right through her. “I always do.”
She forced herself to ignore that remark. Barely.
She had been in command of the forest forces during her sibko time, but she had been no idiot. I would have won, had my sibkin followed my commands.
She realized she was playing with her curly dark-brown hair, and forced herself to stop before Kang-hee could spot the nervous gesture. “Do you have a headset for me, so I can listen into their command frequency?”
He handed her an earbud, a knowing smile on his face, and she put it in.
—crazy.” A feminine voice.
“Shut up, Blue Five,” replied a masculine voice, clearly trying to sound in charge.
The ’Mechs in the forest kept charging forward, crushing trees and scattering the panicked local wildlife; a constant stream of birds taking flight betraying their position. The swamp forces, on the other hand, advanced more slowly, but in an orderly line, without giving away their location.
Her gaze moved back to the forces in the forest. Something was up. What was it? What had caught her eye…? The animals were still running for their lives, the ’Mechs were still advancing… no. They were not. At least not all of them. An Adder and a Jenner IIC had slowed down and were submerging themselves in the river.
“Blue Four, Blue Five! Get back in line.”
No answer came.
Jacinda turned toward Kang-hee. “They are ignoring orders?”
“So it seems.”
“Did Blues Four and Five communicate on a private comm channel?”
“Neg. I had all private channels deactivated before the start of the exercise. All they have is an open channel, their respective Star’s channel, and my direct command channel. Our headsets are patched into all four.”
“Laser communication?”
“Not in that forest, and even then, also deactivated.”
“You never did that when I was in your sibko.” She looked at him. “This is not the first time those two cadets are doing that, quiaff? You are testing them.”
“Aff.”
Despite being two ’Mechs short now, the forest Star kept advancing.
Jacinda shook her head but kept watching. The moment the three remaining ’Mechs, two Crossbows and a Lobo, left the forest, they were greeted with a salvo of lasers and autocannon shells from the forces in the swamp. Armor shredded under the fusillade, and one of the Crossbows lost an arm. The forest commander started to give an order, but their Crossbow crashed to the ground, its center torso completely blown out.
That was when the feminine voice cut in. “Blue Star, pull back into the forest and head toward the river.”
The cadets all did as they were told, losing a bit more armor in the process, but they stayed in the fight. Jacinda surveyed the forces in the swamp. They had lost armor, but not much more. All their ’Mechs were light or medium, though, so the armor loss cost them more than it would on their opponents.
Their commander is not stupid, though.
She corrected that assessment a second later, when their commander ordered the Star to race after their retreating opponents. On command, four of the five ’Mechs engaged their jump jets and soared toward the forest forces.
They landed on hard ground the moment the forest forces reached the river.
Exquisite timing.
Both sides exchanged fire, and then the Adder and a Jenner IIC emerged from the river. Advanced tactical missiles, micro pulse lasers, and short-range missiles tore into the surprised opponents. Each one picked a single target and blasted it to shreds.
A Shadow Hawk IIC 10 crashed to the ground, its legs snaped off. An ancient Wyvern IIC 2 suffered a similar fate, its cockpit hit by multiple SRMs, the pilot probably unconscious. From there on, the result of the fight was clear as rain.
SIBKO FACILITY ALPHA
After parking her Adder in its maintenance cubicle, Cadet Miranda climbed down the access ladder leading out of her cockpit. Once on the ground, she and pressed her cooling vest into the hands of Ramas, the technician sitting on the Adder’s right foot, a noteputer in his hands.
Ramas did not look happy. “What did you do to my ’Mech?”
“I took a swim,” Miranda replied. “Then I had people shoot at me just to annoy you.” She smiled the innocent smile of seventeen-year-old girl who was trying to fool someone, even playing with her long red hair.
Ramas was no idiot, though. He was annoying and had gotten into trouble before by giving sibko cadets lip, but he was no idiot. He was not the most competent, but the most direct technician assigned to their sibko, which was why she liked him.
Out of respect, she put the fake smile away and turned serious. “What is your assessment?”
Ramas looked at his noteputer screen for a few more seconds before answering. “You flooded a few compartments—not due to damage, but because the tech assigned to this baby after the last battle didn’t do their job right.” He turned his screen around so she could see it. “The actual damage isn’t as heavy as it could’ve been, given the number of shots clearly fired at you. Did you try to spread it out, or was it dumb luck?”
Is he even aware most cadets would punch him straight in the face for that remark? “A little bit of both,” she said. “You will make sure the armor plates are sealed properly this time?”
“I’ll double-check.”
“Thank you. And one piece of advice: watch the lip. It will help keep yours intact.”
Then she turned and went to Kang-hee, who had ordered her to see him after the exercise. She looked over at Darwin, who had climbed down his Jenner IIC’s ladder and was catching up to her. The sides of his head were shaved clean, and his long black hair was tied into a knot between his shoulder blades. His muscled arms shone from all the sweat. While she tried to dry herself before she left her ’Mech, Darwin never did. He had blown two leg actuators in the exercise, so his ’Mech had been slower to return than hers. He caught up with her just as she stepped into Kang-hee’s office.
“What was that?” the pack leader’s voice thundered before they had fully entered the office.
“We won,” Miranda replied.
“You ignored clear orders.”
“They were bad orders.”
“That is not up to you to deci—”
“Enough!” a voice cut in, and a tawny-skinned woman in a MechWarrior uniform and with a Star Captain insignia on her lapel stepped into view. “What would have happened had you followed orders?”
Is this Star Captain Jacinda? She looks old! Not as old as Kang-hee, but old. And she has no Bloodname…
“We would have lost the exercise,” Darwin answered, helping to hide that Miranda’s thoughts had been elsewhere. “Although we had superior armor and firepower, charging out of the woods without knowledge of our opponents’ whereabouts would have yielded the exact same result had we been there. Worse, they would have focused their fire on us. We would have lost two ’Mechs in the initial engagement, not just one. Knowing Deren, he would have ordered our Star to advance into the swamp, enabling the other side to jump over what was left of us and punch right through their back armor.”
Star Captain Jacinda turned to Miranda. “Your reasoning?”
“I came to the same conclusion.”
“Did you two talk to each other?”
“Neg.”
“Before you went into the engagement, did you plan to leave your Starmates behind?”
“Neg, we did not. We did not know the topology of the engagement zone, aside from ‘swamp and forest,’ as Pack Leader Kang-hee put it. It was only when our scans showed the river being deep enough to mask our approach that we decided to act.”
“And you came to the same decision without talking to each other?”
“Aff, Star Captain,” Miranda and Darwin answered in unison.
“Very good.” Jacinda nodded. “Bad orders will get you killed. Your tactical analysis was accurate. Dismissed!”
Miranda did not dare to say another word until after she and Darwin had left the room.
“That was Star Captain Jacinda, quiaff?”
“Aff,” Darwin said.
“Back to single-syllable words, now that you no longer have to impress the Star Captain?”
“Precisely.”
“That was not a single-syllable word.”
“Aff.”
The two were still laughing when they entered the barracks and found a fuming Deren waiting for them. “You two.” He pointed a threatening finger at them. “You nearly got me killed out there.”
“Neg,” Darwin said, though Miranda knew the surprise in his voice was fake.
